difficult leadership decisions

There are moments in leadership when difficult decisions are made, decisions that impact mission or direction or personnel or programs.  Decisions that cannot be fully explained due to professionalism, due to integrity, due to character.

What happens when a leader cannot defend a difficult leadership decision?

It's an incredibly lonely place to be.
It's a difficult place to be.
It's uncomfortable, it's confrontational, it's all-around-adverse.
It's required.
It's necessary.

There is a cost to leading.  The cost is often unknown and unappreciated until the payment is required.
It can cost relationship.  It can feel like betrayal.

Often, it leaves others searching or scratching their heads.  Rumors start.  It gets really messy.  It stems in the need to know why.

And yet, the words of truth, of God tell us that "such things are to lofty for me"
and "what I see now is dim compared to what will be"

There are times in leadership when all things can't be explained,
every detail cannot be made known.
And in those times, trust is everything.

I trust that God will lead in ways I cannot know.
I trust him when I do not understand.
I trust him when things are beyond my tiny mind and my limited reasoning.
I trust him because I don't see the whole picture, I don't have the entire perspective.

Am I a leader that others will follow even when they don't understand?
Am I a leader that others will trust even when it doesn't make sense?
Am I the kind of leader that others support even when I can't paint the entire picture?
When I'm depending on them to support,
be in unity,
team together for the stroke they paint?

I grieve over the times I didn't invest in trust and I tried unsuccessfully to defend.
In the defending I lost so much more that the bragging rights of winning the argument.