Leading for the the Long Game

Years ago, while attending a conference on international Christian education, I listened to a woman give a presentation on the incredibly long, prayerful, patient, and persistent process of trying to launch a Christian school in a communist country. From her first words to her last, I was engaged, but there is one part that I will never forget. From that day forward, it changed my thinking about learning and leadership. I’m not sure I would have published my first book so many years ago had it not been for her words of wisdom.

Thinking in Decades, Not Days

What did she say? She recounted the first days of arriving in the country, establishing a home there, building relationships, and figuring out the necessary steps to obtain approval to start a school. She talked us through blessings and challenges, sometimes in the same event. Finally, the story got to the point where the government approved the launch of a school. Even after approvals, getting the school off the ground took a lot of time. At this point, she shared the wisdom that I hope to never forget. “Sometimes,” she explained, “we commit our work to the Lord, but then we quit too soon…after only a few years or only a couple of decades.” What? I remember being amazed by her words because, up to that point, I rarely thought out more than a few months. Of course, I did think further when it came to pursuing degrees that took a few years, but apart from that, I never thought about planning for and seeking something that could take a decade or longer to accomplish.

Sure. I talked about long-term plans, but something about her story changed the way I thought about embracing what some refer to as the “big, hairy, audacious” goals, which may take years or even decades to accomplish—and through a myriad of setbacks, doubts, challenges, risks, fears, and so much more. To the best of my knowledge, she had no direct vision from God telling her that it would work and that everything would be okay. She found something worth the risk, commended it to the Lord, collaborated with others, prayed, built relationships, prayed some more, kept moving forward, and by God’s grace, it finally occurred.

I’ve always been drawn to the accounts in the Bible where God revealed His plans to someone, but then there was a long waiting period or at least a long time before the promise was fulfilled. It happened with Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, and so many others. Those are inspiring. Yet, what this woman described was different. She didn’t have a promise of success. She lived, so I assume, with some measure of uncertainty through much of that time. Or, maybe God did bless her with an extra measure of divine stubbornness or confidence. After all, the Scriptures do tell us that it is “God who works in us to will and act according to His purposes” (Philippians 2:13).

As we embark on our leadership quests and commend them to the Lord, we so often do it with no guarantee of earthly success. Yes, we may spend ten or twenty years on something only to see it fail or run into a dead end. That is the risk. So, before we embark on such a quest, we count the cost. We ask ourselves. Is this important enough that it would have been worth the risk even if I tried for a decade and failed? Then, we immerse ourselves in the promises that God provides in His Word. They become our source of strength and comfort through the days, months, years, and maybe even decades of working, waiting, wanting, and sometimes wavering.

The Back Stage of Leadership

This may be why I’m intrigued by biographies and autobiographies. When we hear the short version of a leader’s journey, we usually hear about the significant accomplishment at the end. We don’t get a glimpse behind the curtain in a life of self-doubt, sleepless nights, and the feeling of being frozen by fear. We don’t see the part where the leader does everything in his power to hold himself together one more day. Yet, every leader experiences some version of such struggles. Most of us want to quit. Some of us do. In other cases, we ask for God’s strength to take one more step, even though the weight of worry is crushing us. We read God’s call to not worry and then plead that He would teach us how to live and think that way.

Best Job in the World?

I’ll make a personal confession. Years ago, soon after becoming president, I was talking to a friend and colleague who had been a Christian university president for the prior decade. When I asked him about the role, he looked at me, smiled, and, with the enthusiasm of a kid waiting to enter Disneyland for the first time, said, “Bernard…it is the greatest job in the world!”

That didn’t encourage me. I doubted myself even more because I never wanted to be a university president. I still do not wish to be a university president. This doesn’t mean I’m trying to escape the role. I’m honored to serve as long as God sees fit. Yet, I do not see it as the greatest job in the world. For me, that would be more akin to living in the woods or a small town, reading, researching, writing, creating in different forms, playing music, and maybe hosting a podcast where I get to interview fascinating people. I’d be learning new languages and instruments, conducting experiments to learn and discover new things, enjoying many different types of food, exercising, enjoying time with my family, and building meaningful relationships with people. Now, that sounds like the best job in the world to me. Of course, I can do some of these things in my current role.

