Nine concrete tips on leadership
Issue #126
The young man of leadership caliber will work while others waste time, study while others sleep, pray while others play. There will be no place for loose or slovenly habits in word or thought, deed or address. He will observe a soldierly discipline in diet and deportment, so that he might wage a good warfare. He will without reluctance undertake the unpleasant task which others avoid, or the hidden duty which others evade because it evokes no applause or wins no appreciation. A Spirit-filled leader will not shrink from facing up to difficult situations or persons, or from grasping the nettle when that is necessary. He will kindly and courageously administer rebuke when that is called for; or he will exercise necessary discipline when the interest of the Lord‘s work demand it. He will not procrastinate in writing the difficult letter. His letter basket will not conceal the evidence of his failure to grapple with the urgent problems.
—J. Oswald Sanders, 1967
1. “How do I get {person} to {start/stop} doing {thing}?”
We get variations of this question in counseling all the time. The world is a messed up place. This comes up most often within marriages.
It could be disrespect, a porn issue, nagging, negligence, etc.
People want a silver bullet—and gurus, experts, life coaches, and unfortunately pastors usually feel like they have to provide it, even if it doesn’t exist. So a lot of the advice you hear around this question really just ends up being ways to manipulate people.
This can (occasionally) work in the short term. But it will always make things worse in the long run.
The reality is that your options are few if a person doesn’t want to change.
You can talk to them about it.
You can pray to God about it.
You can change any of your behaviors that exacerbate or contribute to the issue.
These are the main things you can do—and they are powerful.
But, again, you can’t force a person to change doesn’t want to change.
The problem comes if these steps don’t yield the desired results. People can’t accept that this is the sum total of their realistic options. So they start reaching for unrealistic ones. Often this is a move of desperation—”better to do something than continue to live like this.” So they resort to…
Threats/ultimatums
Using children as pawns
Physical intimidation
Sexual withholding
Etc etc. These are all various forms of manipulation. Essentially, it’s a recognition that the person does not want to change, and so the strategy turns to trying to use somethign they do want as leverage instead.
This is like throwing water on a grease fire. It doesn’t put anything out, and spreads the fire elsewhere.
At this point, a lot of guys will tell us—and the topic is always dealing with a rebellious wife—that the answer is to involve the authorities. Usually church authorities, since in most cases we’re not talking crimes, and in most cases family courts are horribly biased against the man anyway. (Not that many churches aren’t, but ideally you have positioned yourself under the oversight of a good church who won’t just respond with “she wouldn’t be that way if you were loving her like Jesus loves the church.”)
Let’s talk about involving the eldership of a good church.
What’s the strategy here?
When you work out your strategy, the basic idea is to consider your possible moves, and ask yourself, “and then what?”
So you meet with the elders. And then what?
They call your wife to a session meeting and rebuke her.
And then what?
Specifically, if she still doesn’t change, then what?
Let’s say the elders actually excommunicate your wife.
Then what?
What if she still doesn’t change?
What if she switches churches and that church takes her side?
Then what?
Now you are married to an excommunicated woman attending a different church.
Of course, the same applies to black pill fantasies about a completely reformed divorce court. Let’s say we get to the point where a spouse can’t divorce without a legitimate reason.
So she tries to divorce you—but the court doesn’t allow it.
Then what?
You are married to someone who is only remaining in the relationship because she can’t get out of it legally.
That would be a very unpleasant household, right?
At this point, we will inevitably be accused of counseling men to never try to disciple or discipline their wives, of simping, of telling men to just man up and take it, of being soft on sin, of not taking the family court situation seriously, of being pro-divorce, yada yada.
No.
It is necessary and good to excommunicate people sometimes.
It is urgently necessary to reform our wicked divorce laws and courts.
But this misses the point. We are looking right now at the goal, the stated question—”how do I get my wife to do X?” and assessing the strategies that some people turn to, or even promote, to achieve that goal.
Do they actually move in the direction of achieving it, or do they work in the opposite direction? Church discipline works on repentant people. But what if your wife is unrepentant?
We’re not saying you shouldn’t go ahead with it. Church discipline exists for a reason. We’re saying that if your own efforts to change her haven’t worked, probably the efforts of your elders won’t work either.
