Matt's Muzings
Some Thoughts on Pain/Suffering and Leadership
LIFE IS A PAIN
Two months ago I was sitting in a very old church in Oxford listening to
a speaker share about Paul and his letter to the Philippians. Paul wrote to
them, "that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the
fellowship of His sufferings."
The speaker went on to say that the word fellowship in this verse is "koinonia",
Greek for communion. Paul was writing about a communion, a sweet fellowship
in suffering.
I have been thinking these last couple of years about the role of pain in leadership and I realized that I don't really have a theology of suffering. In the Western world we avoid pain or suffering and think of it as a weakness, which is a curse for the independent minded. The speaker's thoughts stirred me to explore and realize the importance of embracing pain and suffering in a leader's role and in any organization.
SOME THOUGHTS ON PAIN/SUFFERING AND LEADERSHIP
We have all contributed to the pain and suffering in our world. It is not us, the innocent, against them, the guilty. I have contributed to the pain and suffering in the world. I have been quiet when I should have spoken out. I have closed eyes and turned away when I knew others needed help. I have chosen to please myself over helping someone else. I have contributed. Therefore, I can't judge anyone else without judging myself. I understand I am a part of the problem, as well as part of the solution.
Pain is not singularly a sign of weakness, but often is an expression of health and potential growth. Only dead people don't feel pain. We don't have to be embarrassed when there is pain as it is an important part of life.
Pain is vital to leadership. Leadership includes dealing with dilemmas. Dilemmas can only be reconciled through sacrifice. Sacrifice involves pain. Unless someone is willing to love others, sacrifice themselves, there can be no real leadership within a diverse group. All you end up with is conformity.
Most of the leadership we see around us is best defined by power. There is an understanding of role or position that can give the person power over others. This power can then be used to protect those who have it. What are they/we/I protecting ourselves from? The simplest answer is pain.
What we do with power determines our true effectiveness at transformational leadership. There is no growth without some level of pain. In sports, coaches say, "no pain, no gain." They knew it is only as the muscles went beyond their capacity and were pushed that they would grow stronger.
The pain receptors or system I use to detect pain is the same that receives joy and pleasure. If I shut down the system because of a refusal to embrace pain, I then lose the capacity to feel joy.
George Walk, a Nobel Prize winner said it this way, "Just realize, I am 69 and I have never seen a person die. I have never even been in the same house while a person died. How about birth? An obstetrician invited me to see my first birth only last year. Just think, these are the greatest events in life and they have been taken out of our experience. We somehow hope to live full emotional lives when we have carefully expunged the sources of the deepest human emotions. When you have no experience of pain, it is rather hard to experience joy."
Pain is a healthy way for an organization to know where it is and what issues it needs to deal with. When it shuts off pain or pretends it is not happening, destruction can happen. An organization that refuses to feel pain is like a leper who loses touch with reality. It is the loss of pain receptors that allows a leper to destroy his body without feeling it.
CHARACTER IS IMPORTANT TO LEADERSHIP
If I don't have character I will destroy others and the system before I allow myself to feel pain. Scott Peck writes, "The truly good are they who in time of stress do not desert their integrity, their maturity, their sensitivity. Nobility might be defined as the capacity not to regress in response to degradation, not to be come blunted in the face of pain, to tolerate the agonizing and remain intact. As I have said elsewhere, one measure-and perhaps the best measure - of a person's greatness is the capacity for suffering."
This is not easy for me to write about because in my natural sense I don't like pain. But if I want to understand and embrace a broken world. If I want to be able to represent God in a way that is truly like Him, I must be able to enter into the pain of this world and embrace it with a love that is not found in this world. If I don't feel the pain of those I am leading, then I don¹t have anything to say to them. I love the scripture in Judges where it says about God " ... and He could bear the misery of Israel no longer." God saw their suffering and was moved to have mercy on them even when they didn't deserve it.
Fellowship with God and His suffering creates a Holy communion with Him.
I believe one of the key elements of a transformational community is the capacity for those in it to allow and embrace the pain of others. Without this there can be no learning or transformation of those involved.
A few question come to mind that any leader can ask themselves.
- Where am I hurting?
- How have I allowed or invited others into a deeper relationship with me by sharing that hurt or pain?
- Where are those around me in pain?
- Am I willing to enter into their world and help with the process of transformation?
- Where is there pain in the organization I am involved with?
- How can this pain show me weaknesses or problems in the organization (body) that need special attention?
I know I am tempted not to embrace the pain of the changes and to harden my heart. If I do this there can only be limited change .