Tensions vs. Decisions | Leadership Tensions | Part 1 of 10

Welcome to a new series we’re calling “Leadership Tensions.” In today’s episode, Chip Parker shares about the importance of managing certain tensions and how crucial it is for some tensions to prompt us to make a decision. Let’s dive in!

Thanks for listening to the Impact Leadership podcast! We are so glad that you're here. If you're looking to connect with Chip Parker, send him a message at chip@theorchardcc.org. New episodes are released weekly on Wednesdays. We'll catch you in the next episode!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everybody, welcome in to the Impact Leadership Podcast. My name is Chip Parker, and I'm the lead pastor at the Orchard Community Church, a multi-site church in North Central Florida working to impact lostness and impact the next generation. This podcast is all about helping you as a church leader grow your leadership to grow your impact. Let's hop into this week's conversation. I don't know what your driving record looks like, but honestly, I've got a pretty good driving record. I've never been in a lot of accidents. As a matter of fact, my first accident I was ever in was really the worst one that I've ever been in. It was a single car accident where I rolled over my mom's new explorer. And it was just weird how it happened. I was driving down a dirt road coming from a friend's house, and the dirt on the side of the road wasn't packed. It was really soft, really loose. There was like a little ditch on the side of the road. And I just got too close to the edge. And when I got too close to the edge, the tires dug into that soft dirt and I started to spin out and kind of fishtail out of control. And in that moment, I had a couple of options. I could just let go of the steering wheel and see what happens, you know, carry underwood Jesus take the wheel, I guess, or I could try to regain control. And I did. So I took the wheel and I corrected, but as a young driver, I overcorrected, jerked the wheel too hard, the wheels dug in again, and that top heavy explorer went rolling. And I think that that is a story that really can speak to what it feels like to be in leadership a lot of times, because we really have choices as leaders with what we're going to do with the steering wheel. We are either going to let it go and things just happen and it goes off the rails on its own, or if we're not careful, we grab that wheel and jerk it too hard, overcorrect, and we wind up breaking something. See, leadership is all about managing the tension of holding that steering wheel of your organization just right. And so what we're going to do in this next series that we're jumping into is talk all about the tensions that leaders face. And so before we jump into some of those tensions, I want to just pause and talk about tension in leadership just a little bit on its own. Because if you are a leader, no doubt you know what it is to deal with tensions, whether it is tensions in the systems and operations of your business, or maybe it's just the tensions of managing people and relationships. Look, I'm a pastor in a church. I know all about the tensions that come with people and relationships. The truth is, whatever field we're in, we all deal with tension. This is a huge part of leadership, learning how to manage those things. But here's what I want you to understand. And this is really gonna kind of form the framework for what we talk about in this series and how we talk about the tensions that we face. Here's what you have to know some things in leadership are tensions that we have to hold, right? They're not gonna go away. They are what they are. We just have to hold the tension and make sure we don't let go of the steering wheel and then make sure we don't jerk it too hard in one direction. Some things in leadership are tensions to hold. Others that feel like tensions, they're just decisions we need to make. They're not attention that needs to be held. It is a decision that we have to make and then hold to it. And here's why it's so important that we understand this. If you treat a decision like attention, something that needs to be decided, something that needs to be handled, it is gonna cause your organization to drift, it's gonna cause your culture to spiral, and you're gonna wind up going in the wrong direction. However, the flip side of that is true as well. If it is a tension we should be managing, and yet we treat it like a decision and jerk that wheel too hard to one side or the other, then what's gonna happen is we are going to break something. And so what we have to figure out is as we face tensions in our leadership, which of these tensions are tensions that we need to manage, and which of these are just decisions that we need to make? And so what we're gonna do over the weeks ahead is look at some of these apparent tensions. The tensions of our identity versus our performance, who we are versus what we do, the tension of humility versus confident. Should we be humble leaders or should we be confident leaders? The tension of showing grace to people that we lead and learning how to hold them accountable, the tension of being accessible to the people we lead and creating healthy boundaries. The other tensions we're gonna look at are the tension of clarity versus complexity. Do we need to be nuanced as leaders or do we need to be clear? We're gonna look at the tension of holding control over your organization and empowering others. Which of those should we lean into? Control or empowerment? We're gonna look at the tension of fruitfulness and faithfulness. What are we more responsible for? The fruit we bear are being faithful to what God has entrusted us. We're gonna look at the tension that maybe we feel most of all, the attention of the important versus the urgent. How do you manage those things that are super right now in our face need to be dealt with versus things that may be truly important in your organization? And then we're gonna look at finally the tension of doing good and feeling good. And the answer is some of these tensions are just that. They're tensions. Some of these tensions aren't tensions, they're decisions we need to make. And so in the weeks ahead, we are gonna walk through these and say, okay, this one, see, this is a tension we need to manage. Okay, this one, this is a decision we need to make. Because if we don't treat decisions like decisions and we don't treat tensions like tensions, we're gonna wind up wrecking our leadership and hurting our organization. So let me say it one more time. In leadership, there are some tensions that need to be held and there are some decisions that need to be made. If we treat a decision like a tension, we're gonna drift. And if we treat a tension like a decision, we're gonna break something. And so let me leave you with a couple of questions that you can start asking yourself to decide if what you're facing really is attention or is it a decision that you need to make? Maybe ask yourself this in this apparent tension where I have two sides, if I remove one side, does it break something? Right? Like if I choose this over that, what do I lose? Does something break? Does my leadership break? Do I lose credibility? Does my culture break? Do I damage the culture that we've created here? And maybe this do relationships break? Do I lose people when I make this decision? And while those answers can't tell you 100% if this is a tension to manage or decision to make, I do think it helps you get that idea in your head and maybe pushes you a little bit more to one side or the other. So the question is if I remove this part of the tension, does something break? And then maybe the second question that we can ask along with this is one side of this tension foundational to who I am and to what we do? Right? If it's a tension that we are trying to manage, but we ask the question, is it foundational to who we are and foundational to what we do? Then maybe that's saying, okay, this isn't really attention to hold because one side of this clearly outweighs the other. So I think even now you can start asking yourself those questions. If I remove one side, does something break? And then is one side clearly foundational to who I am and to what we do? Again, some things in leadership are tensions we need to hold, some are decisions we need to make. And I tell you this: if you don't learn this framework, you're gonna spend your leadership life confused. You're gonna overcomplicate things that should be simple, simple decisions to make. And then you're gonna wind up oversimplifying some things that are really more complex tensions that you need to work to balance and hold in order to maintain a healthy culture. So I am excited to dive into this conversation. We're gonna take each of these apparent tensions week by week and then see what we can learn from them. So I hope you'll join us right here again next week on Impact Leadership. One last thing before we end this conversation is just let me say if you are a leader, specifically in the local church context or even outside of it, I would love to be able to connect with you if I can help. If you would like, I'm gonna have my email in the show notes. Reach out to me. We can set up a time to connect because here's what I know leadership is bigger than any one of us. If we're truly going to have an impact in our communities, we need to lean on each other and we need to learn from each other. So I would be more than happy to do what I can to connect with you and help you lead right where you are. So reach out, let us know how we can connect. But until then, we'll see you right back here next week on the Impact Leadership Podcast.