I have read so many books about leadership and management. The majority of my personal library consists of this genre of reading. I don’t do fiction or fantasy. I also tend to avoid historical books unless it’s a topic of particular interest to me. Most of these leadership books I have read because I found their subject matter intriguing. Some were because I wanted to learn what these leaders that I respect have to say. I want to emulate them. Some, however, have been required reading for my job. If you are a pastor or leader, I want to beg you to stop making your people read books if you’re not going to do what they say. Read that last sentence carefully. I’m not telling you to stop asking people to read books. I am asking you to consider that asking them to read something and then not following through is doing more damage than good. I used to ask my teams to read books and when I started to realize that, while the concepts in the book were great, I wasn’t going to be able to implement them, I stopped doing that. It’s incredibly discouraging and deflating to read something that sounds amazing, only to be told, nope, we aren’t doing that.
There’s nothing I agree with more and simultaneously makes me more annoyed than the statement “not all things are going to work in this organization.” I absolutely agree with the sentiment that all organizations are different what works here may not work there. You have far too many variables. Personalities, finances, manpower, cultural considerations, and much more all play into how and why different things work in different places. But as a leader, please consider that when the overall content of something you just asked your staff to read isn’t something you’re going to put into practice, you are causing harm to your organization and your employees.
Imagine sharing the great concept of free healthcare, gym memberships, prescription drug coverage, and daycare for children of all ages as something for your employees and then saying, “but we aren’t going to do that here.” Yikes, can you imagine the hurt you just inflicted? The truth is, some of the leadership concepts in these really popular books are just the same as the example I shared. If you’re asking your people to read books that promote open dialogue, but you’re going to be a closed leader, not good. If you’re reading books that are talking about empowering your people at all levels, but then you only empower a select few at the top, not good. I could keep sharing more examples of things I have seen over the years personally or heard from other people about their employers, but it all ends the same way – expecting people to read something that guides them down a road of expectation or direction that isn’t ever going to line up with what leadership actually intends to do. And it’s all not good. It makes us look bad as leaders if we aren’t going to do what we are asking them to read.
The other catch is that, there may be 10 principles in a book, but you only agree with 5 of them. That’s not unusual. I often have to remind myself that I don’t have to agree with everything someone else says just because they wrote a book. Heck, there are plenty of people that don’t agree with what I write in my blog. It’s just my perspective. I know others share my perspective and agree with it. Often, what I’m writing is not just my own personal experience, but the experience of others too. I write about it because I’ve heard it enough times or experienced it enough times to know it’s noteworthy. But, that doesn’t mean every single person has the same experience or perspective. But, when you share something with 10 principles that you only agree with 5, be ready to be accountable for those other 5 that others might agree with that you don’t.
I heard my pastor say during the pandemic of 2020 that two believers that have a relationship with Christ can certainly have different opinions, perspectives, positions, and interpretations of the same thing. And we have to recognize that. We’d like to think that, if we are all believers, we will always share the exact same thoughts on everything. I mean, scripture says that we will have unity in the body, right? Well, we are still human. We still have sin, experience, circumstance, decision, free will, etc. and those things will naturally lead to different points of view. It’s not wrong. There ARE things in scripture that we most certainly MUST have the same position on. Marriage, murder, adultery, etc. But, not every single thing, situation, encounter that may happen will be outlined perfectly in scripture. That’s where we must pray and trust the Holy Spirit to direct us. Do we do that with the things we read? Or do we read something, take it at what it says like it’s the gospel of leadership because some noteworthy author penned it? Or do we decide we will only accept the parts we like because sometimes the parts we don’t like challenge us to think or act differently? Or do we read and attempt to interpret what the author is saying and try to see how it would work in our context? For me, the case has been all of the above.
If we are going to take the time to read things like this, we need to do so being open to the fact that we don’t know everything. We have to have wisdom to know what’s good and not so good about what we are reading. We need to understand the purpose, the author’s intent, and our situational influence as we are reading the text. We also need to think through if we are going to really ask people in our care as leaders to read it alongside us. There absolutely will be things that you want your people to read that not all will apply. But, do your team right and talk about those things and why they don’t work. Allow the team to challenge your thinking if they believe they could work. Be humble, and ready to have the dialogue. They may be right. You may be right. You may come to a different conclusion together. But please, don’t just have a reading list for the sake of having one. You may be doing more harm than good to the team atmosphere by doing so.
It's All About Perspective 