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One of the hardest things in life and leadership is feeling ready for success and effectiveness but having it elude you.

You might look around at other leaders, pastors, or churches and wonder, “Why do they seem to have the effectiveness and health, and I don’t?” The same thing can happen in relationships when it seems like others have an easier time than you do. 

There are things you can and can’t control regarding effectiveness in life and leadership.

One of the things you can’t control is God’s timing for your life. I remember reading a quote from Martyn Lloyd-Jones years ago where he said, “The worst thing that can happen to a man is to succeed before he is ready.” Sometimes in life and leadership, you aren’t ready for the dreams that you have. There may be some lessons you need to learn; there may be some lessons others need to learn before they can come and help you take your next step.

The other thing I’ve realized the longer I’m in leadership is that looking back, I didn’t want the things I dreamed about. Every pastor, at some point, dreams of speaking on a big stage, writing books, and having a large platform, but deep down, many aren’t willing to make the sacrifices it takes to get there. You need to work long hours to be successful and effective at anything. Your life needs to revolve around something; the most successful are making sacrifices that others aren’t. There is a reason that few megachurch-lead pastors make it to the end of ministry with a marriage and family intact. And a lot of that has to do with the sacrifice and pressure others must make for someone to be successful.

A few years ago, I started to ask successful people, what things have you given up to get where you are? What sacrifices have you or your family made for your success? This question can be eye-opening when you hear the answers. 

I’ve talked to several “successful” pastors who have marriages that aren’t fulfilling or ones who rarely speak to their kids. I’ve talked to countless leaders who are incredibly lonely and have enormous platforms. 

One of the things it showed me was what I wanted out of life. I heard some answers and thought, “I don’t want to give that up.” When you realize that, you can see that you don’t want what that person has because you aren’t willing to do what that person did. 

That’s okay. 

Some of this is the season of life, and some is simply your life calling. 

So, before you start to envy the life someone has, look at the sacrifices they had to make to get there and then ask, “Do I want to make those sacrifices?” If you don’t, that’s okay; it just means you have a different life. 

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

The book HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Making Smart Decisions has an article entitled “The Hidden Traps in Decision Making.” The authors outline the decision-making traps that snare leaders, businesses, churches, and individuals.

I’ll list them below and share how they slow leaders, churches, and people down:

1. The anchoring trap leads us to give disproportionate weight to the first information we receive.

This happens in all of life, not just in leadership. Often, it takes time to get past whatever we hear first. Whether that is a date or first impression, it keeps us from thinking straight or seeing new ways of doing something. This is okay, as sometimes our first impression or information is correct.

A leader needs to get a variety of perspectives. Ask someone with a different point of view for advice or insight.

2. The status-quo trap biases us toward maintaining the current situation—even when better alternatives exist.

Churches are notorious for “doing things as we’ve always done them.” It is comfortable, requires less work, less risk and often, in a church, keeps the leaders from having meetings with angry people. The problem with the status quo is that you need to move forward; you are, at best, treading water and, at worst, falling behind. A leader should always ask, “Are we doing things as best as we can? Is there anything we should add or take away?”

3. The sunk-cost trap inclines us to perpetuate the mistakes of the past.

This is when you’ve sunk money, time, manpower, and effort into something that isn’t working. Instead of bailing or stopping, you keep going. Churches have done this for years by keeping ministries and programs going because we’ve always done them, not because they are mission-critical or move the ball forward. Countless ministries keep going and get budget dollars because they had them last year. This is why yearly evaluation in a church is so critical.

4. The confirming-evidence trap leads us to seek information supporting an existing predilection and discount opposing information.

While this goes closely with #1 and #2, this is where a leader looks for things and reasons to confirm what they want to do. We decide what to do and then determine why that is best. When this happens, it is essential to ask, “Why would I do it another way?” Even if all the evidence points in a specific direction, it is easy to think there is no other evidence.

5. The framing trap occurs when we misstate a problem, undermining decision-making.

Framing is how we see a problem. How we ask a question will determine the answer. One of the things I often ask our leaders is, “Is that the problem we are solving?” I want us to be sure that we are solving the right problem. It will only matter what the answer is once the problem is apparent. Often, ministries get started for no good reason but only because someone else did it first. It is helpful to ask questions differently when this starts to creep up.

