Taking the Hill with Grandma
Over the past weeks, we’ve been digging into Tod Bolsinger’s book “Canoeing the Mountains”. Tod ends the book with an insightful epilogue that is great for all of us to absorb as leaders.
No leader has the luxury of leading “a single focused call”. Despite what we value or feel is most important, every leader, whether you lead your family, a business, a church, or heck - even a baseball team - is faced with leading different people. They will NEVER all be wired the same as we are. There will always be different personalities, different values, different strategies and different opinions. ALWAYS.
This creates a pretty complex challenge for the leader. How do you bring everyone together to one mission? How do you get all members of your group, family, team on the same page seeing eye to eye? What if they are so different in age, profession, status, etc. that their perspectives (and opinions) are WIDE? The answer? One word… RELATIONSHIP. Ed Friedman uses an example from physics by relating groups to planets. The gravitational pull of one planet affects those others in its vicinity with its pull. “Once the emotional field (gravity) comes into existence through forming a relationship, the gravitational pull of the relationship is more powerful than that of each planet itself. In the same way, relationships are more powerful than any one person in the system.”
In short, a leader needs to be professional and personal. We need to value the “Corps” that we have around us - hear every voice at the table. They are a resource. Even those who have not been where we are headed can carry wisdom and inspiration.
Consider Thomas Jefferson, who was the instigator of the Lewis and Clark expedition as a whole. Jefferson never traveled over 50 miles past the Shenandoah Valley himself, yet inspired the Corps of Discovery and their mission. He served as a model - a vision caster. He was a senior citizen who inspired athis huge change in history. Bolsinger writes “We can and must inspire the next generation to go where we have not. We can create the kinds of communities and organizations that encourage risk, humility, learning and experimentation. We can read, study, encourage and embolden emerging leaders by offering them prayers, support and opportunity. We can remind them that maps change, that mental models are always incomplete, that the leaders of the future are the learners, not the experts, of today. We can call them to experiment, and we can create the conditions for a church that is always, always, always focused on continually being transformed into the very likeness of Jesus. And - if nothing else - we can sound the call the the Lewises, Clarks and Sacagaweas of the church, who will be the true adventurers for the mission of God in a rapidly changing world.”
The value of recognizing the worth of our relationships with people of all ages, stages, professions and status is undeniable. A leader builds those relationships so that our capacity to understand and lead effectively is strengthened. Does leading still take courage and sometimes frustrate even those we have relationships with? Absolutely. The goal is, however, to accomplish the mission in front of you WITH your “Corps”. The relationships that you build can create the gravitational pull that can bring the planets of your “Corps” into orbit around that mission.
Oh, and Pluto is ALWAYS a planet!