Walking with a leader who cares for leaders
This past week was one of those weeks where I thought to myself: It would be easier to just be in the background. Maybe even hanging out, for a year or two, on the beach with our twenty-something-year-old kids, “free” from the warp and woof of serving in an organizational leadership role. “Were things really that bad that you had to get off your behind and set out on this great quest? Surely you could have waited for someone else to fix the problem.”[1] I almost laughed when I read that comment in Walker’s book. Last year I said “yes” to a new executive director role. Now, six months in, it’s gettin’ real. And I feel like I am going to stir a hornet’s nest with one thing, in particular (“Hornet’s nest” was an actual analogy someone used on Friday). Good grief, leadership is hard. But there are others who have gone before us. There’s nothing new – including taking a group in a different direction — under the sun. Thanks, Austin Kleon, for that reminder last week.[2] And who am I kidding? It’s not like some of the things in front of us, organizationally speaking, aren’t incredibly exciting and super encouraging. It’s just going to take some time. There are going to be some hurdles to clear along the way. At any rate, what a great weekend to read yet another book on leadership.
For more than minute, while reading Simon Walker’s Leading out of Who You Are: Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership, I thought to myself, I really need to read more biographies of “well-differentiated”[3] leaders. Seriously, I do need to read more about the lives of leaders who “are formed, not simply appointed.”[4] Walker mentions some of these. Churchill, Gandhi, Mandela, Mother Teresa…and more.[5] Leaders who had a healthy grasp of how to steward power, having lived lives of sacrifice, vulnerability, and struggle. Leaders who, in some cases, had their most significant moments of leadership later in their lives, “lives (that) were characterized by both struggle and loss.”[6] But I also want to take better inventory of those leaders I have personally encountered throughout my career. Leaders who led well. Leaders who are finishing well. Not perfectly, of course, but those who led with some degree of awareness and caution, exhibited by their actions, of what Walker says leaders experience more than others: “idealization, idealism and unmet needs.”[7]
There is a particular gentleman who immediately comes to mind. He’s an older man who would absolutely fit in that inventory. He’s now in his late 70s. We’ve known each other for almost 13 years. For more than a few of those years, he and I had a one-hour meeting cemented on our calendars, usually two times per month. Sometimes we met over Zoom, and other times we met in person. Sometimes I would have a major challenge or roadblock that we’d unpack together. And sometimes our meetings would simply include “sharing life together” (a phrase he has used for as long as I’ve known him), talking about what’s going well or what’s not working. The topic could be parenting, relationships, church leadership roles, or organizational roles. He knows first-hand how I operate, having been a board member of an organization I led for five years. And he is/was quite familiar with the challenges of leadership in general, with leaders who often depend on others’ applause for their identity, or leaders who experience “isolation, loneliness and intolerable strain.”[8] After all, he has experienced these challenges himself as both a corporate leader in the healthcare space and as a pastor.
I’ll call him “Jim.”
Jim’s story is one of struggle, mistreatment, failure, control, and the loss of a company and the capital that came with it. For the past 15+ years, he has led a small non-profit ministry that helps young, and some not-so-young, men to discover their gifts, calling and passions. He certainly has a wealth of wisdom that he is well-equipped to pull out of his vast and varied experiences in leadership roles. However, in both the way he leads his small organization (he is the only employee, with a very involved board of directors) and in the way he connects with the men he meets with, he epitomizes Walker’s definition of a leader. He “takes responsibility for people other than himself.”[9] His focus today is on caring for those who lead. He exudes “appropriate leadership.”[10] He is always “open to the other person’s agenda, and genuinely responsive to (others’) needs.”[11] He also knows the temptation of wanting praise from others. He has an awareness of meeting his own needs “through his service to other people, who then reward him with approval.”[12] He doesn’t pretend to have risen above these temptations. He’s aware of his shortcomings, and he is quite aware of the temptation to make control an ultimate thing. He has traversed these things before.
However, when I have faced difficult and complex leadership decisions, he is usually the first person who comes to mind. And this week, when I was staring at some difficult leadership decisions, he was the first person I wanted to call. Actually, let me rephrase that. While I was stewing on the complexity and layer upon layer of “issues” this week…on a Friday that happened to be especially challenging…my non-anxious, well-differentiated wife of now more than 30 years walked in, saw my pensive expression, and said, “You are trying to play “savior” with these things. You are acting like it’s all on you and up to you. You need to have a conversation with Jim.”
