What you are seeing is a house that has stood in my neighborhood for decades being taken down by a large backhoe. I became alarmed as I took the picture as to how quickly the house was destroyed. What stood for decades was destroyed in mere minutes.
As I watched the house come down so quickly I was reminded leadership is much the same way. What took decades to build up can come crashing down in a moment. I remembered the words a friend once said to me, “Brian, trust takes a lifetime to build but can be lost at a moment in time.”
The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized this house was destroyed in mere minutes as I originally thought. Much effort, consideration and planning went into this. The original owner developed a desire to sell his property. He/she had the land surveyed for value. Realtors were met with and selected. For Sale signs went up. Invitations were made for viewings. Proposals were sent in. Negotiations and further conversations were held. A decision on a financial exchange was made. Contracts were signed. Money was exchanged. The family moved out. The backhoe just made it public.
Leadership is the same way.
Malcolm Gladwell in his great book Outliers writes, “Plane crashes rarely happen in real life the same way they happen in movies. Some engine part does not explode in a fiery bang…Plane crashes are much more likely to be the result of an accumulation of minor difficulties and seemingly trivial malfunctions…The typical accident involves seven consecutive human errors”
Kerby Anderson writes here about the 10 stages of decline that lead nations from bondage to bondage. The stages are:
- Bondage to Christian Faith
- Christian Faith to Great Courage
- Great Courage to Liberty
- Liberty to Abundance
- Abundance to Selfishness
- Selfishness to Complacency
- Complacency to Apathy
- Apathy to Moral Decay
- Moral Decay to Dependence
- Dependence to Bondage
Sounds like America doesn’t it?
So are there stages which precede the fall of a leader? For an answer to this question, I re-visited the 3 Aspects/Stages of Sin:
- Sin – This is to miss the mark as a leader and being off-target. This could come from incompetence, lack of people skills, unhealthy pride, incorrect or bad decisions, greed, poor character, etc…
- Iniquity – This is twisting the proper standard of leadership. In other words, you begin to justify your bad decisions and poor performance. You twist the truth and/or reality.
- Transgression – This is a willful deviation from the proper standard of leadership. This leader is in rebellion. Leaders in transgression make a premeditated decision to cross lines of acceptability. They also know what to do as leaders and choose not to do it.
Just like nations, airplanes, and the house shown above, when leaders fall it is the cumulation of many decisions and events.
For some leaders, this post is a gift for you. The 3 Aspects/Stages of Sin should serve as a warning and potential rescue mission for you.
Please repent and make positive changes today. If not, one day you will have an inevitable fall as a leader. Many in your church or organization will say, “What happened” or “That was quick.” The reality was it was not quick. There were many warning signs along of the way. A backhoe, or some form thereof, just made it public.
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