It’s RARE to learn what you need to know about LEADERSHIP
I honestly couldn’t tell you how many hours of church leadership conferences and trainings I’ve listened to live, and online…. and on DVD, CD, and, yes, even cassette tapes. I do know that for nearly 40 years I’ve had thousands of hours of exposure to the best church leaders alive.
However, I can tell you that a great majority of the teachings I’ve heard have focused on some technical aspect of being a leader: How to lead difficult staff members; How to preach better sermons; How to design effective ministry systems; How to put together a winning discipleship program; (and much, much more). If a speaker was good, I would go away with a notebook full of ideas and a head full of dreams regarding how I, too, could lead my church to become the next (fill in the blank with the church du jour).
And along the way I’ve had the opportunity to “be” the church du jour. On a few occasions I’ve been asked to share my “secret sauce” with others who were trying hard to fill up their own notebooks and heads with something that would help them lead their own ministries well.
The desire to gain or share leadership tools is, I think, honorable and necessary. The problem is when we believe the tools are the answer when it’s the underlying skills, habits and character that make those tools effective.
In their books Rare Leadership and Rare Leadership in the Workplace, Marcus Werner and Jim Wilder point out some of those necessary skills and habits as they make the compelling case for the serious need for mature leaders who exhibit and spread joy, instead of fear. These types of leaders are like artists or musicians who are so proficient in their craft that “their focus is not on the skills and habits they have already spent years developing. Their focus is on the mood, the creativity, and the situation at hand.”[1] Any competent leader can practice focused attention that accomplishes a task, they claim, but a mature leader has ingrained “skills and habits they have developed that allow their character and relational skill to show up automatically.”[2]
All of that reminds me of what Daniel Khaneman in his book Thinking Fast and Slow[3] calls System One thinking, which is fast, instinctive thinking. This contrasts to System Two thinking that is slower, more analytical, and logical. And while my takeaway from Khaneman was that I needed to employ my slow thinking much more often, with Werner and Wilder I recognized that mature leaders must develop certain deep habits and skills that manifest instantly—without thinking about them—so that whatever leadership task or tool they are engaging will be more effective.
Wilder shares an observation he made about therapists’ workshops that got me thinking about how this relates to my countless hours listening to or teaching at pastor’s conferences: “Presenters often explained the processes they found effective, but when others tried to implement these processes, they did not find them effective. This was because they did not have the same fast track skills and habits as the presenters. The presenters themselves often did not realize that it was these habits of character and relational skill more than their processes that made them work.”[4]
These two RARE Leadership books are full of insights for leaders who want to grow towards maturity. RARE leaders are those who Remain Relational, Act Like Yourself, Return to Joy and Endure Hardship Well.[5] Each of those points could easily inspire a separate blog post, and they were personally encouraging and challenging to me in equal measure. I could write about where I might grow in relational leadership, or my need for mature authenticity, or the concept of joy as key to my leadership and life, or the ubiquity of suffering and the victory that comes through my enduring it well.
But my current takeaway in a book full of valuable observations is that a person can spend thousands of hours learning leadership principles and practices, and can spend even more time earning a Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral degree in ministry leadership, but without the accompanying “System One” habits, that learning will fall short of what it could accomplish.
Pastor and author Eugene Peterson once wrote “For a long time I have been convinced that I could take a person with a high school education, give him or her a six-month trade school training, and provide a pastor who would be satisfactory to any discriminating American congregation.” [6]Peterson was being facetious. He went on to describe the potential course offerings that would include “creative plagiarism”, “voice control for prayer and counseling”, and “image projection”. But none of this fictitious trade-school training included the deep work of relational leadership, or character maturation, or returning to joy, or learning to endure hardship well. His point was that one could train in the tools, but not the habits.
To be honest, not many of my thousands of hours in seminars or school have included that work in habits, either. These books on RARE Leadership are an important exception. And as I seek to raise up emerging leaders for the church, I don’t want to only provide the tools or processes or even philosophies for ministry leadership, but I want to help them develop the deep habits of RARE Leadership that allows for automatic System One thinking regarding the most important parts of pastoral leadership.
