Walking the Talk

Leading from Abundance

What would it mean to lead out of an awareness of abundance? That’s the question I put to the employees and board of Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas at their all-agency gathering in Charlotte on Sept. 22. LFS is a remarkable organization whose passion is plentiful, and I’m delighted to be working with these good folks.

I have a question that I would like to entertain with you today. It's a question about leadership, and it concerns us all, for in my reckoning we are all leaders at one time or another.

Leadership, as I define it, is to call forth the gifts of another. We know this definition intuitively, I believe. We recognize the capacity of people to call forth the gifts of another. We talk about the coach who "brings out the best" in his team. We speak of the teacher who helps a singer "find her voice"; or the manager who creates an environment where people "rise to the occasion"; or the parent who won't give up on a child because she knows "what he is capable of."

In all these instances, the leader acts as a midwife, accompanying others in giving birth to the gift that is theirs. The leader coaxes or brings out what is already present. Leadership is to call forth the gifts of another.

This definition of leadership is not new -- it, too, is already present in our experience. Unfortunately, though, we have let another definition of leadership bury this intuitive one.

Here's the other definition, a definition so powerful and so pervasive that no institution is immune to it and no leader, even us good folks in the nonprofit world, can escape it: leadership means producing what is missing. Did you catch the difference? Rather than calling forth gifts that are present, leaders produce what is missing.

In this definition, the work of leaders is to fix things. Leaders diagnose problems then prescribe solutions. When things get stuck, leaders get things moving. Leaders make things happen.

This is leadership as production, and it is based on the premise that something is missing, a perspective that hangs on a stark view of the world: the belief that there isn't enough.

This is called scarcity thinking. It is an argument that what we need in order to live well is in short supply. So life is fundamentally about competition over scarce resources. In scarcity thinking, life is a zero sum game: there are winners and there are losers. Life is about survival of the fittest and salvation of the most righteous. This fear-filled game is played out all over the place - in our companies, in our civic institutions, in our nonprofit organizations, between nations, among communities of faith.

In this definition, leaders compete, and the best leaders win. The leader is the go-to person. When all else fails, a leader will get the job done.

What I'm laying out for you is the picture of "successful leadership" promulgated by our culture. Successful leaders, we are told, know how to motivate people. They have the ability to get people to do things they really don't want to do. That's why they are leaders, these powerful few; and it's why leaders are scarce, a rare breed, and the rest of us are followers. So the thinking goes.

Sound Familiar?

This so-called successful leadership, leadership as production, is leadership out of scarcity. Perhaps I have framed this in a light too harsh for us to see our selves. So let me back off a little to show the more subtle ways scarcity thinking is manifested. See if you recognize these words ...

If I relax, how will the work ever get done?
If I don't work long hours, how will we ever get ahead?
If we don't win the grant, where will the money come from?
Everyone is so busy, so who's going to volunteer?
Who cares about this community or these people like we do?
If we don't provide this service, who will?
If we don't help, how will things ever get better?

Does any of this sound familiar? I said we nonprofit folk are not immune to the pervasive view of leadership as producing things and its underlying belief of scarcity. Actually, we may be most susceptible.

Motivated to help people, we rush in with solutions. Commended for our charity, we come to regard ourselves as heroic. Over time, we become people who look for needs. Crazy as it sounds, we are energized by needs assessments: pinpointing what's lacking means more work, and more need for us.

But, ultimately, this way of being cannot be sustained. Whatever energy is generated by our diagnoses and prescriptions eventually dissipates. We grow bitter fixing problems. We burn out. We crumble under the weight of the world.

Then our salvation comes rather unexpectedly. We hear a developmentally disabled client share a piece of wisdom not of our own making; we witness a resettled family finding their way, lo and behold, without our constant guidance. Slowly, we come to see that we don't have to carry the world. There is grace, so there is movement in the world, and it doesn't depend on us making it move. The movement is like a river. And what do you do with a river? For starters, as therapist Fritz Perls says, "Don't push the river - it flows by itself."

Out of Abundance

I said I had a question for you. At last, here it is: What would it mean to lead out of abundance? Or, more specifically, what would it mean for you, the people of Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas, to journey toward healing and wholeness as if you truly believed the words in your new vision, mission and values statement. It says, in part, "We understand that we are God's people of abundance, not of scarcity." So, I'm wondering, What would it mean to lead as "God's people of abundance"?

What is abundance? Abundance means plenty. Abundance means bounty. Abundance refers to the wealth of gifts and resources possessed by you and your clients. Your skills and knowledge and passions are abundance. Your diversity of faith, age, gender, ethnicity, and history is abundance. It's all part of your richness as an organization.

Abundance is often associated with this season of harvest. We picture bales of wheat in just-cleared fields, or the cornucopia on a table, overflowing with the produce of the land.

How many of you grew up on farms? Well, I'm not a farmer, so I'll have to trust you on this, but the poet-farmer Wendell Berry has a line about abundance. He says, "That we may reap/ Great Work is done while we're asleep."

So abundance suggests provision made by a Greater Power. In other words, abundance is about plenty that doesn't depend on me. And that makes abundance a strange reality.

Abundance doesn't make sense alongside the facts. How do we claim we are God's people of abundance amid incredible brokenness and social injustice? Talk of abundance may sound irresponsible or cavalier. How can there be plenty in poverty? Or celebration amid deprivation? How is that someone dances amid despair? Abundance is a strange reality, but a reality nonetheless.

Memories of Provision Made

I suspect we each could tell a few stories about abundance in our lives. As a child, my brothers and I made a practice of checking the coin returns in phone booths. (Remember phone booths?) We did this time and again, in every shopping center, wherever we spotted a phone booth. We raced to the phones because every once and while we found change. And for kids that's plenty.

