The days of “doing things the way we’ve always done them” are long gone. That is no longer a viable strategy to support a growing ministry in the ever-changing world of technology.
On the converse, it’s more important now than ever to embrace a willingness to see things differently in order to see solutions to new problems. Instead of asking “Is there an answer?” we must choose to ask, “What is the answer?” It’s out there somewhere. Am I willing to do the work to see things differently and to explore new paths in order to find it?
Are we allowing our insecurity and doubt to drive our hunger for stability
Those of us in the tech world can often struggle with this approach. We tend to like predictability, routine and comfort. We find things we’re good at and then stay in that lane. Unfortunately, we often become negative and cynical (and push back) against anything new that challenges our stable patterns. We can allow insecurity and doubt to drive our hunger for stability. In turn, we can alienate co-workers or the teams we lead, which can eventually hinder our ministry’s ability to take positive steps in a new direction.
Letting go of an established pattern is one of the hardest things to do. But as a leader, it’s often one of the most necessary.
We bear a responsibility to lead our teams to a place of growth and success, which can occasionally butt heads with the desire to stay comfortable and stable. Big-picture gains sometimes come at the expense of short-term comfort.
It becomes even harder to shift our ways of thinking when we must confront the possibility of leaving behind our own ideas or brainchildren. Things we birthed out of passion or skill may have been necessary or invaluable during a particular season but might no longer be relevant based on future vision. How easily or willingly can we lay down part of our own identity (the project we led, the gear we installed, the systems we built) and move ahead to a world with more uncertainty?
…the most admired trait of a senior leader was their ability and willingness to kill their own ideas.
—Fast Company
Many years ago, I read a survey in the magazine Fast Company where 150 Fortune 500 leaders were asked about a variety of topics. One question they were asked (and their responses) stood out greatly.
When asked about the most admired trait of a senior leader, I expected the top results to be vision, creativity, humility, integrity or something similar.
Instead, the top response, which corralled 37% of the responses, was that the most admired trait of a senior leader was their ability and willingness to kill their own ideas.
Even though those admired leaders had the ability to double-down on the “my way or the highway” approach and mandate that their ideas be the ones that were followed or implemented, they instead went the other direction.
They laid aside their own preferences, comfort, skill, insight, and desires to realize that maybe their way of doing it wasn’t actually the best way. Maybe the team around them had better ideas. Maybe the season for that particular approach had passed, and it was now time for a new paradigm.
Too many times we look at our surroundings and have a hard time seeing all the variables. We see options only to the extent that they reinforce our own preferences or biases. We tend to see what will give us comfortable and predictable results.
Maybe it’s because we’re too afraid to try something new and fail. Maybe it’s because we feel incapable of learning something new. It might be because we’re scared of losing our hard-earned influence and leadership if it looks like there’s something we don’t know or can’t do.
My team doesn’t need me to be the smartest person in the room… They need me to be open-minded, flexible and curious.
Albert Einstein, not just a brilliant scientist but also a brilliant problem-solver, once noted, “The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
New times and challenges require new ways of thinking. They require a new level of creativity and problem-solving.
Am I willing to embrace the unknown to become that person?
Sometimes, the more experience we get and the more stability we garner, the more adverse we are to risk and taking steps into the unknown. But stability and strength aren’t necessarily the predictors of leadership success.
As Charles Darwin once noted, “It isn’t the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most responsive to change.”
My team doesn’t need me to be the smartest person in the room, and my leaders don’t need me to be the best engineer in the industry.
They need me to be open-minded, flexible and curious.
The best growth is still ahead of me if I’m willing to pursue it. The best is yet to come for me, my team and my ministry.
I have to start asking “What if?” as I approach a problem with uncertain solutions.
I must be willing to let go and step into the unknown.
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