100 or more

At our last staff meeting our team looked exhausted. We’re only two months into the academic year. We’ve added a student center, increased our activity, expanded our ministry in the community and we can’t wait ’til we get a break.

Why isn’t our Monday day-off enough to recoup all the lost energy during the previous week?

My own journey to empowering volunteers was born out of crisis. My marriage was suffering. I was absent in my relationship with my then newborn son. If all of the ministry rested on my ability to be there, to carry everything out, to be the final say in every detail, I was headed for a ministry burnout and a marriage blowout.

Here’s my journey. It’s the one I shared with my team last Friday. It’s the one I’m still on… If it’s useful for you or team, here’s the whole document.

What’s the hardest thing for a good leader to learn how to do… Give something they do well to someone else. Why?

1. What if the whole operation fails?
   It’s possible that a leader is the glue holding everything together and that after he/she leaves, a black hole remains and the universe implodes and all life ceases.
2. What if the whole operation just isn’t quite as good? (isn’t done the way I would do it)
   Many leaders have a method/a way/a manner of doing things they have learned or developed over the years of honing whatever skills they have amassed. A different way of doing things is likely to yield different results. It is uncomfortable to see someone do anything differently than the-way-we’ve-always-done-it. Leaders in this scenario, act frustrated, angry and occasionally (and secretly) desire for operation-meltdown as a manner of exonerating their “way” of doing whatever-it-is.
3. What if the whole thing is immensely more successful?
   Perhaps the most troubling thing for an emerging leader is that whatever they depart actually improves without their hand stirring the pot. There is a subtle level of insecurity that guides us into wanting the universe to implode, to be proven right, to hold all the keys to success. This scenario raises a few other questions like:
   “Do I really need to be here at all?
   “What is my value in this scenario?”
   “If I don’t do it, then I won’t get the credit.”
4. What if I have more time and margin in my life?
   Surprising to people who are chronically exhausted and overworked, they are confused when they stop working as much. Initially, there is a certain level of guilt and shame about not being exhausted. Leaders have a sense of not keeping up with co-workers who are also exhausted. There is an underlying fear of awkwardly suggesting that one of the group could admit rest, whole, being refreshed to a group of tired people. Eerily, we have only a vague idea of what we’d do with our life if it wasn’t run at Mach 2. Most leaders would try to fill the empty spaces with more stuff to do and attempt to pick up the pace. (For further insight, See Commandments, Number 4).