Loyalty Matters: The Misunderstood Virtue
Few things hurt more than a betrayal of loyalty. When it happens, it usually seems to catch us by surprise. And it can be painful and destabilizing, both for individuals and for organizations.
That’s because loyalty is inextricably linked to trust. And, as I’ve suggested elsewhere, trust is at the very heart of healthy leadership and healthy organizations.
At the same time, we regularly see counterfeit forms of loyalty. How many organizational cultures are plagued by a false standard of loyalty, one that enables all sorts of misconduct and incompetence? How many personal relationships are characterized by sinful patterns of manipulation and even abuse, but propped up by a distorted definition of loyalty?
In our day, defining and understanding loyalty can seem to be especially challenging. It’s sometimes difficult to identify, but we certainly know when it’s broken.
Blind Loyalty Is Destructive
Unfortunately, far too many organizations cloak all sorts of dysfunctional dynamics under the guise of loyalty, demanding that stakeholders turn a blind eye to reality. Sometimes this is induced by a cult of personality, an organizational culture that so idolizes the senior leader that no one is permitted to actually question things. In these organizations, propaganda and legend are exchanged for the truth. Anyone who dares criticize the actions or decisions of the most senior leader is quickly ostracized for “disloyalty” or even driven out of the organization. This can certainly happen in the corporate world, but churches and nonprofit organizations are not immune. In some ways, they may be especially susceptible to it. And let’s be clear, this tendency is not confined to any singular theological tribe. But in most of the ministry implosions we have witnessed in the past decade, there developed a tacit understanding that the senior leader--whether a pastor, ministry founder/CEO, institutional president, etc.--was never to be questioned. So sycophants and obsequious “hangers-on” surround the leader and become the watchdog enforcers of this sort of loyalty.
Blind loyalty is no true loyalty at all. In fact, a friend who offers up blind loyalty is not offering a gift, but a poison pill.
The same is true in our personal relationships. Friendships won’t make it without loyalty. But blind loyalty is no true loyalty at all. In fact, a friend who offers up blind loyalty is not offering a gift, but a poison pill. We all need friends who will stand with us, especially when the chips are down and few others will. But those true friends never cease to tell us the truth, even when it stings. And they tell it to our face, not behind our backs. That’s because loyalty is all about trust and, just as importantly, it means that one person has so committed themselves to our wellbeing and flourishing that they will do whatever it takes to advance our good.
That’s a big reason why a betrayal of loyalty is so painful. When team members are sacrificed for political expediency, public relations damage control, or an aversion to conflict, it is deeply traumatic. Such betrayals not only injure the persons involved but leave a dent on the entire organization. Loyalty requires trust as its currency. When loyalty is betrayed, trust disappears with it.
Dysfunctional organizations traffic in counterfeit loyalty, demanding that stakeholders look the other way or suppress accountability. Some of the most egregious examples of this happen in the corporate world, when companies try to skirt compliance with legal regulations or ethical standards and then bully employees into silence, all in the name of “loyalty.” Regrettably, these dynamics also show up in churches and ministries. Whether in covering up abusive behavior by a key leader or in suppressing accountability in financial matters, there can be real pressure to enable the status quo by appealing to loyalty. But loyalty that is detached from truth is no loyalty at all. And mark my words, the leaders who demand this kind of false loyalty are always the first ones to throw their own employees under the proverbial bus if it is in their own interest. In contrast, true loyalty goes both ways.
Ordered Loyalty is Essential
Organizations cannot flourish without genuine loyalty, but neither can personal relationships. This demands what we might call an ordered loyalty. Most of our breakdowns and distortions of loyalty come from disordered loyalty.
In a general sense, loyalty is only genuine when it is truly virtuous. If untethered from the good, the true, and the beautiful, it ceases to be true loyalty and becomes something altogether different. But in a distinctly Christian sense, we understand that our loyalty to one another is dependent upon our supreme loyalty to the one true and living God.
Most of our breakdowns and distortions of loyalty come from disordered loyalty.
Two positive examples of loyalty in the Bible stand out in my mind. If you know the story of Ruth, you know the dramatic moment on the road from Moab to Judah. Naomi had been widowed in a foreign land after the death of her husband, Elimelech. And then, ten years later, both of her sons died, leaving her with her two widowed daughters-in-law. There is no male offspring, no son of Israel to provide for her or them. So she finds herself on the road, making the journey home to Judah in hopes of some possibility of survival among her relatives. One of the women, Orpah, eventually turns back and stays in her native country of Moab. But the other, Ruth, resists Naomi’s exhortations to leave her side:
“But Ruth replied: Don’t plead with me to abandon you or to return and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me, and do so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” (Ruth 1:16-17, CSB)
Ruth pledged herself in loyalty to Naomi, making clear that her own future and wellbeing was bound up in that of Naomi. And she did so voluntarily. But notice what anchored her pledge: a commitment to pledge herself not only to Naomi but to Naomi’s God.
Or consider Jonathan. The crown prince and heir to the throne, Jonathan pledged himself to David. Rather than pursuing his own political ambitions, or trying to protect his own claims to power, he voluntarily committed himself to David in friendship, committing himself to do what he can to see God’s will for Israel and the monarchy come to fruition in David’s life.
“Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as much as himself. Then Jonathan removed the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his military tunic, his sword, his bow, and his belt.” (1 Samuel 18:3-58, CSB)
Just two chapters later, Jonathan proves that loyalty by warning David of Saul’s plot to kill him. That loyalty was forged in the context of devotion to God. Indeed, the very language of the covenant Jonathan made with David was premised upon the judgments of the Lord and his righteous purposes for Israel. Jonathan’s fundamental loyalty to God was that which shaped his loyalty to David.
This helps clarify so much confusion about loyalty. For example, too many organizations send the message that anyone who leaves for a job elsewhere has somehow been disloyal. There may indeed be situations where that is true. But organizations that vilify anyone who leaves are likely plagued by some of the most severe distortions of loyalty imaginable. If our employees are called to render their supreme loyalty to the triune God, then our job as leaders and managers is to celebrate and affirm when they obediently follow his calling in their life, even if it means their departure.
Similarly, when a team member holds the organization accountable and does so for godly motives and in godly ways, that is no mark of disloyalty. Of course, there are all sorts of ways this can be done in insincere and dishonest ways. The fact is that fired employees can indeed seek to sow all sorts of lies and falsehoods in an attempt to inflict harm. Sour grapes are a bitter meal, after all. But healthy organizations know how to carefully process these situations and adjudicate what is true. The fact is that loyalty to God and to the organization’s mission is what matters most.
As a leader, I don’t expect that everyone who works for me will agree with every decision I make. But I do expect that a rightly ordered loyalty means they will truthfully tell me when they disagree in an appropriate way. The fact is, there have been times when a colleague has shared their perspective on a pending decision and made clear their disagreement with my assessment, convincing me they were right and I was wrong. Far from disloyalty, that’s the kind of working relationship that deepens trust and loyalty.
Similarly, the leader’s job is to absorb responsibility and blame. Any healthy organization has to provide honest assessment and accountability. But that also means that senior leaders are often those who will shoulder the burden of responsibility when someone on their team makes a mistake. Breaches of integrity and ethics are a different matter of course. But the best leaders I know are those who take the burden when a strategy proves ineffective or a plan doesn’t unfold as hoped. And that’s where team loyalty grows and deepens.
Rightly ordered loyalty does not negate personal loyalty. In particular, leadership teams should expect and demand an appropriate emphasis on it. It always must be subservient to the mission of the organization, but every effective team places a priority on peer loyalty. Perhaps it’s easiest for us to identify when it’s undermined or betrayed, but we generally assume that our fellow teammates have our backs and that they will stand up for us. At a minimum, we expect that they will tell us the truth and not be duplicitous with us.
Any healthy organization rightly expects that its members will be completely loyal to the mission. Far more important than blind devotion to any individual or a tribal fanaticism, mission-driven loyalty actually has the capacity to create cohesive organizational cultures where innovation happens, ideas move toward execution, and people flourish. Ironically, mission-driven loyalty creates space for all sorts of personality differences and healthy outlets for conflict within a team.
How to Move Forward
So what do you do when you’ve blown it as a leader? Perhaps you are mindful of times when you should have stepped up and paid the cost for loyalty, but failed to do so. Loyalty does indeed demand a cost, even a sacrificial one. For example, when a team member is falsely accused or slandered, it may seem easier to duck your head and avoid the fire. But loyalty means putting yourself in front of the oncoming fire, especially if you’re the boss. But the same is true of leadership teams, whether in the corporate world or in local churches. Lost loyalty is most often due to an erosion of trust. The best thing a leader can do in these situations is to apologize. Own it. Admit to your colleague or employee that you know you let them down, that you are sorry (actually say the words, “I’m sorry”), and be prepared to work to rebuild trust.
Or perhaps you’ve been on the other side of this buzzsaw and you know full well what it is like to be thrown to the wolves (forgive the mixed metaphors). You have two choices. You can choose to become embittered and cynical, believing that loyalty is an unattainable ideal that instead gets used by people in power to control those under their authority. And if you allow yourself to surrender to the very powerful gravitational pull of that worldview, you will inevitably find your soul withering. On the other hand, you can choose to remain a hopeful realist. Loyalty still matters and is worth fighting for, worth developing, and never to be taken for granted. At the same time, you also learn a lot about people when they stab you in the back. Quite simply, don’t trust untrustworthy people. Sounds simple, right? Christians can and should give the benefit of the doubt and assume the best at every possible point. But reality has a way of wrestling you down to the ground and forcing you to deal with the truth that some people are not who they first seem to be. There are some breaches of loyalty that may simply be beyond repair in this life. Whatever the circumstances, there is always something to learn. And for the Christian, there is always evidence of God’s grace, even in the most painful and difficult of situations.
No one was better acquainted with the pain of betrayal than Jesus Christ.
No one was better acquainted with the pain of betrayal than Jesus Christ. Whatever your own familiarity with disloyalty, Jesus of Nazareth knew it even more intimately. For years he had surrounded himself with followers and disciples who he actually called friends. Three of them—Peter, James, and John—were particularly close friends. He had heard their rash pledges of allegiance to him. But then, almost in an instant, they scattered and deserted him (Matthew 26:56). When asked if they were his companions, they denounced him and pretended not to know him (Matthew 26:69ff). One of them even went so far as to join in the plot to unjustly execute him in exchange for silver. When he could entrust himself to no one else, he never failed to entrust himself to God (1 Peter 2:23).
And yet, he forgives. He is patient and kind. He pronounces peace to those who had abandoned him. And he never fails his own. He is faithful to the end.
