Gain Clarity when Leadership is Confusing
I’m sure you’ve never experienced this.
The weather was great outside. The agenda you planned for the meeting went off without a hitch. It’s getting toward 5pm and you are ready to go home after a day full of moving the ball forward.
Then somebody says, “Can we talk after work?” And a bomb is dropped. A challenging situation is launched into your lap, and in the midst of the confusion of a crucial conversation, you realize that there are deep issues that are unresolved. You do your best to finish the conversation, but in the end of the day, you go home feeling a bit demoralized.
After moments like the conversation above, I usually try processing the event with someone else to gain clarity. There can be some significant breakthroughs from talking to a friend, a coach, or a spouse. But often there is clarity that I don’t gain until I get to the quiet place of hearing God’s voice.
Remember Elijah? He was completely confused and totally forlorn, and in the quiet, God gave him clarity.
This last week, I had a moment similar to the one I described above, and I had a powerful time of hearing God’s voice that gave me clarity, confidence, and hope. I wanted to share with you a few things I learned during that time that could be helpful to you as you navigate confusing leadership conversations.
I realized as I was listening to God that there are often three places where we get tripped up during these conversations:
We get offended at somebody in the situation
We lack a plan of how to respond
We lack understanding of where we might have gone wrong in the situation (usually because of all of the self-defense mechanisms that are firing during the conversation)
As I listened to God, I felt him leading me into three moments:
The Lord highlighted for me where I had become offended with the people in the conversation as well as with my team. I was able to forgive but then also make a plan of where I felt like I needed to confront some people on something. I was also able to see Jesus in the situation where I had been hurt, and I felt peace knowing he was there with me helping me during the conversation.
I felt so much clarity as to how to move forward. I wrote down a game plan, and having a game plan brought immediate peace.
The Lord showed me a huge leadership blind spot that I hadn’t been considering in the situation. In this case, it had to do with change management, and I realized I needed to press into the book “Leading Change” and really think through how I navigate change as our team gets larger.
I left the conversation with the Lord feeling so much hope and clarity.
If you find yourself in one of these situations that is complicated and where you aren’t sure what went wrong, I encourage you to take these three questions to God:
Is there anyone I need to forgive?
What’s my plan to move forward?
Is there anything that I need to be aware of in the way I handled this situation?
When you can forgive others, make a plan, and grow as a person or in your leadership, you are going to experience a huge dose of calm.
I am praying for each one of you who reads this that you would have amazing moments of clarity as you face various challenging situations in your leadership.
If you have a specific leadership situation that you are facing, let me know how I can pray for you.