- As a young leader, it is tempting to view more mature leaders as having it all together, or to view successful organizations as not having many problems.
- It is also tempting to think that great organizations don't have tension, or that great leader's job is to eliminate tension.
- Actually: in great organizations, there are tensions that never go away, and great leaders leverage that tension in such a way that it becomes a growth engine.
- If fact, this way of dealing with tension results in a third category for some of your problems.
- Every organization has problems that shouldn't be solved and tensions that shouldn't be resolved. This is the third category of problems.
- Like: the problem/tension between work and family life.
- These are often industry-specific: marketing and sales; leadership and management, etc.
- In fact, if you try to solve these types of problems/tensions, you will have created a new problem/tension.
- Learning to leverage these types of tensions/problems will cause you to grow and progress.
- If you take certain problems off of the table, not to be discussed any more, you will have created a new barrier to progress.
- Progress isn't about resolving the tension, it is about managing the tension.
- Certain tensions are a key to progress.
- How do you distinguish problems to be solved and tensions to be managed?
- Ask yourselves these questions:
- Does this problem keep resurfacing?
- Are there mature advocates on both sides?
- Are the too sides really interdependent?
- Every single healthy church should constantly be inviting the tension: how do we remain safe for nonbelievers and how to we mature believers?
- The role of leadership is to leverage the tension to the benefit of the organization.
- Identify the tensions to be managed in the organization - what are the problems that we need to stop trying to resolve, and instead move it into a tension/3rd category.
- Create terminology - "I guess that's a tension we have to manage." When you create terminology, you create language for your entire team that denotes a 3rd category. So, when you get two strong personalities on opposing sides, it doesn't have to be a win/lose. If there is no 3rd category, it becomes a win/lose.
- Inform your core - once you decide this is a reality, you make sure your key leaders understand this principle.
- Continually give value to both sides.
- Don't weigh in too heavily based in on your personal biases. As a leader, if we are not careful, we, by our personality, we can shift some tensions off the table simply by our words and influence. We can not afford to weigh in too heavily. Understand the upside of the opposite side. Learn to argue the case of your opposite.
- Don't allow strong personalities to win the day. We need passionate people that can champion their side, but you need them to be mature enough to realize the tension between their side and other realities.
- When it comes to applying this principle, don't think in terms of balance; think in terms of rhythm. We are not trying to figure out how to be "fair," or be in perfect balance/equity. There is a season to lean heavily into something, and a season to lean heavily away from it. There is a time in a church's life where you need to sing more and preach less, or preach more and sing less. You just have to pay attention to the rhythms of the organization, and make the call as a leader.
As a leader, one of the most valuable things you can do for your organization is to delineate between the tensions that need to be managed and a problem that need to be solved. In fact, the relevancy of your organization depends on it.
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