Yet, being president for this time and place is incredibly meaning-rich. It is humbling, frightening, and a great honor to lead and serve in such a way. That is because we are on a long-term quest that I believe is worth the risk, fear, doubt, and all of the other difficult stuff. I don’t know how long God will see fit for me to stay in the role, but I do know and believe that it is most meaningful to me because we are pursuing mission-minded projects and goals that will probably take years to accomplish if we are successful.

Quests and Missions

As I’ve written elsewhere and will likely do again, it is about quests and missions over titles and positions. At least for me, I can’t imagine holding a title is motivation enough to persist for even a few years doing something that doesn’t matter. Yet, a noble quest is different. We expect quests to be hard, dangerous, and uncertain—even as we do them because they matter.

The Long Game

So, we lead for the long game. Maybe we will falter or fail. Maybe our efforts will be blessed in ways that we never thought possible. However, like that wise woman shared years ago, many of us quit too soon, sometimes only after a few years or a decade. We pray and ask God for the strength to persist and the wisdom to know when it is time to let go, and we commend our efforts to the Lord. We do it for days, weeks, months, years, even decades. Then, in the end, while hoping to hear those words, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” we ultimately don’t rejoice in whether demons submit to us or our plans succeed, but because of God’s love in Christ, we trust that our names are written in the book of life (Luke 10:20).

Share

Disclaimer: Do you use AI to write the articles on Substack? The ethical use of AI is an important topic. When new technologies emerge, they often evolve faster than our ability to make sense of the ethical implications. As such, I offer this disclaimer to provide a transparent picture of my own journey and approach. I’ve already made mistakes, even embarrassing ones, but I will strive to quickly learn from them and provide a transparent view of my present approach. As such, this disclaimer will be updated over time.

The full initial draft (in writing or as an audio dictation), words, and ideas for my Substack articles always come from me. From there, I often use AI for editing Substack articles. I regularly use Grammarly and/or Microsoft Word’s built-in Spellcheck or Grammar Check (both of which are a form of AI) to aid in proofreading and editing my work on Substack. In instances where I use AI for something other than background research or editing my original work, you can expect that I will cite or note it in the article.

I also regularly use DALL-E to generate the images for many articles. In addition, I sometimes use royalty free images. If credit is required by law, requested by the creator, or simply the courteous thing to do, you can expect to see the credits right below the image.

I continue to evolve in my experimentation with the use of ChatGPT, Grok, CoPilot (and various other ChatBot technologies) to serve as an editor for my Substack publications.

What does this mean? There are three common scenarios, though I hope to experiment with others in the future (and I will update this accordingly):

1. I write a full first draft in Word, Grammarly, or a word processor, and then submit it to the ChatBot, asking it to serve as an editor, akin to how I have one or more people edit almost anything that is published in my formal capacity. This is also similar to how editors review my manuscripts when they are submitted to a journal, newspaper, or book publisher. By the way, when I write for any of these partners, I never use AI beyond the basic spellcheck / grammar check available in Microsoft Word—not even to use and then cite it.

2. I record myself speaking on a topic and then place the recording in a ChatBot to transcribe, remove disfluencies, and provide a draft transcript that I can refine before publishing it. This is where I’ve made the most past mistakes. Because the ChatBot is transcribing, it adds its own grammatical interpretations and even takes liberty with sub-titles, organization, corrections, and adding clarifying language. As such, I’m still learning to use prompts that ensure my words, voice, style, and intent dominate—while also achieving a quality, personal, but streamlined approach to sharing ideas. Because this is an evolving practice for me, and also because it sometimes creates a final draft that can be flagged as AI-generated content, expect that when I use this approach, it will be noted at the beginning or end of the article.

3. I use ChatBots to conduct background research related to topics that I’m writing about, akin to an interactive and advanced search engine. If there are quotes or unique ideas that I include in the article, you can expect that I will give some sort of citation or in-text credit.