Leaders Look Ahead

The warning sign said that the right lane would end in a half mile. That was followed by 2 more warning signs. And yet the driver in that lane waited until the last minute to make a change. Why didn’t he look ahead and act sooner? I’ve been frustrated by similar incidents several times recently, and I don’t have an answer to the question. But I think church and ministry leaders can suffer from the same kind of short-sightedness. They “drive” along taking care of daily responsibilities, and suddenly realize something big is looming and they’re not prepared for it. Those “big somethings” tend to fall into 2 categories. The first are well-known events – Advent, Holy Week, annual budget planning, the start of a new ministry year. There are no surprises in this category. You can put them on your calendar in 2025. And yet, leaders are often under-prepared when these seasons begin. The biggest culprit seems to be Scarlett O’Hara syndrome – “I’ll think about it tomorrow.” You know you need to do the advance work, but since it isn’t urgent today, you put it off until it becomes urgent, and the quality of the final product suffers as a result. The second category cannot be calendared years in advance but can be anticipated. If you’re making a major directional shift in your church or ministry, you can anticipate that extra time will be required to build consensus among key leaders, work out the details of the plan, communicate with constituents, and deal with resistance. When a leader doesn’t allow time to think through these issues and address them, unnecessary problems are sure to follow. The larger the organization, the more important it is for leaders to look ahead. If the driver that I encountered had been leading a caravan of several other vehicles, the consequences would have been much worse. The same is true for the people who are taking their cues from you. I am not suggesting that every leadership challenge is the result of not looking ahead. But just like the driver that I encountered, I suspect you know when you’ve overlooked the warning signs that could have kept you out of trouble. It’s easy to receive my blogs by email. Just sign-up on Feedburner by clicking here.]]>