by Dr. Richard Blackaby
Leaders often underestimate the value of sustained, determined, annual, personal growth. Just as compound interest can seem inconsequential to teenagers who establish their first savings account, so leaders immersed in the frenetic business of leading can often feel that minimal value can be gained from reading a book or establishing a personal discipline. With so many appointments to keep, fires to douse, reports to write, and personnel to supervise, who has time to read a book or reflect on their current leadership?
In the red hot glare of the daily leadership grind, the call to better ourselves personally can seem as trite, clichéd, and impossible as urging busy executives to take time for a nap every afternoon so they guard their health. Nice idea but entirely impractical.
There is a fundamental danger, however, for those who fail to take time to hone their skills. Every leader is gradually becoming obsolete. Time is passing. New and increasingly complex problems are emerging. Technology development is accelerating. To remain where you are is to fall behind. Furthermore, there is an increasing number of young, talented, confident leaders rising up the ranks eager for an opportunity to lead. To become a stagnant leader today is to become a displaced leader tomorrow.
I served as a seminary president for 13 years. Periodically I would attend training sessions specifically designed for seminary presidents. In one meeting we were informed that seminaries were changing at an accelerated rate. Every five years, the school that called us to our position no longer existed. We may have been qualified to lead our institution five years ago, but if we had not grown as leaders during that period, we might well be out of date today. Not surprisingly, there were very few presidents at those meetings who had served for over ten years.
I believe this is true in every leadership endeavor in our modern age. Let me give you some examples:
Parenting
The family is one of the most ancient institutions in human history. Certainly there are family dynamics that have changed little over the millennia. But some things have. It used to be that conscientious parents warned their children about hanging out with the wrong kind of friends and avoiding looking at pornography in magazines or late night television. Parenting is far more complex now. Children have smart phones upon which total strangers can “sext” them and entangle them as predators. The Internet provides countless opportunities to be inundated with pornography even if the child is not searching for it. Modern education is increasingly pushing secular and even atheistic viewpoints and morals. The media bombards children with images, messages, and music that contradict and challenge the values being taught at home. For parents to assume that parenting is the same as it has always been is to grossly misunderstand today’s issues. There is much that modern parents must learn if they are to safeguard their children from the multiplicity of issues assaulting their children.
Likewise, some parents start off well, but then grow complacent. When parents have their first child, they are fervently reading parenting books and magazines on nutrition. They may be zealous parents of preschoolers. But along the way, they may become comfortable with their parenting style. Everything seems to be going along nicely. Then they have teenagers. Suddenly it seems as if they have complete strangers residing under their roof. Shouting matches and broken curfews ensue. The parents wonder what happened to their cherubic preschoolers. The answer is: they grew up. But the parents didn’t. Now they are finding that preschool parenting techniques don’t work on teenagers. The parents allowed their leadership skills to get out of date and now they are suffering the consequences.
Pastoring
A young man entered the ministry years ago because he loved people and believed God wanted him to spend his life teaching God’s word. In the early days of his ministry, everything went well enough. He bought some commentary sets and even did some studies on certain Greek texts. While never a gifted orator, his people appreciated his friendly demeanor and steady leadership. But twenty years have passed. When the pastor uses an illustration in his sermons today, his people instantly check its veracity with their smart phones. Over the years the pastor developed a preaching style he was comfortable with. But now his people complain it is dull and predictable. Many of his congregants watch celebrated preachers each week on TV or the Internet. They are bedazzled by the cutting edge use of power points, video clips, and drama. It becomes increasingly clear that their pastor is a generation or two behind in modern preaching techniques. Members begin to suggest that their pastor needs to either find a different church or perhaps move to a different pastoral role, such as minister to senior adults.
Furthermore, there are numerous administrative issues engulfing the church that seem beyond the pastor’s competency. Legal issues, technological issues, staffing issues, and financial issues are never properly or decisively dealt with. Being a pastor seems far more complicated than it used to be. The pastor longs to simply preach God’s word each week to appreciative congregants, but that prospect seems increasingly unlikely.
In each of these cases, well-meaning people lacked the motivation or sense of urgency to continually grow. As a result, their skills and leadership contribution became marginalized. The land is littered with broken families and declining, disbanded churches that testify to leadership that became inadequate.
What might these leaders have done? They could have grown. Growth is a process. It is a mindset. Rarely do leaders transform overnight. Typically it takes time, through systematic, intentional, continual growth.
These leaders did not have to end up in this predicament! Take the parents, for example. They might have continued reading at least one parenting book per year in order to be continually gaining fresh insights. They might have attended a parenting seminar at least once every other year. They might have intentionally invited successful parents over for dinner and picked their brain for parental wisdom. The parents might have periodically evaluated the health of each of their children. They might have discussed any adjustments they needed to make as parents or any concerns that were looming. There was no reason for these parents to be caught unprepared.
Likewise the pastor need not have become stale in his work. He should have regularly been reading books on leadership and preaching so he could be aware of new issues and developments in his field. He could have attended at least one professional conference each year that stretched his thinking and provided new insights into his profession. He could have set personal goals for himself such as occasionally attempting a new sermon style, just to stay fresh. He could work on his storytelling if he was not particularly skilled in that area. He might take a sabbatical leave and enroll in a preaching class, just to stay fresh. Instead, the pastor kept cranking out the same type of ministry and then felt hurt when his people no longer appreciated what he was serving them.
Just because we have been doing something for a long time doesn’t mean we are good at it! At least, not any more! I knew a pastor who had served for many years. Yet he had never disciplined himself to be a good preacher. He was often unprepared. He used stale, worn illustrations. He rarely did serious research. He always used the same format for every sermon. Yet he was devastated when his church leaders informed him that he must take a preaching class at seminary if he was to continue in their employ. The pastor was bewildered. After all, he had been preaching for 25 years! The problem was that his preaching had hardly improved over those years, and it hadn’t been very good to start with!
The key is to have a determination to regularly grow. Always have a book you are reading (and make sure the books are not all the same by the same author). Intentionally change things up. Try new styles, even if you don’t use them all the time. Attend conferences. Hire a leadership coach. Conduct a 360 evaluation on yourself. Heed the concerns, especially of your most influential leaders. Undergo the painful process of listening to a CD of your speaking. Don’t take it personally when people don’t appreciate your leadership. Perhaps they have good reasons not to!
Set goals for yourself. If you are a pastor, determine to try at least four sermons throughout the year that are not your preferred style. Determine to read a book a month that stretches your leadership thinking. Schedule an appointment with a leadership coach who will help you evaluate your current effectiveness. Have the courage to grow, no matter how painful it might be.
And whatever you do, don’t decide that you are too busy to grow. Instead, ask yourself, “Am I too busy to do what it takes to remain relevant?”