[1] Simon P. Walker, Leading out of Who You Are: Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership, Carlisle, CA: Piquant Editions Ltd, 2007), Kindle Version, 31.
[2] Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative, (New York: Workman, 2012, 2022), 7.
[3] Edward H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix. Revised edition. New York: Church Publishing, 2017.
[4] Walker, Leading out of Who You Are, 21.
[5] Walker, 11.
[6] Walker, 19.
[7] Walker, 27.
[8] Walker, 28.
[9] Walker, 29.
[10] Walker, 29.
[11] Walker, 29.
[12] Walker, 30.
About the Author
Travis Vaughn
7 responses to “Walking with a leader who cares for leaders”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
What a blessing to have a Jim in your life, Travis! I am more than a little envious.
It is so interesting for me to think about how people like Jim make the move to mentorship. How do they know when they’re ready? Jim sounds like he understands his own limitations, but has balanced it with a healthy level of well-placed confidence. I imagine that the trials that you reference in his life are part of what has prepared him to be such a help for you.
Are you also seeing a similar pattern in your leadership? Are the trials that you are working through are preparing you to mentor others?
It has indeed been a blessing. And yes, no doubt his varied experiences in both full-time pastoral ministry AND the world of healthcare/business/start-ups has given him a unique vantage point that certainly helps what he does today. The way he knew he was “ready” for such a transition was by listening to the encouragement of a pastor in our church.
My journey will not be exactly like his, but I do want to emulate my friend in helping others process their gifts, calling, and passions. What I do hope to do is consistently take inventory of and curate learnings from my career — from success AND failure.
Travis,
We all need to take more advantage of the Jims in our lives. As someone who has gleaned so much from this type of mentoring relationship, what insights might you offer to other Jims that perhaps sit on the sidelines, desiring to help, but not sure how to be available?
I think maybe one of the biggest things is for other “Jims” to have an awareness that they have a history of calling and experiences…a history of decisions, some of which will have been made in faith and others out of fear, that will be helpful for someone or some group to hear. The thing about my friend that stands out to me is that he has faithfully continued to look for ways to steward his creative energies in the service of others (to reference Dorothy Sayers). I think that “Jim” has been open and honest about the various ways he wrestled through idealism, idealization and unmet needs. Not everyone (I would think?) wants to be honest about that. That’s a big hurdle to work through, perhaps.
Travis, Thank you for this lovely post and sharing your friend Jim with us. What an awesome lived experience of healthy connection and engagement with an undefended leader. The impact on you personally is certainly having an effect on others. I am wondering about those unintentional spaces when we can truly be ourselves, differentiated and undefended, in which we quite naturally become a “Jim” to those around us. I find it is often easier to notice an undefended leader in others than within myself. I am asking myself the following question as well. What spaces and to whom are you noticing that you have become “Jim” to others? I’m curious about what is happening when I am able to remain undefended.
He “takes responsibility for people other than himself.”[9] His focus today is on caring for those who lead. He exudes “appropriate leadership.”[10] He is always “open to the other person’s agenda, and genuinely responsive to (others’) needs.”[11] He also
Travis, I really hear your voice in this post as you think aloud with us in your own leadership journey. What I appreciated was your summary definition of leadership from Simon Walker’s writing:
A Leader, “knows the temptation of wanting praise from others. He has an awareness of meeting his own needs “through his service to other people, who then reward him with approval.”[12] He doesn’t pretend to have risen above these temptations. He’s aware of his shortcomings, and he is quite aware of the temptation to make control an ultimate thing. He has traversed these things before.”
When I take a step back from what you are saying, I see how you are are becoming the very mentor you need/needed in Jim. My question for you is, how are you capturing the wisdom God is mining in you as a leader? And if so, what would you say to younger men and women in particular who are taking on the mantel of a new CEO or executive leadership role?
Travis, at first I thought, “I need a Jim in my life” and immediately followed up with “I need to be a Jim in other people’s lives”.
Thanks for the challenge!