If you want to be a college campus tour guide, you need to be able to walk backwards while carrying on a conversation. That’s a good skill for leaders as well.

Most leaders, by temperament and responsibility, are forward looking. They aren’t focused on the past, and often barely think about the present. They spend much of their time casting a vision that looks ahead to the future. This is good – up to a point.

What would happen if the college tour guide never looked back? Some of the prospective students would probably wander away from the tour and get lost. Others would stay with the tour, but would have trouble hearing what the guide was saying. The great thing about campus tour guides is that even while looking back and keeping the group together, they’re moving forward.

Pastors and ministry leaders face similar challenges. It’s only by looking back that you can gauge whether people are actually following. When you do so, you may find that they’re right with you. But you may discover that they’re confused about where you’re going or exhausted because of the pace that you’re trying to keep. Some may have inadvertently wandered away and started doing their own thing. None of these are hopeless situations, but they do call for appropriate leadership responses. 

Imagine a pastor who has been emphasizing discipleship, specifically championing the philosophy that spiritual formation happens best in “circles, not rows.” Wouldn’t it make sense to see if individual group leaders understood and embraced this philosophy? You have to spend time “looking back” to develop a meaningful assessment. 

I’m not suggesting that we can ever achieve 100% buy-in around a vision, or that this kind of looking back will guarantee that no one wanders away. But we should look both ways enough to get whatever group we’re leading to the desired destination. 

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