Pruning

Pruning your business means envisioning a transformed business built on what works. That new business is your vision. A great technique for showing what’s different is to make a chart listing key aspects of the business, and then showing “old way” followed by “new way” for each.

Pruning gives us hope and perseverance to work through the pain of our problems rather than avoid or deny them.

I envisioned a valley of dry bones. Bones from marriages, relationships, and dreams abandoned because many people refused to die to themselves, to humble themselves, and to let God have His way in their lives.

Augustine called pride the "mother of all heretics" and if that is the case, what kind of pruning needs to happen in our lives to get rid of pride.

Pruning of reputation and self-righteousness:  While He’s pruning us for fruitfulness, you can be sure He’s going to test us by changing up our plans to see whether we’ll accept His will as the final call, or whether we’ll pout and get in strife. Work toward a particular end just to have the Holy Spirit show up and shut it all down for a different direction entirely.  When it happens, can we joyfully handle submission, or will we instead defy Him by trying to “get ours” while we’ve got the chance to do so?  How you and I respond in these these testing moments either adds to or depreciates our stock value!  Can God trust us?  Is He really Lord of all?

Sports metaphors and sports heroes have become normal reference points for both Christian and secular leadership contexts.  Climbing the ladder in the corporate world often includes the necessity of pushing others off the ladder.  Competition can be fierce and not always friendly.  Ego battles in the legal and medical professions is legendary and the brunt of many jokes.

Spiritual formation in our inner world means we need to be pruned of our self-righteousness.

So don’t destroy yourself by being too good or acting too smart!- Ecclesiastes 7:14

Pruning of passion to maximise life: Sporting events, a weekend at the lake, a wide-open schedule are all good things, and there is some measure of life in them. But if you recall, when Jesus talks about pruning, He is not talking about cutting dead wood out of our lives. The pruning that Jesus speaks of means cutting out living, growing pieces of our life, not because they are obviously dead, but simply because they do not bear spiritual fruit.

Choosing not to be consumed with efficiency is a great freedom that allows greater flexibility and spontaneity.  As Jesus taught, it is not efficient to go after the one lost sheep at the expense of the other ninety-nine, but it is the right choice.

Pruning of soliciting praise: Calling attention to our previous contributions can be a form of one-upmanship that is off-putting to others.  When I find myself wanting more attention or recognition, it is a blaring reminder of my need for a greater awareness of God's grace in my life.

When Jesus taught His disciples about the necessity of spiritual  pruning, He did so in the context of friendship and not of power.

 Servants don’t know what their master is doing, and so I don’t speak to you as my servants. I speak to you as my friends, and I have told you everything that my Father has told me. - John 15:15

God's pruning of us does not come out of anger but out of love and self-revelation.

Examen comes from a Latin word referring to the weight indicator on a balance.  Just as it takes some time for the swinging examen to settle after the weights are added, so it takes time for us to see where our lives are in balance or need some adjustment or pruning.

When did I feel very frustrated, dissatisfied or alone from God's Spirit?

A person dwells in a state of desolation when she or he is moving away from God’s active presence in the world. We know we are moving in this way when we sense the growth of resentment, ingratitude, selfishness, doubt, fear, and so on. If my outlook becomes increasingly gloomy and self-obsessed, I am in a state of desolation. I am resisting God or, if not actively resisting, I am being led away from God by other influences. - St. Ignatius

God’s Pruning 

Authentic and effective leadership

Letting the self emerge is the essential task of leaders - Warren Bennis

Leadership is about you and not everyone else. The journey begins inside, it is where we have clarity on our values, strengths, passions and vision. If we lack authenticity our behaviour will be inconsistent resulting in a lack of trust from those who are following you and undermining your leadership effectiveness.

The reality is that no one can be authentic by trying to be like someone else. There is no doubt that you can learn from the experiences of others, but there is no way you can be successful trying to be like them.  People trust you when you are genuine and authentic, not an imitation. - Bill George

In an age where there is much talk about “being yourself” I reserve to myself the right to forget about being myself, since in any case there is very little chance of my being anybody else. Rather it seems to me that when one is too intent on “being himself” he runs the risk of impersonating a shadow. - Oscar Wilde

Can I trust my passions? It is possible to become immune to knowing what is right and wrong. There are relationally destructive actions as well, like envy, jealousy and controlling people.

We are by nature the captives and prisoners of our inordinate and unruly passions and desires; we are not our own masters, till our Lord sets us free.

Good Leaders are Authentic Leaders

 

Classic leader-follower dynamic

It is hard to come to terms with just how outdated the classic leader-follower dynamic exists today because it is so prevalent still in our society, at least among large community pockets.

Imagine North Korea today, about the worst place one can conceive of. In this society, no one needs to worry about becoming a leader. In this kind of society, there is by definition only one leader. In a totalitarian state, Braudy writes...

 “the leader absorbs and thereby replaces every individual desire for recognition.” 

In my generation the picture of a leader has definitely changed.  But then I read a 1942 study by sociologist Leo Lowenthal - that is two generations ago!  The study was of biographies printed in popular magazines which revealed that from the beginning of the twentieth century until 1940, the percentage of biographies of entertainers more than doubled, while political biographies dropped from forty-six percent of the total to twenty-five percent.  The study also showed a decline in the number of biographies of business leaders during this period.

Even as we go back a few more generations and see how our view of kings and queens have changed as they ceded their power to Parliament and have done away with the elaborate Catholic weddings to the plainer Anglican and Protestant services.  Now the actors and actresses who play their parts have become the celebrities. Author Chris Rojek elaborates on this a bit more and even includes God in this quote ...

"As modern society developed, celebrities have filled the absence created by the decay in the popular belief in the divine right of kings, and the death of God."

Can we agree?  The new leader in our society is the celebrity? If we base it on salary that would be true, if we base it on who has the most followers, that also would be true. Today we are even excluding God as we all of somehow become gods.

We now live in the era of micro-celebrity, which offers endless opportunities to celebrate that most special person in your life, i.e., you–who not coincidentally was also Time magazine’s widely derided Person of the Year for 2006. An honour once reserved for world leaders, pop icons and high-profile CEOs now belongs to “you,” the ordinary citizen with the time, energy and passion to “make a movie starring my pet iguana…mash up 50 Cent’s vocals with Queen’s instrumentals…blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street.”

Warren Bennis wrote and interesting article that I found to be quite challenging for our 21st Century view on what leadership looks like today -The end of leadership: Exemplary leadership is impossible without full inclusion, initiatives, and cooperation of followers - it involves the idea that there needs to be an alliance  today, between followers and leaders if any success is going to be experienced.

Since I have spent the majority of my working world in the not-for-profit sector of leadership, I can say that too many of our leaders live in the realm of what leadership looked like generations ago.  What makes it odd is that they are even proud of being so fossilised.  What makes it harder to change is they have the support of a Board that views leadership in the same vein.

I have joined a team transformation group that come alongside leaders who are struggling or Boards who are seeing their leaders struggle, in order to bring healing into that environment.  Right now, I am amazed that the Church has responded first.  Three major North American denominations are moving with us right now to make sure the Church is a healthy place for leaders to grow and create the alliance they need with their parishioners to take them into the 21st Century, healthily.