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The Root of Leadership
How to fain, and maintain, your people's trust.
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Recently, my wife, Gail, and I had a chance to visit Yosemite National Park in California. We brought home pictures of us standing at the foot of some of those 3,000-year-old trees that rise a zillion feet into the air. Think of it: 3,000 years to grow a tree. And think again: given modern machinery, the same tree can be (perish the thought!) cut down in just a few minutes. Those trees prompted a thought about pastoral leadership and the issue of Trust—the kind of trust pastoral leaders desperately need from their people but sometimes do not possess. No biblical leader that I can think of struggled with trust issues more than Moses. Leading a generation of people out of 400 years of slavery must have been like herding cats. Every time the man turned around, someone was questioning his judgment, his veracity, his sense of direction. You could argue that they finally broke him with their patterns of suspicion and defiance. The apostle Paul cashed in on trust when he asked people to give him money to aid in the relief of suffering Christians in Jerusalem. He must have leaned on the trust factor when he convinced Timothy's family to release him to mentorship. Trust was in play when Paul gave strict orders to the Corinthians to discipline a known sinner. And—trust again—when he convinced them to take the man, now repentant, back. Trust won the day with Philemon, who was asked to receive a runaway slave back into his home—no longer as a slave but as a brother. No doubt about it: Paul's word in most places was like gold. Trust backed that currency. I learned quickly in my youngest pastoral years that people would follow only so far if I traded exclusively on my natural gifts: words that came easily, personal charm, new ideas and dreams. I was tempted to think that just because I had a seminary degree, because I was ordained, and because I was more knowledgeable about biblical ideas, people should have unlimited faith in me. That stuff works well for a while, but in crunch time deeper questions begin to emerge. Did I have integrity and wisdom, or was it all froth? Was I reliable? Could I take people into unknown territory spiritually? organizationally? Charm and charisma are like a glider; they fly, but not indefinitely. And they don't do well in turbulent times. Crunch time might come when a leader asks people to come up with a staggering amount of money for a building, a staff addition, a project of generosity that benefits the poor. Crunch time might come when people are asked to abandon an old program and embrace something entirely new. Or crunch time might happen when a pastor has to confront the congregation with a blind spot or hardened spirit about something that requires repentance and new direction. A young pastor goes off to an innovative church seminar, comes home with a head of excitement about new ideas, and, overnight, seeks to change just about everything. Soon after that the congregation goes on strike. The pastor learns the hard way that good ideas and promising strategies are not enough. They can't make it without trust. |             |
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