De-Adulting: From Control to Trust

This is the third blog in a series on how leaders can become more effective by “de-adulting.” If “adulting” is the process of a young adult learning to take care of himself, then that it’s easy to see how “being responsible” can quickly lead to “being in control.” Some people learned this lesson long before they were adults when teammates let them down on group projects. Some may have discovered later in life that they couldn’t count on friends or colleagues. Regardless of the specifics, one frequent lesson of adulting is that we need to take charge rather than trusting others. So how is that working for you as a leader? If you insist on being involved in everything that your church or ministry does, let me make a few predictions: people who work for you are frustrated with your leadership style, staff turnover is higher than you’d like, you never have time for big picture thinking because urgent matters keep popping up, the organization seems to be falling short of its potential, and you’re exhausted. Does some (or most) of this ring true? One of the vexing realities of leadership is that the skills and practices that helped us succeed today successes are often not what we need tomorrow. A pastor’s ability to connect one-on-one with people leads to high commitment when the church is small, but this can be a limiting factor as the church grows. In the same way, an ability to achieve excellence through a hands-on leadership style can quickly become a bottleneck. The de-adulting shift is to move from tight-fisted control to open-handed trust. It means becoming like the child who trusts others implicitly, not worrying about what might happen if they “fail.” For leaders, it means inviting others to share in leadership. It means allowing them to do it differently than you would and to make mistakes. You don’t have to like mistakes, but you do need to realize that this is a necessary part of expanding the leadership circle so that your organization can grow. Jesus demonstrated an incredible willingness to trust others with the most important mission on earth. He sent the disciples out by twos to preach the good news and to heal the sick (Matthew 9 and 10). He instructed, “Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers” (Matthew 10:2), but he didn’t ask for his own time or reach to be multiplied. And at the end of his life, when it seemed clear that his closest followers weren’t ready to step up, he simply prayed for God’s will to be done in his life (and death and resurrection). How might this example of trust apply to your leadership? It’s easy to receive my blogs by email. Just sign-up on Feedburner by clicking here.]]>