6. The overconfidence trap makes us overestimate the accuracy of our forecasts.

This happens yearly regarding budgets, ministry plans, and looking ahead to big days. While God moves in powerful ways and grows churches unexpectedly, it is important not to think we can do more than we can. For instance, when you make your budget, what if giving decreases by 10% instead of increasing by 3%? Depending on the size of your budget, that can be hundreds of thousands of dollars.

7. The prudence trap leads us to be overcautious when we estimate uncertain events.

This trap often keeps us from making decisions, falling into #2, and settling for the status quo. This is the safe side and causes us to pull back and have zero confidence. Like each team often has an overconfident person, each team usually has a prudent person. Both are necessary and important to the health of a team and church, but one can often be too loud and drive the decision, and it is usually the lead pastor.

8. The recallability trap prompts us to give undue weight to recent, dramatic events.

This is when we look to the past to decide how the future will go. Churches, again, are so good at this. If you’ve ever joined a church staff, you will notice that the past was either incredible and may have well been the book of Acts, or you followed the people who led the church through the 400 years of God’s silence between the old and new Testaments.

Remember: the past is never as great or bad as we remember.

Photo by ABDALLA M on Unsplash

At some point, as a pastor, you will pastor difficult people.

You will pastor people who sin, betray you or others, gossip, break up marriages, and are mean to you, your spouse, and your kids (or others in the church). You will pastor people who won’t listen to God’s word or the Holy Spirit and do their own thing. You will pastor people who will act like spoiled children.

And as a pastor, you will have some of those people on your staff or elder teams.

When that happens, what do you do? You can’t abandon them or your call as a pastor, but you do have to enter into the fray.

Here are some lessons I’ve learned over the years:

1. Confront your own difficulty and sin. Over the years, it is easy to take it personally when someone is difficult and says something mean or harsh. But part of the reason it stings is that it is personal, even if it isn’t about you. The personal feeling might be being let down or deflated that someone did or said that.

But something else happens in that moment and situation, you are reminded of your brokenness, and you are often tempted to let pride rise up and think, “I would never do that.” But deep down, you know that you could and more than likely have done that.

Often, when someone does something in our church or relationships, it triggers something in our stories that we haven’t dealt with or is still raw. Often, our reaction to the person in our church can be a reaction to a person or situation in the past.

2. Know you are called to pastor them. As much as you would like a perfect church filled with people who don’t sin or create a mess, this is why you are a pastor. To help people and walk alongside them.

Too often, pastors miss the church God has given them because they seek the church they long for.

They are often not the same. 

As a pastor, it is disheartening when people in your church sin, gossip, and are mean-spirited. It makes you want to pull your hair out. As a pastor, I’ve often shaken my head at what people have done and thought, “What in the world?” People will let you down, adults will act like spoiled children, and people who started with you won’t finish with you (even though they will tell you they will). And when that happens, you must remember this is why you are a pastor, to help those who are lost and those who have lost their way.

3. Ask God to help you see them as He sees them. One of my constant prayers is: “God, give me your love for my people, help me to see my people the way you see them.”

It isn’t easy because I want to see them as they are and protect myself and those I care about from what they might do. And yes, you need wisdom as a pastor, and they may be some people you don’t spend a lot of time with to protect yourself. But that isn’t true for most of the people in your church. 

4. Know that when they lash out, it isn’t about you (even though it feels that way). When I was in seminary, I took one counseling class. I don’t remember much about the class, but I have never forgotten what the professor said one night. He told us, “When someone in your church lashes out at you personally, at the church, it most often is not about you. Usually, a relationship (spouse, boss, parent, friend, child) is broken in their life, and they feel powerless to do anything, so they lash out on the next closest authority figure in their life, the pastor or the church.” That has been proven to be true time and again.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat with someone who is frustrated about something, thinking about leaving our church, and most of the conversation when I meet with that person is about someone else in their life, not connected to the church. 

This is helpful to give us perspective on walking with someone. To hear their pain and to differentiate ourselves so we can bear their pain with them as a pastor.