My brothers and I were always discovering treasures, like the old mattress at the dump that was ideal for our Olympic high jump, or the large piece of Styrofoam that lent itself to launching a raft in the bay - at least for a few minutes. With our hand-me down clothes and second-hand bikes, fed by soup and cereals somehow stretched by Mom, we went out into the world in anticipation of abundance.

There was a magical sort of sustenance to our life. When my dad accepted his first pastorate, at what was known in the neighborhood as The Little Church on the Corner, the congregation greeted us with bags of groceries. When we transferred to our new elementary school, Mom hadn't gotten around to washing our clothes. So we wore the only thing that was clean: sweat suits. Back then, kids didn't wear sweat suits to school. Of course, we were mortified - that is, until recess, when we discovered that initiation into this school meant a sprint race. I ran like the wind in that sweat suit.

Yes, it was a magical sort of sustenance that wouldn't have penciled out in a budget, but it was ours. And we kind of expected the magic.

Adulthood often leads us far from such awareness, doesn't it? Our circumstances sometimes make it incredibly difficult to imagine abundance. Yet, there is the grace of remembrance, and there are openings in each of our days to give thanks. I often say to my wife, who must be the North Carolina state champion in couponing, that we have a "miracle life." Somehow provision is made.

You have experienced abundance, too, I suspect. I'm guessing you've seen outpourings of kindness and overflowings of generosity in your work. Faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, you know what it's like to find a way - "a way made out of no way," as they said in the civil rights movement.

You have an appreciation for the people you serve. You recognize that the people you work with day in and day out have gifts and passions. They have resources. You know they are not lacking, though culture and society tell them otherwise. You know abundance.

So the question I am asking is this: What would it mean to lead out of this awareness of abundance, out of a memory of provision made?

Coming Alive to Gifts

More and more people are wondering the same thing. Around the world, individuals and communities are coming alive to the gifts they possess. In the fields of social services, the deficit-based approach characterized by needs assessments is slowly giving way to asset-based approaches marked by strengths identification. In other words, people are paying attention to resources already present.

If old-style leadership begins with the assumption that something is missing and needs producing, or something's broken and needs fixing, new leadership assumes that something is working and needs celebrating. Even in the most troubled situation, something good is at work. There is good and there is enough. So let's start there.

This changes things for leaders, doesn't it? If the assets are already present, we don't need leaders to produce. If the Great Work is already underway, we don't need leaders to get it moving. What then, we might rightly ask, is the point of leadership? That's a good question. Allow me to venture a response with a story.

Recently, I met with a group of nonprofit leaders in the Midwest, and I asked each of them to talk about a moment when their faith-based organization was most faithful to its identity as a ministry of the church.

One CEO described a time when his organization was approached by some of its longtime residents who had run out of funds to pay for their care. The residents requested financial assistance. The CEO didn't think it was possible to help. The cost was too much. But he observed a different response on his team. He witnessed a momentum; he felt a creative and hopeful energy that he did not set in motion; and his team ended up launching a new charitable program for residents. The CEO said he realized he just needed to get out of the way.

In that simple story, he described what I regard as a profound reorientation to leadership: leadership as participation. The new paradigm is leadership as participation in the Great Work already underway.

To come into this new way of being, the CEO had to let go of being the boss, which means he had to let go of control and the security that comes with control. And he had to let go of the ego that gets so invested in being the boss; he had to let go of the sense of self worth rooted in solving problems, making things happen.

In letting go, he came to appreciate what he and his team knew intuitively: that they are God's people of abundance, which means they have everything they need.

And, finally, rather than attempting to push the river, he jumped in - and the river led to new understanding. "Getting out of the way," paradoxically, meant showing up, being fully present, aware of gifts present. "Getting out of the way" turned into play, improvisation, and ultimately celebration.

From Fixing to Blessing

This is the practice of what I call Soulful Leadership. It begins with Let go. It reminds you that You know. It invites you to Go know.

Let go. You know. Go know. I commend these simple words to you as you journey toward healing and wholeness.

And I want to tell you something I find really exciting and liberating about this "long, strange trip." In the course of this journey, an unexpected shift occurs. We move from fixing to blessing.

To be God's people of abundance means to cultivate a disposition like God's toward our selves. And how does God feel about us? Well, as the theologian James Alison says, "God likes us." God blesses us. God pronounces us and all creation good, which is to say: enough. To be "God's people of abundance, not of scarcity," is to cultivate a disposition like God's toward our selves. That means we are no longer in the business of fixing but of blessing.

Along the journey, abundance will surprise us, always, because it comes in such unexpected forms, in unheard of places, in underappreciated people. It can't be predicted. It can't be programmed. Again, it doesn't make sense: "blessed in brokenness," the psalmist says. It's puzzling and paradoxical, but can we trust it? Can we say yes to abundance? That, ultimately, is the question of leadership. It is the invitation, the call to each of us: Will we participate with abundance? Will we jump into this river?

There is work to be done, work for all of us. For that reason, your new vision, mission and values statement also says, "We practice good stewardship of all our gifts and resources." Furthermore, it says, "We look for improvement and innovation in all we do."

Yes, there is work to be done. In the Jewish mystical tradition, humanity is called to finish the work begun by the Creator. We are co-creators. So our labor - our daily chores, our practices, our innovations - are needed. But so is our trust: our trust in each other, our trust in the people we serve, our trust in our Great Partner, Our Creator. As the poet-farmer reminds us, "That we may reap/ Great Work is done while we're asleep."

Here is where we begin, then. With the knowledge of abundance. With this intuitive understanding of gifts already present.

If there is plenty, what is our calling? If provision is made, what does leadership look like? It looks like you. Look around. You have everything you need. And the Great Work is already underway.

May God continue to bless you in this journey.

Daniel Pryfogle