Keeping Up

In his book, Surrender, Bono calls himself a Christ follower who’s trying to keep up. I really like that (enough that I have decided to use it). It communicates both a determined direction and the humility to accept our inevitable imperfection. Christ is often used as a leadership example which I find less than useful much of the time because of the glaringly obvious differences between Him and us.

However, I do wonder what it was like to work with Him. He did a lot of “leader things.” He mentored and invested in others. He explained why more than what. He delegated well. He planned and prepared for His own exit. All good leader stuff.

He may have been the best carpenter in the bunch (among other things), but I have to believe he wasn’t the best at a lot of other things. His followers being better at some things didn’t seem to threaten him in any way. It wasn’t his role to be the best fisherman, doctor, tax collector, or whatever. He selected his team for the potential he saw in them for the roles they would play.

The people on our teams shouldn’t have to “keep up” with us. In their respective roles, they should be better than us. In some ways, it should feel like we are trying to keep up with them. This will not happen if a leader gets their identity from being the smartest (or best, or strongest, or whatever) person in the room. Leaders like that surround themselves with people they can stay ahead of and control.

A leader’s role is to assemble and inspire a team to outperform the leader in every way. Selecting people who are better than you will ever be at the thing(s) they do well multiplies your effort instead of just adding to it. More importantly, surrounding yourself with people who are “A” players keeps you functioning as an “A” player.

I have a friend who builds houses. When I say he builds houses, what I actually mean is he leads the effort to build houses. Other people do the actual building. Not that he doesn’t know how. Interestingly, my friend finds and hires people who are much better at each trade than he will ever be. He looks for the best person for each task. and it doesn’t bother him at all that they are significantly better at it than he is.

Building a team, or an organization or a community, is like building a house. Great leaders create a team of individuals who are the best in their areas and then give them the responsibility and authority to do their jobs. That means getting out of the way and letting the team shine, hopefully brighter than you.

Unless you are Christ, your team shouldn’t be following you, trying to keep up. They should have a clear vision of where they are going (thanks to you), and you should be hanging on for dear life as you see what they are capable of. Eventually, one or more of them should be ready and able to replace you. If the time isn’t right, they will be prepared to lead another team somewhere else—which is awesome for them! Building and equipping a great team is the “leader thing” to do, and it is the Bison Way.