In other words, you can’t force someone to love or respect you.
You can’t force them to love God and respect His authorities.
So you have to be aware of what the true consequences are likely to be, rather than thinking somehow “this time” the problem will get fixed.
There are clearly times to involve ecclesiastical and civil courts. But our counsel is to patiently give yourself to these three actions for as long as possible:
Talk to them about it.
Pray to God about it.
Change any of your behaviors that exacerbate or contribute to the issue.
Exhaust these actions as much you can, because these are the only things you can control. You’ll never be able to control another person. You can only lead them if they want to be led, and put pressure on them if they don’t.
If you have to do the latter, count the cost beforehand.
2. Do it now
Michael is re-working my way through Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders.
Here are his favorite quotes from chapter 11: “The Leader and his Time.”
…the great use of one’s life is to spend it for something that will outlast it, for the value of life is computed not by its duration by its donation. Not how long we live, but how fully and how well.
Yet, in spite of its preciousness and vast potentialities, there is nothing which we squander so thoughtlessly as time… if we are meticulously careful in the use of the days, the years will take care of themselves.
The problem is not that of needing more time, but of making better use of the time we have. Let us face the fact squarely that each of us has as much time as anyone else in the world. The President of the United States of America has 24 hours to his day and so we have. Others may have more ability, influence or money than us, but they have no more time.
The servant who had less capacity but showed equal faithfulness received the same reward. While we cannot be held responsible for our capacity, we are responsible for the strategic employment of our time.
Time can be lost, but it can never be retrieved. It cannot be hoarded, it must be spent. Nor can it be postponed. If it is not used productively it is irretrievably lost…
…the leader must be meticulously careful in his selection of priorities. Comparative values of opportunities and responsibilities must be sedulously weighed. He cannot afford to squander time on that which is of only secondary importance while primary things are screaming out for attention… if it is his ambition to excel, there must be selection and rejection, then concentration on the things of paramount importance.
Viewed in the light of this overheated and over pressured age, it is a striking fact that in the gospels there is no indication of interruptions disturbing the serenity of the Son of God. Few things are more apt to produce agitation and tension in the busy life than unexpected and unwelcome interruptions. To Him there were no such things as interruptions in His God planned life.
To the alert Christian, interruptions are only divinely interjected opportunities.
Few things tend to bring a conscientious leader into bondage more than the use of his time, and a balanced view of the matter must be arrived at. If he does not find a satisfactory answer, he will work under unnecessary strain. Even after he’s done everything in his power to fulfill his obligations, there will still remain vast areas of unmet needs. Every call for help is by no means necessarily a call from God, for every such call cannot be responded to… His responsibility extends only to those matters which lie within his control.
[Procrastination] is a habit that is absolutely fatal to effective spiritual leadership.
Making decisions and caring them through always involves considerable moral effort but instead of making that effort easier, the passage of time has a reverse effect. The decision will be even more difficult to make tomorrow—and, indeed, circumstances may have still change that it will be too late for the advantageous decision.
Do it now is a principle of action which has led many a man to worldly success, and it is no less relevant in the realm of the spiritual.
3. A simple plan to strengthen your marriage through conversation:
Before you retire to the bedroom, ask each other:
What was the highlight of your day?
What was the most difficult part of your day?
What is something that you're concerned about that you’d like us to pray about?
The husband prays for the wife; the wife prays for the husband.
They pray for each other, thanking God for the highlight, for getting through the difficulty, and asking for help in their area of concern.
Even just a few times a week will transform most marriages.
4. An exercise to grow in self-awareness
People have a tendency to project their motives onto others because of the false-consensus effect.
This is a form of cognitive bias, where we see our own behavioral choices and judgments as relatively common, and appropriate to existing circumstances.
Because of the false-consensus effect, we have a tendency to assume that the reason someone said or did something is the same as the reason we would say or do those things.
The false consensus effect means that paying careful attention to other people’s assumptions about your motives will often (not always) give you insight into their own characters.
But it can also lead you to make bad judgments about other people or situations, if it turns out that they are not like you. Often, treating things that way can end badly.
