Are the bread and butter of leadership.
Most of the time that really sucks. It might just be the worst part about being a senior leader who is responsible for making decisions that affect a bunch of people that are deeply loved. Why? Here’s what my experience thus far has taught me:
The higher the stakes are, the less clear the “right” decision is.
Risk and clarity run in direct disproportion to one another. Life is largely gray, and yet decisions usually, by definition and necessity, come down to black or white. When I think back over the last 13 years of my life as a senior leader (in a church, in case that’s not clear), every major decision that really mattered helped in some ways and risked in other ways. It made some people happy, and made other people unhappy. It supported one of our values, and went against another one of our values. It “worked” in some senses, and “didn’t work” in other senses.
I don’t know how people of no faith do it. I really don’t. Yet some seem to manage it with remarkable fortitude. That impresses me.
For me, at least, what gives me great comfort and helps me sleep at night is knowing that my role is to simply be the best steward I can be of what has been entrusted to me, being able to do so while accepting all my limitations of knowledge and experience and personality, and then trusting God with the outcomes. Either God is sovereign or he is not.
Hard calls are the bread and butter of leadership. Take that next bite and chase it down each morning with a sip of Mimosa.
