Good Leaders Are Not Afraid of Risks
Healthy Leaders | Issue 42
Welcome to Issue 42 of Healthy Leaders. In this issue: it’s time to take some risks.
Hello friends,
Welcome back to our ongoing conversation on healthy Christian leadership and leader development.1
We’ve been zeroing in on various aspects of leadership over the last few issues, everything from setting and aligning vision to the core leader trait of action. All of these aspects of leadership, however, require a certain degree of risk.
These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman. (Abigail Adams, to her son John Quincy)
Everything worth pursuing involves some level of risk, and the fear of failure can be a powerful deterrent to pursuing God’s highest in your life and in the life of your organization or ministry.
But let’s remember what the leader is meant to do. Leadership is not only about bringing organizations from one place to a better place. It’s also about bringing people from one place to a better place.
A leader who puts the needs of the organization first will likely not be very well-positioned to take risks. Such a leader, aware of the possible repercussions of failure impacting the entire organization, will be tempted to play it safe and dole out easy-access tasks. On the other hand, a leader whose priority is set on building people will look for ways to strengthen his or her followers through real, often risky, challenges.
And if you want to accomplish the purposes of God as a leader, you have to be willing to risk something yourself.
Here’s Malcolm with more.
Behind our acceptance of risk as leaders is the conviction that the easy road is not the leader’s road — or the Christian’s road for that matter! Our Savior did not travel the easy road, and if we are going to follow Him, neither will we.
Jesus Himself never shied away from the challenges and risks set before Him, but rather embraced them, providing His disciples with a perfect example of the way of suffering: through rejection, through the struggle to obey, and through His ultimate sacrifice on the Cross.
I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:10-11)
As healthy Christian leaders, we must embrace risk, learn from our mistakes, and submit ourselves to pressure and challenge in order to accomplish the vision God has given us.
And if we are to build emerging leaders in our organization to the point where they can carry that vision forward, the pressurizing influence of risk is essential to the process, which is why we design riskiness into our “small wins.”
“Leaders are built through fire — like steel is made hard in the fire, like gold is purified in the furnace, like carbon is formed under pressure into diamonds.
Pressure reveals the impurities in one’s life so they can be dealt with. It is far better to put the emerging leader under pressure before he is given significant responsibility and authority than to wait until the time when failure under pressure will destroy both the leader and those with him. Therefore, the development process can intentionally put the participants under a certain amount of pressure to squeeze heart contaminations to the surface so they can be revealed, confronted and removed.” (Malcolm Webber, from Building Leaders)
What about you?
Think about your own life and leadership. Are you turning away from action you know is needed because of the risk involved to your ministry or reputation? What endeavors or relationships in your life have you been avoiding because they involve risk?
Then think through the challenges and risks that the emerging leaders in your organization or church require for growth. What challenges are you giving them to overcome?
Here are some specific ways in which pressure can be created to build character in emerging leaders:
Difficult assignments that are beyond their ability. Jesus left His disciples to deal with the demonized boy when it was beyond their capacity (Matt. 17:16). A new situation where mistakes in action and judgment may become obvious to others demands genuine humility and moral courage.
Giving them the opportunity to give up (cf. John 6:67).
Confusing assignments that are unclear or ambiguous.
Multiple assignments of different kinds at the same time.
Simply being required to work in teams; this is very hard for some people.
“Interesting” team combinations. (Do not put all the “people-people” together in the same teams.)
Changing teams regularly.
Deadlines.
Circumstantial accidents.
Specific assignments that create possible rejection, etc.
Humbling service.
Limited resources.
Challenging ministry responsibilities.
Balancing relationships and tasks.
Spontaneous assignments.
Remember, besides challenging assignments, your leaders need you — to walk alongside them, to be there when they fail, and to cheer them on.
Until next time, we’re with you!
— Chris
Recommended Resources
Book: Building Leaders by Malcolm Webber
Video Course: Building Healthy Leaders
For more resources, visit our website.
Thanks to our friends at Fifty-Four Collective for putting together a comprehensive set of video courses for growing healthy organizations, starting with this series of courses on leadership by Malcolm. We’ll be using some of their videos and some of our own. Be sure to check out what they’re doing!