Church Leadership Landmines
By Dr. John C. Maxwell
Catalyst Conference

 

It happens all the time.

 

Successful church leaders—pastors with great aptitude, great teams and great vision—are moving along, growing their churches when, all of a sudden, they fall flat on their faces.

 

Their churches start hemorrhaging. Their best people start jumping ship. Their families start falling apart.

 

And they sit in their offices with their heads in their hands wondering, "How did this happen?"

 

I'll tell you how it happened. They were blown up by a problem they never saw coming.

 

I call these problems "leadership landmines" because unless you're consciously looking for them, they're nearly impossible to spot. They're buried in the grind of daily life, quietly waiting to injure and perhaps even destroy the next unsuspecting pastor who steps on them.

 

Before I go on, I need to tell you that what I'm writing is based on personal experience. At one time or another in my life, I've stepped on landmines like the ones I'm about to describe. In some cases, I even have the scars to prove it.

 

If you're moving and active, you're bound to have a painful encounter with a landmine every now and then.  It's just the nature of leadership. But there are certain landmines that will absolutely wipe you out if you're not careful, and those are the ones that really deserve our attention.

 

A friend once told me, "If I could kick the person most responsible for most of my problems, I would not be able to sit down for a week."  From my own life and the lives of the church leaders I've observed over the years, I have found that to be absolutely right. Most leaders I watch don't need to worry about others beating them. Instead, they need to be concerned about doing something stupid in the race and disqualifying themselves.

 

Consider some of today's most popular leadership topics: Decision-Making. Trust. Growth. Influence.  Ego. On some level, all of these issues involve potential leadership landmines. For example, spending too much time basking in today's success without looking toward the future will sabotage your leadership. So will failing to make tough calls, advancing your church but not personal growth, and betraying the trust of your members.

 

You may never have thought of some of these things as being that bad, but believe me, they are. And none of them are caused by other people. If these problems affect your life, the blame lies squarely on your shoulders. So if you want to maintain your integrity as a leader, it's critical that you recognize them as leadership landmines and take steps to avoid them.

 

Another deadly landmine that many leaders step on is the propensity to lose touch with the people they're leading. When leaders become isolated—due to success, failure or even extreme busyness—they become ineffective.

 

It's the natural human response to withdraw during such times, but if you want to avoid this landmine, you can't do that. Get down off the mountain. Walk slowly through the crowd. Listen to those you lead and actually hear what they're saying. Sense what they're feeling. Hang out with them.

 

Taking these actions will definitely enable you stay in touch with your people. The following steps also will help.

 

1. Value people.

 

They're the only appreciable assets that you have, so don't go around thinking that they're replaceable or not necessary. You can't accomplish your mission without other people.

 

2. Avoid positional thinking.

 

Leadership has nothing to do with your position or title; it has everything to do with your influence. If you want to keep from losing touch with your people, you have to adopt the mindset that the folks around you work with you, not for you. Titles and positions don't matter. If you're good at what you do, you don't need them, and if you're not so good, they won't help. So stop thinking of yourself in terms of your position or title.

 

3. Love the people you lead.

 

This is something I've said for many years: People really do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.

 

4. Understand that you're in the people business.

 

You might think you're a preacher or a teacher or a pastor. But, as my friend Ken Blanchard is fond of saying, no matter what you do, you're actually in the people business. Your members are people, your visitors are people, and your staff are people. Make no mistake—you are in the people business.

 

5. Understand the "Law of Significance."

 

This law says, "One is too small of a number to achieve greatness." If you can achieve your dream by yourself, you don't have much of a dream.

 

In addition, there are three more subtle traps that can seriously damage your work as a leader if you don't take special care to avoid them.

 

Let's start with the failure to think realistically. Max Depree was absolutely right when he said, "The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality." Unfortunately, many leaders don't do this. Instead, they either ignore problems or view them through rose-colored glasses. They don't intentionally deceive anyone about what's going on; they're just out of touch with reality.

 

Here are three ways to keep yourself from falling victim to the "failure to think realistically" landmine.

 

1. Make realism the foundation of your church leadership.

 

Focus on three levels of achievement: What you have to achieve to maintain your current state, what you think you will achieve and what you hope to achieve.

 

2. Look at realism as a friend, not a foe.

 

It's amazing what happens when you tell the truth. It's not easy to look a staff member in the eye and say, "You're not any good at that," or "We're not going to do that anymore." But if you really want to develop and equip your people, you have to be honest with them. Don't enable them; help them overcome their ineffectiveness.

 

3. Give others permission to be realistic.

 

The more successful you become, the more you have to look at people and say, "Be honest with me.  Be realistic with me. Tell me what I need to work on." Otherwise, people start telling you only what they think you want to hear, which keeps you from getting the good, honest feedback that you need.

 

The next landmine we need to address is poor timing. This is an easy one to step on because timing is very difficult to understand. Here's one way to look at it: The wrong action at the wrong time equals disaster; the wrong action at the right time equals a mistake; the right action at the wrong time equals resistance; and the right action at the right time equals success.

 

It's easy to see why timing is so complicated. The good news is that even though timing is often confusing, you can get it right more often if you follow these guidelines.

 

1. See the big picture.

 

Most cases of bad timing happen because somebody failed to look at the whole picture.

 

2. Know the seasons of timing.

 

When it comes to change, there are three seasons of timing: People change when they hurt enough that they have to, when they learn enough that they want to and when they receive enough that they are able to. As a leader, you need to understand these seasons and constantly monitor where you, your people and your church are in relation to the timing of various plans and endeavors.

 

3. Seek advice from successful, mature leaders.

 

I've been around the block as a leader long enough to know—in most cases—when a decision is right. Now, when I sit down with a seasoned leader who has been where I'm headed, my main question is not, "Am I making the right decision?" Instead, I want to know, "Is now the time?  Is the timing right?"

 

The final landmine I want to cover is the failure to develop leaders. Harvey Firestone once said, "It is only as we develop others that we permanently succeed." When I was young, I didn't know this, and as a result, I didn't develop a single leader. I didn't train, equip, or mentor anyone because I didn't know how to do any of those things.

 

So how do you keep from making the same mistake I made as a young leader? Let me offer three suggestions.

 

1. Understand the value of leadership.

 

Once you truly understand this, you'll pour time, energy and resources into developing leaders.

 

2. Develop yourself as a leader.

 

You cannot take people where you have not gone yourself.

 

3. Recruit potential leaders.

 

It's much easier to develop a potential leader than someone who's not a potential leader, so figure out what a potential leader looks like and make a concerted effort to hire staff or recruit volunteers who fit that description. And don't forget to give them the freedom and latitude to lead as they become ready.

 

I could go on all day about other leadership landmines that have the potential to blow up in the faces of unsuspecting leaders. I hope what we have covered here has made you aware that these traps do exist and that you need to be on the lookout for them. That awareness will go a long way towards helping you avoid these deadly landmines in your own life as a church leader.