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Be Mean About Your Vision – An Interview with Shawn Lovejoy

By April 19, 2016Leadership

Be Mean About the Vision – This is the title of my friend Shawn Lovejoy‘s newest book. Shawn is a pastor, leader’s leader, and current CEO of Courage to Lead. He truly is a friend to pastor’s. I got the opportunity to lead with Shawn at a conference last year as he unpacked some of this material with ministry leaders. What good stuff! I knew I wanted my readers to hear more about Shawn’s book – so here’s an interview with Shawn about Be Mean.

1. Most people might think a leader should be compassionate. Why would a leader ever want to “be mean”?

When I talk about being mean about the vision, I’m not giving leaders permission to be mean leaders. There are already too many of those! On the contrary, being mean about the vision is not about being mean to people or being a mean leader. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite.

If you look up the word mean in the dictionary, you’ll see several definitions. One of them says that to be mean is “to be offensive, selfish, or unaccommodating.”1 That’s the definition most of us think of first; but that’s not even the most common use of the word mean. The other definition of the word mean is “to have an intended purpose.”2 In this instance, the word mean has to do with intent. We’ll say, “I didn’t mean that,” or “I meant that as a compliment,” or “What I meant to say was . . . ” This is how we use the word most often. And that’s what “being mean” is all about.

Being “mean” about the vision is being intentional about the vision. It’s being clear about and consistent with the vision. It’s purposefully protecting the vision over time.
However, when you’re mean about the vision, you will also protect it at all costs. You won’t allow what I call “vision hijackers”—people who want to derail the vision—to steer things off course.

Thus, a small element of the other kind of meanness may be sometimes needed to preserve and protect what really matters: the vision!

2. Why do you think vision is so important for a church or organization?

The book of Proverbs says that “without a vision, people perish.” That word vision, however is directly translated “revelation.” In other words, I believe it’s our Creator that reveals His vision for our lives and the organizations we lead. So if God reveals a direction for my life, that’s simply the most important event that could happen in my life! Once that vision is revealed, I must pursue it. I must be willing to sacrifice to follow it. I must stay true to it. If God reveals His vision for me and the organization I lead, and I give up on it because of fatigue, disappointment, or discouragement, I have ceased to live the purpose for which I was created. When that happens, our organization also ceases to exist for the purpose for which it was created. I think that’s a big deal, don’t you?

3. In the book, you mention the term “vision hijackers” What do you mean by that?

I don’t know how you were raised, but I was told never to pick up hitchhikers. That may sound mean, because after all, hitchhikers obviously need a ride. Why not stop to pick them up?

Simply because, historically, hitchhikers have often become hijackers. They’ve knocked the driver in the head, seized the wheel of the car, and taken both car and driver someplace against their will! Well, hijacking happens in organizations every day. The leader gets knocked out of the driver’s seat, and the vehicle is taken somewhere else against the leader’s will. It doesn’t happen overnight. It happens over weeks, months, and years of indecisiveness and lack of action or correction by the leader.

Either consciously or unconsciously, vision hitchhikers often become vision hijackers. If we don’t wake up and seize the wheel, we will end up miles away from our original destination. We’ve must learn to recognize potential vision hijackers and then have the courage to deal with them!

4. So how does a leader respond to a potential vision hijacker?

First of all, we must be careful in our selection of new leaders. We must ensure that every new leader understands and embraces the vision. We must also be willing to confront vision drift and/or vision violations. We should never REACT to vision violations, but we should always RESPOND. Vision issues will never go away on their own. The Bible says that “a little yeast works its way through a whole batch of dough.” Vision issues will always go from bad to worse if the leader does not address them. This requires much courage on the behalf of the leaders in the organization. As leaders, we should be willing to confront issues, and even people, more quickly. Being mean about the vision requires many courageous conversations.

5. In the book you talk about “a vision worth dying for.” Doesn’t that seem a bit drastic?

Yeah, I guess it could at first. But this is precisely why I believe vision is so important. The moment we communicate a vision, it’s going to be questioned. It’s going to challenged. It’s going to be attacked. Accomplishing a God­­given vision is the most glorious and yet difficult pursuit we could ever have. People will attempt to derail it or even hijack it. I believe that only when we believe that God has revealed something peculiar and amazing to us that we are able to fight through all of the difficulties to see the vision fulfilled. Make no mistake, we will have to die to accomplish the vision…at least parts of us will! We will have to give up to go up. We will have to make tough calls and have conversations we don’t want to have. We will have to watch friends come and go. We will pay a high price. But accomplishing a God given vision is worth all of that!

Thanks Shawn! Don’t miss this book!

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Ron Edmondson

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Join the discussion 2 Comments

  • Alex says:

    Man, Nice Interview, Ron. I can't agree more. Some similarities found in my book, Discovering Your God-Given Vision. I like the idea of being "mean" about the vision. Being intentional and purposeful about the vision God's given us is vital – especially in a society that is so distracted by so many other things that appear to be "important." This one's a keeper. I might have to use some of this to be "mean" to my church 🙂 . Ok, on my way to being mean! yeah! Love it!