George Bernard Shaw once mused, “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?” World history is largely the tale of people who saw what others didn’t. My mother was that way. At one point, she had four teenage sons and a young daughter. I swear she had eyes in the back of her head! She seemed to know things she could not possibly have seen! Leaders are the same. They see things differently than others do. It is their superpower and what makes them leaders. Leaders have five distinct ways of looking at things that distinguishes them from those they lead.
1. 30,000-Foot View
The problem for many of the foot soldiers and lower level managers in an organization is their limited view. They tend to focus exclusively on their department or the specific line items in the budget pertaining to them. They don’t see the big picture. This tendency is often fine and as it should be. If you have a custodial staff or an IT or sales department, you don’t want them focusing so much on what everyone else is doing that they neglect their own responsibilities. But someone needs to see how each of the separate parts makes one whole.
I served as a seminary president for 13 years. Early in my tenure, we constructed a second major building, which more than doubled our space. One building became an academic building, which housed the faculty and classrooms. The other one became the administrative building, housing offices for the president and the business, development, and facilities directors. While everyone was delighted with the increased space, it soon became apparent that a huge chasm had developed within our organization. Though the two buildings were physically connected, each developed its own culture and perspective. I began hearing complaints that neither building knew what the other was doing. The faculty and staff were good people doing outstanding work, but they tended to nestle into their silo and lose perspective on the rest of the organization. It became my job to view the organization as a whole and to facilitate each department and staff person working in sync with the others.
I used to live close to the Greenville, SC, airport. The regional planes on which I traveled would pass over my neighborhood on their descent. Since I was new to the city, I would look out the window and study the terrain below. I saw parks near my house I did not know existed. I detected shortcuts to the airport that saved me time. Looking down from above, I gained an entirely new perspective on my world. Leaders must rise above a department, building, or normal routine to see their organization from a higher view. Doing so will help them discern how the various parts are connected. Seeing the big picture helps leaders identify potential dangers and opportunities. Leaders must keep the big picture before them.
2. A Future View
While every job involves adapting to future needs and challenges, some jobs tend to focus on the present. Customer service workers, for example, need to deal with current issues. While everyone needs to prepare for the future, many shop-floor employees are generally only concerned with getting their day’s work done. While I was putting myself through college, I worked at a factory that made trusses and various building supplies. I was promoted into the management of running a workstation. My job was to make sure our unit produced as many trusses as we could in eight hours. It would have been entirely unnecessary for me to waltz into the executive suite to discuss global trends in lumber prices or interest rates or economic growth with the vice president. All I really cared about was getting my paycheck every two weeks so I could go back to university in the fall.
But someone in the executive office certainly had an eye on the future. There was far too much at stake not to. Warren Bennis once said the difference between managers and leaders is that managers focus on doing things right, while leaders focus on doing the right things. Leaders must ask themselves, “Where will these current behaviors and commitments take us in the future?” Most people don’t like change. They prefer to keep doing what they have always done. But leaders must keep an eye on the future.
Some pastors feel pressured to keep their older members happy. So they play the old hymns, conduct the same events they’ve had for decades, and leave the order of service unchanged. Sure enough, the seniors love their pastor. But the congregation is aging. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to predict what lies in the church’s future. The seniors may not feel inclined to make changes that would attract youth to their church, because a crowd of seniors attend Sunday services. But the trends are going in the wrong direction. If the church acts quickly, it will still have enough resources available to launch significant new ministries. But if they wait another decade, it may be too late. People typically don’t want to change until the last moment. Leaders who have an eye toward the future know procrastinating could be fatal. Leaders can’t operate based solely on today; they must lead with tomorrow in view.
3. An Organizational View
Leaders are often pressured to act in certain ways. Reduce carbon emissions by 80%! Pay lower level staff $5 per hour more than minimum wage. Retain all staff, even during severe downturns in the economy. Provide free lunch for employees. All of these things sound wonderful and are certain to elicit hearty applause. But are they best for the organization? Obviously, a happy staff may have better morale. But if the company goes broke, the staff morale no longer matters. This principle has been evident in the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Companies have wanted to hold on to their best staff, but they have also had to nurse their shrinking cash reserves. Loyalty to employees is noble, but those employees will face unemployment if the company goes bankrupt. Leaders must have an eye on what’s best for the organization.
I faced this challenge as a seminary president. Much of our budget came from funds I had to raise from donors each year. When I came to the school, it was in dire financial straits. I will never forget receiving a call from the local bank alerting me that we had just gone into an overdraft position, and we didn’t have an overdraft! We worked hard to strengthen our finances and to build reserves. Every year, as we developed our next year’s budget, we faced the issue of cost of living wage increases. Did we automatically give every employee a 3% or 5% cost of living increase? While we cared about our staff and wanted to pay them fairly, I also had to ensure the school could pay its bills. Every dollar increase I paid someone meant I had to raise one more dollar in our annual fundraising campaign. Don’t get me wrong, we set each person’s salary at a fair rate and included health and retirement benefits. But I didn’t want to instill into the employees a sense of entitlement so they expected to be given a wage increase regardless of how the school was doing financially or how the economy at large was faring. Furthermore, we were a nonprofit institution owned by our denomination. The majority of the pastors in our small denomination did not receive an automatic cost of living increase in their salary every year. I was loath to establish a cash-hungry denominational bureaucracy that chewed up large sums of funds just to fund people’s annual wage increase. I had learned that it is easy to give things to employees but extremely difficult to take something away. We certainly tried to be fair to our staff, but we were careful not to set expectations we couldn’t afford to meet year in and year out.
