Leadership Is Purposefully Choosing Whom You Will Disappoint

Leadership is incredibly difficult when we ignore tough conversations and turn away from crucial conversations. At times, having these conversations can be an excruciating task, especially for people pleasers.

Leaders know the sting of letting people down.

Leaders also know that their role requires making decisions that aren’t always liked or well received. But sometimes we as leaders feel more than a sting. Sometimes there are scars—and even gaping wounds—inflicted by close friends, key volunteers, leaders, former friends, congregants and critics (sometimes even our own family members) who have expressed their disappointment and frustration in no uncertain terms.

Abraham Lincoln has been credited with (though not proven) saying, “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” It’s also fair to say, “You can please all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time.” Sometimes we can forget that there is a significant difference between leadership and appeasement.

As a leader, Jesus was willing to disappoint everyone except his Father. Let that sink in for a moment. Jesus disappointed his dis- ciples, the religious leaders, the crowds and his closest friends—even his own mother. But he was never willing to disappoint his heavenly Father. Everything he did was rooted in the motivation to do only what he saw his Father doing (see John 5).

Additionally, Jesus purposefully chose to disappoint certain groups of people more than others. In fact, Jesus seemed to go out of his way to disappoint, challenge, agitate—even infuriate—the religious leaders of the day. Pharisees, Sadducees, the scribes and teachers of the law were constantly at odds with him. Jesus seemed to expend a great amount of energy to challenge them. He told stories where the plot unmistakably would reveal that they were not the heroes, but the villains. When they would try to trap him, he would find a way to catch them in their own trap. He healed on the Sabbath just to tick them off. Couldn’t he have waited twenty-four hours to heal a shriveled hand? He even disappointed his own disciples. Why? Because what they wanted was quite different than Jesus’ mission on earth.

And yet did you notice Jesus hardly disappointed those on the margins—the poor, the forgotten, the hurt, the broken and the left out? Richard Rohr reminds us that Jesus is never upset with sinners; he’s only upset with people who think they are not sinners! Jesus lived up to his own mantra: it’s not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. He was known as a friend of sinners. Let that sink in: friend of sinners.

In the beginning stages of our church, we knew that we’d attract all sorts of new people to our church, simply out of curiosity about something new. In our elder meetings we had to ask, “Who are the people we are willing to disappoint?” Initially, it felt strange—even wrong—to ask. But we knew that our church wasn’t going to please everyone. Entitled people cause damage to Jesus’ mission. Contrary to popular opinion, nobody owes us anything. Not even God. Healthy churches work purposefully to disappoint religiously entitled people.

We looked carefully at the types of people Jesus chose to disappoint. We found that he disappointed those who wanted religion—even Christian religion—on their terms. He disappointed those who thought they had it all together, which kept them from hanging out with and loving those who were convinced they did not. So we made a difficult but necessary decision that we must be willing to disappoint religiously entitled people. Oftentimes it’s not the effects of godlessness that destroy the souls of Christians, but rather the effects of religiosity. In our first few years, we noticed that the more people felt religiously entitled, the quicker they left our church. And deep down, we were okay with that. Still other times we were deeply grateful.

As a leader—and as a church—who are you willing to disappoint?*

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*An excerpt from J.R. Briggs’ book Ministry Mantras.