Leadership and the Resiliency of Hope
At the end of 2020, hope may seem to be in short supply. For many organizations, the past year has been marked by an abundance of challenges and difficulties. A global pandemic, economic strain, massive disruptions to business models, and the increased polarization within American society seem to have eroded any hollow triumphalism. Leaders in businesses, non-profit organizations, and virtually every corner of public life have felt the strain of the past year.
And so it might be tempting, with only days remaining before the beginning of a new year, to be rather hopeless. Some will give themselves over to the slough of despair, to be sure. The cynic we will always have among us, I suppose.
But effective leaders are invariably characterized by hope. And Christian leaders, in particular, are to be those with the surest and steadiest hope. Unfortunately, it far too often seems to be the opposite.
The Difference Between Optimism and Hope
Jim Collins has drawn attention to what he calls “The Stockdale Paradox.” The Navy admiral and former POW recounted to Collins how he assessed those who were best equipped to endure the unimaginable horrors of those Vietnamese prison camps. In Stockdale’s memory, the optimists were the first to succumb. Given to rosy scenarios detached from reality, they expected to be liberated by Christmas, then Easter. And when those expectations were shown to be utterly unrealistic, “they died of a broken heart.”
As Stockdale put it, “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
This is what has come to be known as the Stockdale Paradox. Effective leaders have that absolute confidence that victory will ultimately come, but they can see and navigate the very real challenges before them.
Beware of leaders who simply tune their message based on what they think followers want to hear, or what will curry the broadest possible support.
There is no virtue in ignoring reality or sticking your head in the sand. Beware of leaders who simply tune their message based on what they think followers want to hear, or what will curry the broadest possible support. There’s wisdom in seeking a consensus, but not when it’s dishonest or delusional.
Leaders marked by hope can be honest with their organization that things might get worse before they get better. But the confidence they have in the mission, and in the quality of the team, bolsters their hope in a contagious way.
If you’re a leader, you have a responsibility to instill hope within your organization. That may very well mean explaining to folks that change will be inevitable, or even making difficult personnel decisions. Optimism is far too thin to hold up under those pressures. But hope has a resiliency that is necessary in times of crisis or accelerated change.
As a leader, how are you going to communicate in hopeful ways to your organization about the path forward in the new year? You cannot afford for mere inertia to be the force propelling you forward. And your silence will leave a vacuum that most certainly will be filled by other voices. Whether those voices are wise, constructive, and truthful is no guarantee.
So how can you convey hope? Go back to your central organizational mission and keep telling that story. If you’re a pastor of a church, go back to the biblical foundations for what the church is and why every Christian generation can be confident that Jesus is faithful to his promises. If you’re a business executive, go back to the vision that the founders of the company had, the original problem they aimed to solve with their new venture and articulate in fresh ways to your employees how that mission is unchanged today, even if your strategy looks dramatically different now. If you’re a college or university president, be honest about the broad challenges to higher education that exist. But connect your institution’s history and mission with the opportunities that are present right now and the anticipation of opportunities that will emerge.
The Cancer of Cynicism
Amid hardship, leaders can be tempted to withdraw into cynicism. It’s one thing to face challenges we knew were coming, to have seen the rough waves and sailed into them conscious of the threats. But what about when the storm comes in entirely unexpected or is far more severe than we anticipated? Suddenly we can lose confidence in ourselves or be consumed with fear that others have lost confidence in us.
Effective leaders are all too familiar with the realities of broken trust, betrayal, and even outright sabotage. Perhaps that’s been more true than ever in the past year. It’s entirely possible for a gifted leader to do everything right, to lead with integrity and focus, to take decisive action at the right time, and still find that members of the organization have drifted in from unity or even taken measures to undermine the ability of the organization to move forward. When that happens, every leader is faced with a vital question: Will they learn from the experience, make whatever adjustments are needed, have the necessary difficult conversations, and move forward? Or will they give themselves over to cynicism, resentment, and bitterness? The latter is a deadly mix to swim in and will corrode any leader.
Cynicism is incompatible with hope.
Cynicism is incompatible with hope. Again, that does not mean that leaders are not realists. They have to be. But that’s quite different from someone who seems to assume the worst about people and circumstances no matter what.
Cynical leaders will, over time, deform their organizational culture in their own image. When that happens, it becomes increasingly difficult to salvage any institution. Colleagues lose trust in one another. Teams become risk-averse to the point that organizational paralysis becomes inevitable.
The Ultimacy of Christian Hope
Christian leaders should be the most hopeful of all. After all, there is no guarantee that any of our institutions, companies, or organizations will survive the uncertainties of the unknown future. That uncertainty certainly tempers our hope, guarding us against hubris or triumphalism.
Our faith in the promises of God births hope in the future faithfulness of God.
But Christian hope is tethered to that which is absolutely certain and unchanging. No matter what the circumstances of a new day or new year may bring, the people of God are assured that Jesus has indeed defeated sin and death, that a day is coming when all wrongs will be set to right, that our bodies will be raised to eternal life, and that the whole world will be made new. Faith and hope go together. Our faith in the promises of God births hope in the future faithfulness of God.
There’s no guarantee that 2021 will be easier or happier for you. When the calendar turns over to January 1, there’s no magical spell to be lifted, suddenly bringing about better times. But Christian leaders can and must lead hopefully because they see even further into the horizon by faith. Whatever a new year may bring, we know the One who sovereignly rules over all things. He has always been faithful. And so he will be in a new year.
