You never feel as intimidating as you come across to others. When you're 40 you still feel like you're 20. When you're a leader, you still feel just like some guy.
But there is a power that comes with age and authority that others perceive very strongly. It can create a distance between you and them. It can make it hard to foster collaboration, because despite your invitations for ideas, people are too intimidated to say what they're really thinking.
I think I make this worse because of my kind of dominating personality manner – I analyse, critique and destroy ideas. What I think I'm doing is just playing with ideas and being vigorously engaged in discussion. I expect others to rise up and fight back. But many personality types just wilt.
And so even though I am seeking to listen, to be gentle, to be collaborative – I accidentally give off a vibe of 'not listening', 'steamrolling', 'being harsh'.
So I've been talking with peers, team members and Nikki about how to soften some of these tendencies.
Not your best buddy
Don't get me wrong: there's nothing bad about being strong, clear on where you're going or even a bit 'distant', necessarily. It's not as if relational, collaborative leadership is always wonderful and that more directive leadership is always bad. There are multiple ways to lead, each with their strengths and weaknesses. And many of them can be embodied in a godly, Christian manner.
So I'm not trying to change my personality or leadership style – as if that were possible. I'm seeking to temper my personality and leadership style.
I think there are advantages to being a more directive leader: it's efficient rather than wasteful, clear rather than confused. It builds a relationship around working partnership rather than relational friendship, and so it can be less manipulative or complicated.
With my work at the Uni Fellowship of Christians, I'm not wanting to pretend to be a student. I'm not promising to be their best buddy. They don't need me to play indoor soccer and 'Mafia' with them. I'm not running a social group.
More than that, I'm not running a youth group – I'm leading a ministry with young adults, and leading them into Christian adulthood. So I want to send messages to them that I'm calling them to rise up, rather than blob along.
So I deliberately dress 'up' just a little – the shirt rather than the T-shirt, the long pants rather than the shorts, dress shoes rather than sneakers, take the time to shave and so on. These are all little ways to demonstrate this.
Approachable
But this can all go too far, can't it? And it can go become scary, intimidating, dominating, unapproachable.
So here's some of the things I am doing to be more gentle and approachable:
- verbally emphasising very often the desire for input, ideas, criticisms, suggestions and my desire to be available;
- initiating meetings and discussions where all I do is listen and invite input;
- give personal illustrations and examples in my sermons;
- talk about my own failures and weaknesses;
- celebrate others' initiative and ideas;
- Nikki also suggested I do a few more mufti days (go to things in casual clothes), so I've been doing that. In particular, I always go to our student leaders' breakfasts in casual clothes;
- when discussing ideas and criticisms, I'm trying to spend a lot of time asking quetions and seeking clarification, rather than EITHER just listening OR critiquing/analysing.
I shared this with the student leaders. They found it funny. But I think they kind of liked it too. The other day I turned up at our student leaders' breakfast and found this on the whiteboard 😛
NB: the 'so long as you don't let it rule you' is a reference to a sermon I'd preached the previous week, about how it's ok to dress fashionably or wear a nosering, as long as you are not defining yourself by these things.
