{"id":17420,"date":"2018-04-11T11:02:19","date_gmt":"2018-04-11T18:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=17420"},"modified":"2018-04-11T11:02:19","modified_gmt":"2018-04-11T18:02:19","slug":"leadership-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/leadership-pain\/","title":{"rendered":"Leadership Pain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leadership Pain by Samuel R. Chand immediately became one of my favorite reads of this semester, partly because it was a book genre I was most familiar with. A straightforward leadership book, with equal parts inspiration, principles, and application. The thesis of Chand\u2019s Leadership Pain<\/em> is simple, \u201cGrowth=Change, Change=Loss, and Loss=Pain. Therefore Growth=Pain\u201d[1]<\/a> Such a simple formula. It makes me reassess the weight of the phrase, \u201cwe are going to grow this church.\u201d Now when I say or hear phrases like that, I immediately think, \u201coh no, what will I have to mourn?\u201d Chand discovers that the leaders who reached the top were the ones who could withstand the most pain, and this book is about increasing your threshold of pain. In one of the most memorable parts of the book for me Chand writes that he used to think Leaders did not see all the holes in their ministry and all the way efficiency and effectiveness was seeping out the organization. But now he realizes, \u201cthey saw it all.\u201d They simply were not willing to pay the pain it would take to change it. I can resonate with that. Immediately I thought of all the things I had compromised on because it was good enough, and I knew it would be too difficult or painful to bring about true excellence in that field. Having read the many testimonies part of this book that preluded each chapter, I honestly wonder how much leadership pain I could tolerate. I physically was pained when I read of the associates pastor meeting at their own personal house church and taking offerings when the senior pastor was on vacation.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

God please don\u2019t call me that high up the leadership food chain. I can\u2019t stomach it. <\/em><\/p>\n

But yet I pray, \u201cnot my will, but yours be done.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Leadership Pain<\/em> is a book that is pertinent to many different levels of leadership experience and positions. Right now I\u2019m involved in discussing this book on three different levels. First in this Doctoral program, second as part of the leadership development within my church\u2019s pastoral staff, and thirdly its a book I\u2019m taking my Pathway \u201cApprentices\u201d through. An Apprentice, is what we call our students who are placed in leadership positions at local churches and go through a 1-year long discipleship process together. This book has been engaging on each of these levels, which I think speaks of its universal applicability. Everyone involved in influencing people knows the pain of leadership. This is because I think people are always a risk. You bring someone on your team and they suck, or they let you down you, or they intentionally betray you.<\/p>\n

I see this book as an essential leadership read for all leaders. An essential book to read, hopefully early on.<\/p>\n

Just knowing you will have pain will significantly reduce burn out rate. I think of the sales peoples who studied psychology and know that almost everyone experiences some level of buyers remorse when they make a major life decision or make an enormous purchase. Salespeople learned that by just educating their customers that their feelings of remorse were normal, it would significantly cut back on the amount of cancellations and returns. In the same way if we are able to tell leaders going into their first positions of influence that pain is NORMAL, I think it may prevent a lot more burn out.<\/p>\n

Recently one of our new pastors at our church experienced his first loss in ministry. Some people left the church over something he said. Ouch. What hurt more is that he was in the right, and what hurt most is that we don\u2019t have the privilege to share our side of the story from the pulpit to the rest of the congregation. It was painful for him to walk through, and at the same time, totally expected. It had happened to everyone else at the table multiple times. The sad part is that this pastor carried this discouragement alone for a couple weeks as he tried to handle it himself, all the while thinking, \u201cI must be a horrible leader for all of this to have happened.\u201d But after having reached out to the team for assistance he experienced a level of acceptance and encouragement because of the shared pain around the table.<\/p>\n

Despite all this pain discussed in this book, I highlight appreciated Chand\u2019s chapter entitled The Privilege of Leadership<\/em>. I don\u2019t think we should walk around as martyrs and \u201cWO is me\u201d for this pain I\u2019ve fastened on to me in the name of Jesus. Despite of this difficulty ahead of us, Leadership is still great privilege to follow that calling that God has given us. Jesus\u2019 calling to be a Christian is \u201c24\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>Then Jesus told his disciples,\u00a0\u201cIf anyone would come after me, let him\u00a0deny himself and\u00a0take up his cross and follow me\u201d[3]<\/a> and at the same time, \u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>\u201cCome to me,\u00a0all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.\u00a029\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,\u00a0for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.\u00a030\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.\u201d[4]<\/a> Although I don\u2019t think it\u2019s as direct of a spiritual promise, I think there is a similar tension of this in leadership. It\u2019s the most painful thing you will ever do, and at the same time it is one of the most exhilarating and fulfilling vocations that exists in our fallen world today.<\/p>\n

I think this applies to my dissertation because I think it applies to our time as Doctoral Students. Are you wanting a Doctoral degree? Are you willing to pay the pain it will take to get it? Many of my friends golf more, see more movies, go on more vacations, because they are using their resources to NOT get a Doctoral program. It\u2019s painful to see myself \u201cmissing out\u201d. I think our cohort is right on to read this book in the first year of our program, as our real work of writing our dissertation is still ahead of us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Chand, Samuel R.\u00a0Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth<\/em>. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2015.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Samuel R. Chand,\u00a0Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth<\/em>\u00a0(Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2015).<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Samuel R. Chand,\u00a0Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth<\/em>\u00a0(Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2015).<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Matthew 1624<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Matthew 11:28-30<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leadership Pain by Samuel R. Chand immediately became one of my favorite reads of this semester, partly because it was a book genre I was most familiar with. A straightforward leadership book, with equal parts inspiration, principles, and application. The thesis of Chand\u2019s Leadership Pain is simple, \u201cGrowth=Change, Change=Loss, and Loss=Pain. Therefore Growth=Pain\u201d[1] Such a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1182,1183,1017],"class_list":["post-17420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chand","tag-leadership-pain","tag-lgp8","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17420"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17421,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17420\/revisions\/17421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}