Again, pastors like to be liked. It feels good when people say you are the best pastor they ever had. But sometimes the desire to keep everyone happy leads to a weak and anemic organization. More than 4,000 churches close in the USA every year, and many of these closures are the result of leaders who cared more about keeping their people happy today than about keeping their organization healthy for tomorrow.
Ultimately, leaders are hired to lead organizations. Staff and parishioners will come and go, but the organization will (hopefully) remain. Politicians try to keep people happy. Statespeople build strong organizations.
4. People View.
Organizations do not typically exist merely to provide jobs for employees. Companies are built to make profits for shareholders. Organizations have a mission, and staff are hired to fulfill that mission. Rarely are the staff the mission. When, for instance, a church exists merely to service and please its own members, the church will eventually be unable to provide those services because it will have declined or died.
That said, it is impossible to achieve your organization’s purpose if you mistreat people. As a Christian, you are a steward of every life God puts into your care. You are called to love them and treat them in a manner that glorifies God.
At times, leaders must keep an eye on the people when others are concerned about achieving goals. For example, my business manager might feel that we should raise the rent on student housing, because we need more rental revenue. I, on the other hand, might sense that, though we need the money, we are already charging our students all they can reasonably afford. While leaders must keep their eyes on their mission, they can’t neglect their people, or the wheels will come off long before the organization arrives at its destination.
I recall a particularly stressful time at our seminary when the faculty were striving to produce the massive reports our accrediting agency required. It was our first time to be accredited, and we wanted to do everything correctly. As a result, people were stressed, and tempers occasionally flared. I learned that, in his impatience to get a report finished, a faculty member had spoken in a demeaning manner to one of our clerical support staff. I spoke to the academic dean about it. He agreed that the behavior was inappropriate, but he was trying to be lenient, because he knew the strain his people were under. His job was to lead the faculty, and he felt that these brilliant, pressured professors needed all the slack they could get at the moment.
But I sensed there was something more important occurring. We were a Christian organization. We were obligated always to act in Christ-like fashion. Likewise, we claimed that everyone in our organization was worthy of respect, yet some of the faculty were getting a pass. I realized that as important as achieving accreditation was, we couldn’t allow people to be chewed up in the process. I called a faculty meeting and laid down the law on how I expected every person to treat the staff and one another. I told them if the stress on them was so much that they were unable to act in a Christ-like manner, they should talk with me, and we would make the necessary adjustments. I was determined that the culture of our organization would be a place where people worked hard but continued to reflect Christ.
I also recall a time when I noticed our buildings and grounds director was staying quite late at work. He was a hard worker, and we were in the midst of a challenging project. Yet I also knew he had two young children. He felt responsible for the project, and he didn’t want to let me down. I called him into my office and told him I had noticed that he had been working long hours. I asked him if all those hours were necessary. He agreed some were not. I asked him how he was making that time up to his family. He didn’t have a plan. I told him I didn’t want him or his family to burn out during this project, so I needed him to go home at day’s end to play with his kids. We got the project finished, and he is still happily married.
Leader’s constantly keep their eye on what’s important, and that usually means people.
5. God’s View
The final viewpoint leaders must nurture is heaven’s view. Does their organization’s conduct glorify God? I work with CEOs of publicly traded companies. Many of them have discovered that God cares about how they run their companies. Some have hired corporate chaplains to minister to their employees. Others offer various classes to help employees upgrade their skills and education. I know some who have supported or led Bible studies before work or during the lunch hour. Others have vetoed certain advertising campaigns that would have violated biblical morals. It can be challenging when a Christian leader works in a non-Christian environment. Yet wise leaders understand that they need God’s blessing on their endeavors, so it is crucial that they remain alert to what God is doing in their organization.
This principle certainly applies to Christian organizations and churches. When I was a seminary president, I regularly met with the management of the various departments. We would typically go around the board room table and people would talk about what they had been doing. The librarian would report how many new books had been processed. The bookstore director would share sales numbers. But it dawned on me that if you ask the wrong question, you’ll get the wrong answer. Rather than asking, “What are you doing?” I began asking, “What have you seen God doing from your vantage point in this organization?” That question led to an entirely different discussion!
The business manager reported that the month before, the FedEx delivery man had made a delivery and then remained standing at the counter. When the business manager asked if he needed something, the man replied, “What is it about this place?” He said he made deliveries all over the city, but every time he entered our front door, it “felt” different than any other place where he made deliveries. A wonderful conversation about God ensued. Others began to report how they, too, had experienced unusual conversations with customers or students or contractors, and they realized that God was working in unusual ways in our organization. As you can imagine, those exciting conversations made staff meetings far more enjoyable to attend.
I learned that, as a leader, it was up to me to consider heaven’s perspective of our work. I was responsible for where our staff focused. If I asked questions about them, they would concentrate on themselves. If I asked God-oriented questions, they’d focus on Him. My staff typically concentrated on their tasks at hand. It was my responsibility to maintain the heavenly view.
Conclusion
Ordinary workers may be able to maintain just one view of their work and their organization, but leaders have no such luxury. Leaders must put on at least five different pairs of glasses to see their organization in full. If your organization has been struggling or plateaued or underperforming, perhaps you need to look at it from another angle.