How do you fight this?
Well, you don’t stop forming gut judgments. It is natural and good to do so—if these judgments are unfixed and amendable.
So the solution is to make room for other possibilities, and ask a lot of good questions. Adjust your judgment to match the new information.
Here’s an exercise to help you do this. Use this as a point of self-reflection:
Think about times when you have assumed one motive, and it turned out to be something else.
Reflect on why you made the assumption you did.
That’s it.
It sounds stupidly simple, but don’t knock it till you try it.
Know thyself.
It will grow you in humility and wisdom.
5. Question whose frame you are working in
We have noticed that “based” is often a way to hide or justify working in someone else’s frame.
Many Christian men who are attracted to “patriarchalism” are just jilted white knights.
A white knight is a man who derives his value from defending damsels in distress from dragons. White knights are willing to engage in a fantasy to achieve this—imagining evil women to be damsels, and good men to be dragons.
A white knight is a kind of “nice guy” as defined by secular psychologist Robert Glover:
Just about everything a Nice Guy does is consciously or unconsciously calculated to gain someone’s approval or to avoid disapproval.
—No More Mr. Nice Guy
For a white knight, his desire for female validation is often pursued irrespective of a woman's character, because he assumes (often unconsciously) that women are of a higher and purer spiritual nature than men. If you ask him in what ways women especially sin that men don’t, he will seldom have an answer—but often be scandalized by the question.
A white knight has often allowed feminists to live in his head for years or even decades, and has tuned his behavior and language to gain their approval in one form or another.
When that doesn’t work, he gets angry. At some point, he takes the red pill…and then he becomes inordinately obsessed with “putting women in their place.”
Notice the shift. He hasn’t learned to work in his own frame. He has just switched the positive and negative polarities in his existing frame.
The feminists still live in his head and guide his language and behavior—but now he likes to tune that language and behavior to trigger them. He no longer wants their approval—he wants their disapproval.
He is still living a life reacting to feminists, rather than a life proactively pursuing his own mission and goals.
This tends to make him look pathetic, and angry towards women in general…because maybe he is.
It is the gospel that frees us from the fear of man (i.e., living for the approval of others)—or, in this particular case, the fear of women.
Personally, we don’t write, say, or do anything out of a desire to trigger feminists. Obviously, some are triggered by us—but that’s on them. It’s not our aim. They aren’t our audience. They aren’t our mission. We aren’t thinking about we affect them. We are thinking about how to get the best “kingdom ROI.”
Frankly, there’s either zero or negative ROI in antagonizing feminists online. In the context of online interactions, bitter men and brash women are both black holes.
We would rather build up humble men, and encourage women who have gentle spirits.
“Hot takes” and “based takes” may rev up internet activity, but rarely do they result in productive local action. In fact, what’s hot online can burn down what’s worthwhile offline.
Many of the hot-takers have little in the way of offline influence or friends. Hence their willingness go all “based” on everyone in their feed.
A lot of movements are all talk—or only spring up for a season to quickly fade away. The fire of time always burns up the dross. Once upon a time the cult of Mithras was the chief religion in the Roman Empire. Both it and Rome are no more—but the church of God marches on.
6. Seven targets for growing in your leadership qualities
In Spiritual Leadership, Sanders writes:
Lord Montgomery enunciated seven ingredients necessary in a leader in war, each of which is appropriate to spiritual warfare:
He should be able to sit back and avoid getting immersed in detail.
He must not be petty.
He must not be pompous.
He must be a good picker of men.
He should trust those under him, and let them get on with their job without interference.
He must have the power of clear decision.
He should inspire confidence.
Many modern young men—whether managers, pastors, or husbands—are weak in 1-3.
This makes them all the more weaker in 4-7.
It is especially tragic to see these qualities lacking in older men. It means much of their lives have been wasted.
Don’t be counted among them.
The assumption here is that you are legitimately a leader with subordinates. Montgomery is saying, give your subordinates their orders—and then let them get it done as they best see fit. Stay out of the way.
It’s the opposite of micro-managing.
