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Leaders/Boards, Are You Paying Attention Yet?
Brian Kreeger • Sep 01, 2022
Are You? Struggling leaders are all around us, and are falling at an alarming rate. These falls are destroying families, causing upheaval in the nonprofit and corporate worlds, and leaving collateral damage all over the place.
While there are many positive and motivating reasons for leaders to continue on their organizational and personal missions, one fact remains: Leadership is hard.
Leadership can be heartbreaking, lonely, and isolating. It can be confidence and self-image shattering. It can be pressure packed and can rock you to your very core, leaving you blabbering obscenities at a statue in the park.
The difficult side of leadership causes a person to question why they are doing what they are doing. They may second-guess every decision they make during times of discouragement and experience uncharacteristic levels of insecurity. They may question who they truly are at their deepest levels. Leaders may even question God.
The hardest part is that most people don’t understand the stress and pressure you face, especially those closest to you, and those you care about the most.
(This blog focuses on starting a conversation centered on preventing the fall of nonprofit leaders. I write it from a Christian perspective, but all leaders will benefit. Be sure to sign up to receive these articles via email every Tuesday at briankreeger.com as well as taking a look at previous blog articles. In addition to receiving these articles two days before they hit social media, you will receive the article "5 Early Indicators of a Christian Nonprofit Leadership Fall" along with the Contents, Introduction and the Appendix (My story) of my book, The Courageous Ask: A Proactive Approach to Prevent the Fall of Christian Nonprofit
Look, I don’t say this as if I am teaching you something or am imparting some incredible wisdom. I am saying this because I want you to know it’s ok. Too many times these challenges are used to isolate us, as if we are the only ones feeling this way.
Simply not true. In fact, if you think of the leader you most admire, they are feeling this way too. Perhaps you should ask them?
But, you are passionate about what you do, and the positive sides of leadership, especially the human impact, keep you motivated and moving forward.
A fall starts small—taking some office supplies home, putting your lunch on the expense account, a glance, an extended look, a temporary fantasy, daydreaming, cutting out an hour early, or clicking an ad on the Internet. These are all seemingly small things in and of themselves, but can also be sinful in their own right and context.
Absent of healthy accountability,
self-judgment, and evaluation, any one of these can trigger a downward spiral to disaster in the life of a nonprofit executive.
Each individual has different triggers. Perhaps none of these, or maybe one of many others, could trigger a disaster in your life.
One thing I am absolutely certain of is that there are those who desire to get the fall started in your life, no matter how small the trigger (Christians will recognize this as satan). And their game is long.
Once a leader begins to stumble, it is nearly impossible to recover. Yes, I have seen it done, but only if it is caught very early by the leader or those around them.
This kind of reminds me of the experience of a downhill skier that goes beyond the norm, is skiing on the black diamond slopes, or even those uncharted mountains. These skiers sometimes face a formidable foe….the avalanche.
According to Avalanche.org, nearly all avalanche deaths in North America are something called “dry slab avalanches.” They go on to explain, “If you’re looking for the killer, the slab avalanche is your man.”
A “slab” is a cohesive plate of snow that slides as a unit on the snow underneath. Picture tipping the living room table up on edge and a magazine slides off the table. Now picture yourself standing in the middle of the magazine. The crack forms up above you, and there you are; there’s usually no escape, and you’re off for the ride of your life.
To those leaders who have fallen, this will sound familiar.
The bonds holding a slab in place typically fracture at about 220 miles per hour, and it appears to shatter like a pane of glass. It’s typically about the size of half a football field, usually about one to three feet deep, and typically reaches speeds of 20 miles per hour within the first three seconds and quickly accelerates to around 80 miles per hour after the first, say, six seconds.
Now, catch this, also from Avalanche.org (Read with the stumbling nonprofit leader in mind):
"Dry slab avalanches can lie patiently, teetering on the verge of catastrophe, sometimes for days to even months. The weak layers beneath slabs are also extremely sensitive to the rate at which they are stressed. In other words, the rapid addition of the weight of a person can easily initiate the fracture on a slope that would not have avalanched otherwise. A slope can lay in waiting like a giant booby trap—just waiting for the right person to come along. The crack often forms well above the victim leaving little room for escape. Does any of this sound dangerous to you?"
John Stonestreet, in an article from Breakpoint and the Colson center, wrote, “Great sins are often the product of many little decisions and are driven by internal rebellions that are finally offered opportunity.” Please read that quote again. Does that sound like an avalanche waiting to happen?
Let’s take a moment
to talk about those internal rebellions.
As a leader, those internal rebellions can form over time as your humanness may rise to the top. Before experiencing my own fall, with humility, I always spread the credit out and expressed that my part was minimal.
Or was it? Sure, I gave God credit for all of it, but there was this little part inside of me that told me
I
did answer the call of God.
