10 Lessons from a Leadership Transition

Reflections from My First Year at Rockharbor

I’m not an expert. I haven’t done this perfectly. I don’t presume that my experience can be universalized into principles that apply everywhere. But I know that we can learn from each other’s experiences and perspectives. I think if we could aggregate the “wisdom of one another”, we would all be better for it.

I was asked recently if I would share at a pastors gathering some reflections on what I’ve learned from my first year in a pastoral transition. I was grateful for the nudge to take my scribbles in my journal (OK, it was actually in an Evernote) and turn it into something a bit more coherent. Some of these are things I wish I had done, or done better or sooner…But in the hope that it may be helpful, here we go…

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1. Slow down.

There are no tracks for the train yet. Slow down the train until you can lay down the tracks. Less is more in the early days. Keep the calendar clear. Create more margin than feels necessary. Don't rush to launch things. I think of what a skydiving instructor said to a friend of mine, which he said to me in the context of leadership transitions: “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.”

2. Your first job is to discern and discover.

Your first job is not to "lead". It isn't to chart a course or rally the troops. Your first job is to be something of a cultural anthropologist. Assess the condition of your team. Some may be weary; some may be wounded; some may be weak-- under-developed or ill-fitting for the role.  Be an expert in paying attention. Some consultants call the first year of a leadership transition a year of “orientation”, becoming acquainted with the new context. There are four layers of discernment and discovery:

• The culture of city

• The context of the church

• The condition of the team (weary, wounded, weak)

• The connections of the relational systems in the congregation (I’m thinking of Peter Steinke’s work here)

3. Honor your inheritance

Recognize and respect where you’ve come from and where they’ve come from. Recognize where you are reaping where others have sown. Praise the shoulders you’re standing on. Repair bridges that have been broken, if possible. Rebuild fences that need mending.

4. Repeat yourself.

You’re going to have to say the same things to different groups of people— elders, staff, volunteers, congregants. Every meeting or appointment is part of what I affectionately refer to as the “vision and culture tour”. Language is culture-making. So when you land on good language, write it down, because you’re going to be saying it over and over. Right around the time you get tired of saying it is when people start to get it.

5. Know when to lean in. 

Some things cannot be led through layers of management. Levels of an organization are helpful for communication and coordination, or implementation and execution. But when it comes to communicating heart and vision, sensitive decisions, or a change of direction, lean in and talk with the people most affected directly. Be close enough to listen to them. Give them access to be heard. In cases of rebuilding, you may also need to lean in to co-dream and co-design certain key areas.

6. Distinguish between culture, strategy, and structure.

Cultivating the culture you want comes first. Culture is comprised of at least these elements:

• Language: What words or phrases do we use?

• Practices: What are our repeated habits? What spiritual practices do we embrace and encourage?

• Stories: What origin stories do we repeat? What testimonies do we share?

• Artifacts: What booklets or podcasts or resources do we create?

• Tools: What apps or mechanisms do we use?

Fill in each category to help cultivate the culture you want.

Then determine the strategy. Think in broad terms and in a general trajectory. How are we going to go about our mission?

Finally, start building the structure that supports it. This will take time. Structures you inherited may have been designed for different strategies and to reinforce a different culture. Don’t let an outmoded structure undermine the work you’re trying to do with culture-building and strategy-setting.

7. Provide clarity with frameworks and roles.

Take the time to do what Jim Collins describes as “clock-making”— outline frameworks and rubrics so that the “why” is always clear, and so that others can make the decisions well without you in the room. Resist the urge to calibrate the organization around your preferences and whims. Instead, build frameworks around shared values and convictions. The answer to a “why” question should never be, “Because the pastor likes that.”

Next clarify roles for responsibilities, projects, and initiatives for staff and volunteers with a tool like the RASCI (Who's Responsible? Whose Approval is needed? Who will provide Support? Who should we Consult? Who needs to be Informed?)

You will also have to bring clarity about your role. Many people will project their desires or map their longings or unmet expectations from previous spiritual leaders in their life onto you as the new pastor. You are not there to fix them or to be their Savior. You cannot do what only Jesus can. And you shouldn’t do for them what they ought to do for themselves. Choosing to over-function fuels dysfunction.

Eugene Peterson famously wrote that the congregation has no idea what a pastor is supposed to do, but they might think they do. That’s not meat to be snarky or cynical. Peterson thought that a pastor has to teach people what a pastor does. I think it’s true not just for a pastor in general, but you as their pastor in particular. You have been called to lead them and to shepherd them, and you have unique gifts and limitations. As you seek the Lord and live within your limits, you will need to clarify what you can and cannot do. It may look like explaining why sabbath matters, why study time is key, why your family comes first, why you won’t be coming to certain meetings, how you choose which relationships to invest in or people to develop, why who we’re becoming as a church as more important than what initiatives we’re launching, and so on.

Caveat: Disappointment is inevitable. Nobody likes to admit that a leader has limitations. But every leader has limitations; unhealthy leaders choose to ignore them.

8. Know which horizon you’re seeing.

You will see things. It’s part of sitting in the seat you’re in. But just because you see it doesn’t mean you should say it. Some things are for a later time. Get better at knowing which horizon you’re seeing. Say only the things that have to do with the nearest horizon. Accept that horizon-switching, at least internally, is part of the job.

9. Learn when directional leadership is needed and when collaborative leadership is needed.

It's good to work together with the team to make decisions. But there are times when your voice needs to be declarative. Have the courage and the confidence to say humbly and kindly, “This is where we're going.” Not every decision needs to be collaborative. In fact, it can be insulting to go through a process of collaborative conversation when you already know what you want to do. Collaboration is strongest when everyone comes in with a genuine openness. When a team has clear vision and high freedom, collaboration is possible. (I wrote a lot more on this in The Resilient Pastor.)

10. Create space to pray and listen to God regularly.

This cannot be overstated. Like the very first lesson, this requires us to slow down. Dependence on God is felt acutely in the early days of a transition. You might even feel a kind of desperation for God-- for His Spirit to lead you, for His grace to sustain you. But as things get rolling and things start clicking, you may be tempted to spend less time in prayer, waiting on the Lord. Choose to make space to seek the Lord. Everything depends on Him.

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How about you? If you’ve led through a leadership transition, what are a few lessons you learned?