The best generals did their time in foxholes. There they gained wisdom, skill, and experience. Consequently, a wise and experienced general will save more lives, and bring a quicker end to war, by applying this wisdom and skill from HQ. He would be wasted in the foxhole.
7. Ask for time before making hard decisions
You almost never have to make a decision on the spot. Part of developing strong frame/gravitas is knowing when to take time to process, and having the confidence to do so.
Self-differentiation is the name of the game.
Many men want to be perceived as decisive, wise, and intelligent—so they feel like they have to make decisions on the spot. This causes them to over-prepare for things, including simple conversations, and make bad decisions anyway.
Instead, just say, “I need to process this. Let me get back to you.”
Give a date and time, and make the decision by then.
8. Repeat yourself
Part of giving wise counsel is this:
Understand that people will often keep rephrasing a question when they don’t like the answer you give them.
The solution is to patiently keep rephrasing the same answer.
It is striking in reading the New Testament how repetitive and redundant Jesus and the apostles can be.
9. Institute daily foundational practices
This one is from our members Discord server, where one man writes:
Early last year I came up with the term “Daily Foundational Practices” to describe a list of actions I would take every single day, regardless of how I felt. These would become the foundation of who I was.
The idea was based on two main principles:
Your identity is more based on what you do than it is on what you say or even believe.
Real lasting change is made from small consistent work far more than big wins.
The result has been transformative. For me, if I do most of them in a day, the day is a win mentally and emotionally regardless if I accomplished anything else. Just sticking to them is an emotional win. I feel in control and disciplined, plus, I know I moved the needle toward who I want to be, even if imperceptibly so to anyone else on that day.
A vision without a task makes a visionary.
A task without a vision is drudgery.
A vision with a task makes a missionary.
— N. G. Dunning
Notable:
Churches to preach ‘illegal’ truth on 2nd annual ‘Biblical Sexuality Sunday’
I started dating a sex doll after my fiancee left me — I even introduced her to my mom
Restoring 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 as a Parallel to 1 Timothy 2:12
‘Moana,’ The Hero’s Journey, And The Future Of The Disney Princess Narrative. Best read in conjunction with:
Minister Lawyers Up After Massachusetts Library Cancels His ‘Pastor Story Hour’ Event
The Pastor’s Story Hour movement is getting some push back.
Residents nevertheless flooded the comments section with claims that Lankford was seeking to “indoctrinate youth” into bigotry. “By allowing hate into your library you’re implicitly saying to vulnerable populations that they’re not safe there,” one commenter said. “This is blatant discrimination, homophobia, bigotry, transphobia,” added another.
A subsequent statement posted on Thursday announced that Chelmsford Public Library directors and trustees decided to preemptively cancel Lankford’s reservation based on violations of “acceptable behavior policies.” Officials claimed the event would contradict policies against proselytizing and said publicity from The Shepherd’s Church improperly indicated that the library was co-sponsoring their program.
In the end, the Chelmsford public library reinstated the pastor story hour, and Lankford held it successfully. Praise God!
Here’s some strategic advice on minimizing the chances of drama if you’re organizing a similar event:
Don’t demand any kind of special treatment. The strategy isn’t about demanding equal treatment. It is about establishing a local beachhead to minister in earnest to your community, and building a warm relationship with the library so you can continue to do so.
Reserve a room through the normal channels.
Don’t ask the library to promote it, or imply that it is a joint venture with the library in any promotional material. Just use local connections and social media to get the word out.
Do not frame it as some kind of counter-protest. Remember, you’re ministering, not protesting. So focus on reading to children and getting them interested in good books. If you’re doing a counter-protest, this advice isn’t for you, and we’d suggest you reconsider because you’re not playing the long game.
Be matter-of-fact and warm to the librarians.
Consider reading a book on the gospel rather than on sexuality. You want to keep the main thing the main thing, and not deliberately ask for trouble.
This is how Michael did it with zero drama. He intends to live in Batavia and Clermont County for many years. Playing the long game is essential.
Now, sometimes, drama does come to you, whether you go looking for it or not. You can’t always avoid that—but, if you can, you should. Let’s not replace Drag Queens with drama queens.
Talk again next week,
Bnonn & Michael