Today and Tomorrow: What Are You Trying To Do?

Let me ask you a question as a leader: what are you trying to do? 

The question sounds deceptively simple.  Yet here is an underlying tension every leader faces: the competing pull between the two. 

Someone who simply manages is spared from that dilemma.  A manager is tasked with making sure that today stays on track.  That brings its own stress, to be sure, but it’s pretty simple. Everything that needs your attention is right there in front of you.  Right there in your inbox, probably.

But if you’re called to serve as a leader you will need to keep your eye on both today and tomorrow. Because of that a leader lives with a tension that few will fully realize.  Most of the people in the leader’s world will secretly wish that they would serve as a manager, making sure that things today run smoothly.  Get the schedule done, sit in the meetings, return the emails.  And many in point positions quietly conform to these expectations.  After all, today pays the bills, right? 

But for those hard-wired for leadership, the role of a manager soon proves a bit claustrophobic—maybe like the feeling one gets while trying to glance at a cell phone while driving down a freeway.  After all, what is the good in making things run smoothly today if you’re seeing a missed opportunity or an unnecessary crisis coming tomorrow?  A wise leader often recognizes with chagrin many ways in which the dilemmas being faced today could have been moderated had they been recognized at some point in the past. Failing to pay attention to tomorrow eventually makes today a lot more difficult. 

The problem, of course, is made worse by the fact that few people in the leader’s world share this dual view of reality.  Most of the people in the leader’s world will unwittingly plant themselves solidly in one of those two perspectives. 

Most people will resonate with concerns about today.  After all, what good is thinking about where we should be tomorrow or next year if we can’t get a schedule published by Sunday?  In the eyes of most, today’s urgencies outrank any reflections about tomorrow.   However, there are some in the leader’s world who will resonate more deeply with questions about tomorrow.  These individuals, usually small in number, may be early adopters or they may simply be less satisfied than most with the present realities of the group.  They may be glad to finally have someone listen to their concerns about future directions. 

Both of these perspectives are important in many ways.  A leader needs people who can help discern the needs of today in order to make good decisions or to hand delicate situations wisely.  And leaders also need to hear the concerns of early adopters who may be able to offer different perspectives on current realities. 

But while these various voices can each be helpful in their own way, ultimately they won’t provide much help in sorting out this underlying dilemma the leader faces: how to integrate the two.  Because most people ultimately posit themselves on one side of the today/tomorrow divide, they won’t provide much help in figuring out how both of those perspectives need to fit together into our daily to-do lists. 

The need for leadership in local churches has only grown in recent years.  Gone are the days when a church could be sustained for years simply repeating the basic ministry approach from the year before.  So many things have been changing in our society as a whole, particularly in the realm of church ministry, than any church doing what they’ve always done will soon find themselves in a difficult position. 

This leads us to realize the importance of self-leadership.  Ultimately it is the leader’s job to determine how the demands of today can best fit alongside the needs of tomorrow.  Every leader needs to have a clear idea of just what God is looking for them to provide for today, for tomorrow and for as long as God has them in this particular role. 

If you are a leader, I have several questions I’d like to ask you:

What do you need in order to self-lead?  As observed, the urgencies of today almost inevitably displace the attention needed to prepare for tomorrow.  The only way a leader will be able to pay adequate attention to the needs of tomorrow is if he or she claims the space needed for that kind of intentional reflection. If you are a leader, what kind of disciples or patterns do you need to build into your schedule to make sure that your attention isn’t riveted solely on the demands of today?  How might this affect the kind of reading you do?   What time outside the office will you need to schedule for reading, for retreats, or the kind of conferences that help you think differently about the same things?  And what are the various thought exercises that you teach yourself to do? 

Who do you need to spend time with in order to self-lead?  Few leaders can fulfill their role alone.  There are simply too many other voices calling one’s attention away from questions about tomorrow.  Most leaders need someone else not firmly rooted in the today or the tomorrow perspective to help them sort out what they are seeing.  This may be a trusted colleague, a gifted spouse, or a leadership coach.  I know I have benefitted deeply from having a leadership coach as well as other leaders help me remember the priorities and convictions that undergird the busyness that crowded my calendar, and I’ve enjoyed providing that for others over the years.

And perhaps most importantly…

What exactly are you trying to do?   Most gifted leaders can intuitively rattle off a general answer to that question, hopefully borrowing language from their church’s purpose statements.  But let me press the question a bit further:  what exactly are you trying to do?   Could you answer that question specifically? 

What specifically are you looking to somehow accomplish by the end of this ministry year?   And how would you tell whether you had actually accomplished that?  

Here is where it’s worth being concrete.  It’s easy to glibly talk about “overseeing the first- and second-grade church school class” but there’s a lot more traction that comes from committing to “hold team meetings twice a season, begin highlighting the efforts of children's ministry volunteers at least twice in the newsletter this year and send a birthday to each regular student to let them know we care.”  Specific goals will make it much easier to determine down the road whether or not you actually did what you intended. 

Let me put it this way: if this year you ended up accomplishing exactly what you did last year, what did you really accomplish?  You may have responded to a lot of crises that came up along the way, to be sure, but ultimately a leader isn’t paid to respond to crises.  He or she is paid to anticipate them and help prepare a wise response. 

Leadership is hard. Management often seems like an easier option.   Until it isn’t. 

So let me ask you: what are you trying to do?