[1] Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder, Rare Leadership in the Workplace: 4 Uncommon Habits That Improve Focus, Engagement, and Prodctivity, Chicago: Northfield Publishing, 2021, 22.
[2] Ibid, 23.
[3] Daniel Khaneman, Thinking Fast and Slow, New York: Farrar, Straus and Grioux, 2011.
[4] Warner and Wilder, Rare Leadership in the Workplace, 55.
[5] Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder, Rare Leadership: 4 Uncommon Habits for increasing Trust, Joy, and Engagement in the People You Lead, Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2016, 14-16.
[6] Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993, 5.
About the Author
Tim Clark
I'm on a lifelong journey of discovering the person God has created me to be and aligning that with the purpose God has created me for. I've been pressing hard after Jesus for 40 years, and I currently serve Him as the lead pastor of vision and voice at The Church On The Way in Los Angeles. I live with my wife and 3 kids in Burbank California.11 responses to “It’s RARE to learn what you need to know about LEADERSHIP”
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Tim~
Excellent work with this paragraph:
All of that reminds me of what Daniel Khaneman in his book Thinking Fast and Slow[3] calls System One thinking, which is fast, instinctive thinking. This contrasts to System Two thinking that is slower, more analytical, and logical. And while my takeaway from Khaneman was that I needed to employ my slow thinking much more often, with Werner and Wilder I recognized that mature leaders must develop certain deep habits and skills that manifest instantly—without thinking about them—so that whatever leadership task or tool they are engaging will be more effective.”
I appreciate your synthesis of these concepts. And I am in 100 percent support of how the next generation leaders, emerging leaders and our beloved young adults create a life of RARE deep habits that give them the precious gifts of character.
Thanks Pam. The “wicked problem” part of this is how to implement the deep character in emerging leaders that will result in system-one rare leadership traits? I appreciated the exercises in the “workplace” book but they left me wanting for way more practical examples. I have a feeling this concept will stay with me and become a part of the fabric of how I think about and approach leadership.
Tim, after reading John Fehlan’s post, and re-reading his NPO statement around pastors having an “under-developed theology of suffering,” and now having read your post, I think there are a couple of under-developed theologies one could add. One is the theology of suffering. And now your post makes me think that what we have seen or received (at least in our generation) in church leadership conferences/trainings is an under-developed theology of presence, with God and in the service of our neighbor. Instead of passing on the art/habit of “being with,” most seminars I’ve heard have been very “how-to” (and in many ways the “how-to” stuff was very attractive), as you have said. Rather than apprenticing, I think we’ve wanted the quick “how-to” WITHOUT the harder and slower work of developing habits and learning from others in an apprenticeship-like setting.
You said that “each of those (R.A.R.E.) points could easily inspire a separate blog post.” Well, if you COULD write a separate blog post on only one of the four, which would you write about? Which of those four points do you think faces the most obstacles in either the current or emerging generation of leaders, and if it were a wicked problem, what specific part of the problem would you want to focus on?
Oh man, that’s SO hard for me. I really resonated with each of those points, so much that they are now indelibly marked in my head (which NEVER happens with a book).
In the moment, learning how to endure suffering well is key to me, but I think overarchingly the concept of joy is foundational as I think joy is so connected to the rest of them (suffering, relationhsips, and being comfortable in the person God is maturing you to be).
You talk about making the jump from technical leadership skills to deeply ingrained habits of character. Or maybe it’s not a jump, maybe it’s more accurately about connecting the two. In any case, I’m deep into my prototypes this week so my mind went right to my NPO. In two separate conversations this week, I’ve talked with parents about retraining their knee-jerk reactions to go from “quick-to-anger” to “calm-and-curious”. I encourage them to think of pressing a pause button. Personally, I physically place my hand over my heart and apply firm pressure until I feel myself calming down. From our reading, I now know that pause allows me to move from fast to slow thinking. When I’m calm, I can make a better decision and stay connected to my child. But here’s my point: after years of doing this regularly my knee-jerk reactions have become generally “calm-and-curious” (not 100% of course, I’m only human!). So I really do think it’s possible to learn and train our fast-track thinking with lots of time and repetition.
