I’ve been on both sides of leadership: following and leading. I’ve also lived long enough to know that the general public tends to be skeptical of leadership in any arena. Now, this is a tough thing to call out, because there have been so many reasons not to trust leaders in the past.
However, throwing a blanket of cynicism over all of leadership is so unfair. I’ve seen this play out in ugly ways in the church. Decisions are made. People disagree with said decisions.
And then the ugliness rears its ugly head in the form of assumptions (unfair, not-fully-thought-out, ridiculous assumptions).
“They’re only going that direction because _______.”
“He just changed the budget so it _________.”
“She quit because _________.”
I’ve never personally experienced leaders who make decisions based purely on selfish motives. Most times, you’ll find that when you get down to the details of the decision-makers, they’ve made the best decision for the scenario. However, in some cases, a less-than-perfect solution may have been reached.
STOP THE PRESSES! Bad decisions are made?! What?! Yep. It’s true. It happens. Every once in a while, leaders make bad decisions. It’s crazy, because it’s not like we make bad decisions. Nope…never.
What if we decided to move on without the cynicism toward leadership? What if we saw the good side of people and decided that we’d stop jumping to conclusions when leaders make decisions that we agree with?
Andy Stanley said it this way: “We need to start believing the best, and stop assuming the worst. Trusting is risky. Refusing to trust is riskier.”