I
was the vehicle He chose. It was
my
signature on all of the documents. It is
my
name on the awards.
I
did have a part. What pride and arrogance!
And that credit absorption worked well for satan and with other early indicators of a fall: Shift in/reorganization of priorities, Loss of personal identity, Listening deficit, Adrenaline addiction. (I go into these in further detail in a report I developed that can be obtained on my website,
briankreeger.com)
For those of you
who believe you have it under control, maybe you do.
But consider this one last fact concerning skiers/avalanches: the general consensus seems to be that the speed of Olympic downhill skiers tends to fall in the 80 miles per hour range, with some exceeding even 90 miles per hour on the fastest sections of the course. Recreational downhill skiers often average a speed somewhere between 20 to 40 miles per hour.
Can a skier outrun an avalanche? It seems that the likelihood is better that the same skier might be able to win the lottery. It’s exactly the same when a catalyst triggers a leadership fall….it is nearly impossible to outrun after it is identified.
Executive, are you paying attention
yet? Board members, are you paying attention yet?
Without proper identification and acknowledgment of inner rebellions and catalysts that can activate potential disasters currently lying just below the surface, the likelihood of a disaster, a leadership fall, is greatly increased.
I submit to you
that most executives -no, let’s make this personal- most of you, in the deepest part of who you are, can identify potential temptations in your particular life that can lead to a disastrous fall.
I remind you, “Great sins are often the product of many little decisions and are driven by internal rebellions that are finally offered opportunity.” As is human nature, they/you think they/you have it under control.
Little may you know that there is a catalyst that just might come along to activate that disastrous temptation and take it beyond your control.
I know this because it is what happened in my world.
It’s time to commit to a proactive approach in avoiding a disaster.
Next weeks blog article will get you started.
Be Courageous!
Be Proactive!
Be sure to sign up to receive these articles via email every Tuesday at
briankreeger.com. In addition to receiving these articles two days before they hit social media, you will receive the article "5 Early Indicators of a Christian Nonprofit Leadership Fall" along with the Contents, Introduction and the Appendix (My Story) of my book,
The Courageous Ask: A Proactive Approach to Prevent the Fall of Christian Nonprofit Leaders.
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Executives -pastors or nonprofit executives in our context- are put on a pedestal. It’s not that the typical person necessarily believes they belong there or desires to put them there. But it is human nature that this happens. The general public often places much higher expectations on leaders than they do on themselves. Sometimes it is appropriate, and the leader has put themselves in that position. In some cases, it is simply scriptural. For instance, James 3 points out that those who teach will be judged more strictly, thereby heightening the expectations of those who lead and teach. But what about when we accept, and enact, those elevated expectations and forget the humanity of our leaders? Often a community heaps on a leader the expectation that they are to perform with the perfection of Jesus and not simply be a Jesus follower and disciple just like them, but with a unique calling and heightened responsibility. Too many times when a leader shows human imperfection, the respect we have for them is damaged. Leaders fall under strict judgment, and we forget they are no less fallible than us. The imperfection they have colors any positive experience we would have had with them otherwise. While most of us acknowledge this strict, hypocritical judgment and recognize it as not being how we want to treat our leaders, it is a difficult battle to fight in our own attitudes and minds. No matter who the leader is, they are not Jesus. But please allow me to reverently make some comparisons. (This blog focuses on starting a conversation centered on preventing the fall of nonprofit leaders. I write it from a Christian perspective, but all leaders will benefit. Be sure to sign up to receive these articles via email every Tuesday at briankreeger.com as well as taking a look at previous blog articles. In addition to receiving these articles two days before they hit social media, you will receive the article "5 Early Indicators of a Christian Nonprofit Leadership Fall" along with the Contents, Introduction and the Appendix (My story) of my book, The Courageous Ask: A Proactive Approach to Prevent the Fall of Christian Nonprofit Leaders. )
You are the community, no matter what formal role you play in a particular organization, or if you play any role at all. My blog articles typically focus on the roles the leader and the board have in preventing the fall of Christian nonprofit leaders. But I contend that the community that exists around organizational leaders and boards has a role as well. In fact, a community’s role can many times be much bigger. My next few blog articles will focus on the role of the community in preventing the fall of Christian nonprofit leaders. (This blog focuses on starting a conversation centered on preventing the fall of nonprofit leaders. I write it from a Christian perspective, but all leaders will benefit. Be sure to sign up to receive these articles via email every Tuesday at briankreeger.com as well as taking a look at previous blog articles. In addition to receiving these articles two days before they hit social media, you will receive the article "5 Early Indicators of a Christian Nonprofit Leadership Fall" along with the Contents, Introduction and the Appendix (My story) of my book, The Courageous Ask: A Proactive Approach to Prevent the Fall of Christian Nonprofit Leaders. )
