Two Secrets of Good Leadership: Learning to Live with Other People's Pain and with Your Own Mistakes
Two Keys to Good Leadership
Thesis: You can’t be a good leader until you get comfortable with other people’s pain and with your own mistakes.
Learning to Live with Other People’s Pain
I know about a church that developed some bad habits over the years. They had worked with a paradigm of ministry in which the minister was responsible for virtually everything. If a light bulb burned out in the exit sign, they dropped a note to the minister. When the lady who was supposed to bring the grape jello to Vacation Bible School forgot, everything stopped while they called the minister to let him know. When the garbage cans didn’t get put back, somebody would leave a message on the answering machine to apprise the minister of this crucial oversight.
And, as if by magic, new light bulbs and purple jello would appear. The garbage cans mysteriously found their homes. The minister made sure complaints were addressed and problems were solved. He did most of it himself.
The arrangement suited everybody—the minister had a compelling need to feel needed, and the congregation had a capacious reservoir of need. Everybody wins![1]
Except when the minister left, the arrangement was no longer viable. Now there was a congregation trained to be needy, but no longer anyone to meet those needs. How do you handle a situation like that?
What will the next minister have to do if she doesn’t want to continue to this co-dependent relationship?
She’s going to have to develop an extraordinarily high tolerance for pain.