Leadership (Im)Perfection

Mick Daly (Elder, Purpose Leader: Leader Development)
November 2007

Must Leaders be perfect? Must any of us? Didn’t Jesus say “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”? Yes he did, in Matthew 5.48, but I’m told that “be” in this context is really “become”.

Paul affirmed this, saying “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:12-14)

Like Paul I’m imperfect and “pressing on”, exhorting others to “press on”:

• Read more!

• Seek out God!

• Set Goals!

• Dream Big! (yes, that’s biblical)

• Work on personal transformation!

• Meet others where they are!

• Be accountable!

• Confess to one another!

• Lead by example!

In my “Lead Like Jesus” class we are trying to model our leadership behavior on his example. But a little book by Bill Hybels makes a good case that Jesus broke every ‘leadership law’ ever written. Not all the time, but whenever necessary. And ‘necessary’ according to Hybels is often when discipleship and leadership clash. When that happens we must choose discipleship every time. Paradoxically (from last month’s article) Jesus modeled ‘imperfect leadership’. Using the whip to drive the money changers out of the temple was ‘over the top’ – plain bad PR! Being vulnerable in the Garden of Gethsemane just before he was betrayed – that broke the rule about not showing weakness to your followers. So what can we learn from that?

It takes courage to be IMPERFECT and authentic.

I’m a perfectionist – I confess. Excellence is a godly thing in its place, but we may feel we should be like the person in church who seems to have it all together. We notice the people who do it better than we ever hope to.

We take on enormously high standards from the outside and start applying them to ourselves. And, when we fall short, we berate ourselves. We become convinced that because we

can’t be perfect, we probably don’t fit in. We doubt ourselves. We’ll never ‘make it’, so why try?

On the surface that feels like a lot of pressure… but it’s all on the surface. We seldom take the time to be quiet, to get alone and to listen. Listen to our heart. Listen to a seasoned, experienced mentor. Listen to God. They all tell us the same thing.

We’re not perfect. And, we never will be, this side of heaven. In fact, it never was the plan, at least, since the Fall. The plan has always been to go out and live joyfully and boldly with all of our imperfections. That’s what makes certain people attractive—not that they have it all together, but that they’re so incredibly comfortable not having it all together; they are even joyful about it! They know that Christianity is what they do, Christian is who they are, that Christ is who they are following and growing into, albeit slowly.

That’s why I love our church so much. We are encouraged to be who we are, stumbling forward, making mistakes, getting up and going after it again. “Saints are sinners who fall down and get up” is a line from We Fall Down by Bob Carlyle (on the Stories from the Heart CD).

So, we don’t need to get down on ourselves for our ‘failures’; just confess, repent and start over. “Fail forward” is a good philosophy.

We don’t have to have the last word…to always be right (like me!); just go to your favorite quiet place with God again and ask him to help you to "Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words." (St. Francis of Assisi)

It takes courage to allow our friends to think of us any way they want to, without our getting all talkative, trying to convince them otherwise, explaining our motives or defending our actions.

It takes courage for me to say (when I’m preparing a talk, coaching someone, or stumbling over trying to “explain the reason for the hope I have” 1 Peter 3:15, aka ‘witnessing’) “Mick, a lot of people aren’t going to get this. But that’s OK… it IS OK!” It’s ok because that’s between God and them. It’s not all about me and my lack of perfection. Only God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are perfect. That’s all I need to know.

It takes courage to be imperfect. But you know what? I think we’re up for it. I think we are getting ready to go out and blow the roof off our church, our community and our neighborhood, touching and changing lives—completely happy knowing that we’ll never get it quite right, but that God will get it done, because we are faithful at least to try.

Do what you love in the service of others who love what you do