Great post, Tim. Like, you, I was struck by the call to build good habits into our instinctual thinking. This far into our careers, the technical stuff has become less helpful.
How do we do that, though? In this day and age, of increasing isolation, how do we set up an apprentice-like experience, as Travis has suggested? How do we overcome our obsession with the instant quick fix and give time to the pause that Kim points out?
Now THAT’S a wicked problem, isn’t it?
I’m 100% in favor of setting up apprentice-like experiences, yet have never done it partly because I/we are so busy.
Isn’t it interesting that though we KNOW the technical stuff isn’t as helpful, we keep spending all our time on that, instead of the deep work of relationships, authentic maturity, joy and enduring suffering well…. In fact, If that was a curriculum for an apprenticeship or residency (or even a leadership cohort) I think it could be helpful.
Thanks for your post Tim. I was fortunate enough to live/study close to where Peterson taught at Regent College and I would suggest that Peterson’s prophetic warnings for the North American church has generally come true over the past 10-15 years. I wrote a bit about this in response to Travis…but it seems like charismatic leaders with under-developed character is what the vast majority of churches are fine with. If they are dynamic, good speakers, expanding the churches influence….that’s good enough! Until it isn’t. Until their anger or control or affairs come to light….and then it is carnage. So do we need to re-balance the whole ‘doing’ and ‘being’ for churches in North America? Do we need to prioritize LESS the programs that invite people to come and observe verses the ministries that invite people to come and be known? And if we did….would people be happy about that…or would they leave for the church DOING flashy stuff down the road? So do we need a new ‘tent-making’ strategy that does not make churches so economically dependent on people’s giving so we don’t have to be so worried about keeping the people to pay the bills? It doesn’t take long to realize that the current church model in North America is a big, wicked mess! May God help each of us as we create our own problems and seek to address one small part of the whole.
Scott, Thanks for your reply.
You ask a lot of important questions that need to be grappled with. The challenges of the church do indeed seem to often be a “wicked” problem.
I have a different lived experience than you do. While I know of (and know) some charismatic leaders with underdeveloped character, I know far many more pastors who are trying to faithfully lead their congregations and grow in maturity.
And I’m talking about the big churches and visible pastors, though I would imagine the percentage of faithful small church pastors would be similar.
For years I’ve read from those who would like to upend the present ecclesiological model to shift to tent-making, non paid, smaller church realities. Much like Jason talks about with our economic systems, we can see the problems and even propose solutions but changing the systems is not something we’ll ever be able to do.
So what then? Though I didn’t set out to lead a large church, it’s the church I’m leading. I deeply value small churches for what they can do for the body of Christ, but in my large church I attempt both/and: The programs only a large church with resources can pull off well (as Tim Keller writes about, things like the excellence in worship, preaching, shared mission to tackle really big, expensive needs, etc.) AND the “be known” groups and ministries that help people really be and live like the church.
Most large church pastors I know are attempting to do the same thing. Some large church pastors I know are simply trying to be celebrities. But again, in my experience, that isn’t close to the norm.
What a great post my friend. I agree 100%. You said, “The problem is when we believe the tools are the answer when it’s the underlying skills, habits and character that make those tools effective.” So true. This is the hard part that you can’t get in a book or seminar, it’s the consistent actions that are not as shiny or glamorous but seem to be the secret sauce. I very much enjoyed this book and your response to it! Much respect
you said:
This was because they did not have the same fast track skills and habits as the presenters. The presenters themselves often did not realize that it was these habits of character and relational skill more than their processes that made them work.”[4]
This makes me think through my NPO!! how to present my materials knowing I can’t help those learning to have the same fast track learning skills!