Being a leader isn’t easy. With every decision a leader makes someone is happy – and someone is not. One often misunderstood reason leadership is challenging is the tensions in leading people.
Every leader experiences some of these tensions – every single day.
In fact, learning to balance the tensions of leadership may determine the level of success a leader can sustain. If a leader leans too far one direction – their leadership effectiveness suffers.
Let me share some examples of these everyday type leadership tensions.
7 everyday tensions of every leader:
Displaying confidence without being arrogant.
People want to follow a confident leader, but pride is a repulsive trait.
I feel this tension especially when I’m leading on a new team or with new people on the team. With several decades of being a senior leader, I’ve learned a few things. I need them to understand there are reasons for them to follow my leadership, but I shouldn’t unpack my resume for them immediately either or always have an experience story that trumps their’s.
Making bold decisions while building collaboration.
This one I experience most every meeting we have as a team. I can almost always sense the room waiting for my opinion. Many times I realize we won’t move forward until I weigh in to the matter.
But good leadership involves collaboration. I’m not the only voice – and many times not the smartest voice in the process. If I have the only answer no one will participate, but if I never have any answers no one will want to follow my leadership.
Showing strength while displaying compassion.
People want to follow leadership who generally care for them as individuals. Compassion for those who can’t help themselves is an attractive leadership quality. The best leaders I know have a concern for others.
Yet, no one wants compassion to be translated as weakness. There are times a leader has to stand strong for they know is right thing – even when everyone can’t fully understand yet what they are doing or why.
Controlling energy towards a vision but allowing individuals to chart their path.
Good leaders create healthy structure which can be managed for effectiveness, but, at the same time, the best discoveries often come when people are allowed the freedom to create, explore, and “break the rules”.
I feel this tension leading a multi-campus church. We are all part of one church and yet we strive to allow each campus to reflect it’s own culture.
Celebrating victory while not resting on current success.
Another way to say this one would be: Honoring history while pushing towards the future. This one is hard for me. I’m ready and wired for “next” and like to keep moving.
Sitting still is one of my hardest disciplines. I know, however, there are those on our team who can’t adequately move forward until we’ve recognized our current success. They need to celebrate and reflect.
Continually balancing this tension is good for the team.
Learning from other leaders but being who you were uniquely wired to be.
I’m a huge proponent of wisdom-seeking. I think we should always have a mentor. And usually more than one. Plus, I try to always be reading, attending conferences, and learning from the experiences of others.
Yet, there’s a tension of attempting to duplicate another person’s success and being exactly who God has called me to be. God has not called me to preach like anyone else. He’s called me to preach like me. He also has not called me to lead like John Maxwell – but to lead like I would lead.
This doesn’t mean I can’t learn from others, but I cannot forget God has uniquely wired me. By the way, He has uniquely wired you also.
Spending time with people versus completing tasks.
This may personally be the most common tension for of the ones listed. Leadership always involves people. Without people – without getting to know them, earning their trust, investing in them and showing them we care – leadership will never be effective.
But I also have paperwork to do. Sunday’s sermons don’t write themselves. And once a month I have to reconcile my credit card report. The real work of a leader is people – and yet the “other” work must get done.
Tension. I realize I’ve only exposed the problem, without a lot of solutions. Honestly, your solution will be different from mine. But I think the answer isn’t necessarily an easy to define solution for each of these tensions. It is recognizing they exist and continually seeking to live within them.
When one side of the tension is getting more attention than the other, fighting to get back to a better balance of tensions.
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