Change And Resisting Change

Dan Holloway, Pinnacle Associate

Both in my own life as a pastor and now as a consultant, I have walked with communities of faith as they seek to deal with needed change. Without exception, these congregations have properly identified areas in which transformation and change were needed and appropriate. They have most often followed good process and sought to implement change which seems highly appropriate to outside observers. Such changes would seem to hold great promise for future congregational life and those who have initiated such change are convinced that they are leading in the right direction.

Yet more times than not, there is at least initial resistance to those proposed changes and sometimes very deep resistance. Those who seek to provide such needed change consistently report their experience of resistance and even sabotage. While this is now such a common experience as to be anticipated, it is nevertheless both frustrating and confusing to those who seek to lead in a positive and life-changing way. How are we to respond to resistance to change? What are our best leadership strategies in the face of opposition to our proposed change?

For me one of the most important strategies is summed up in this quote from Ronald Heifetz: “Leadership is disappointing your own people at a rate they can absorb.” That sentence is a mouthful but it makes three assumptions I have found to be absolutely true.

To be a leader is to know that you will sometimes disappoint the people you lead. Effective leaders are inevitably motivated by a strong sense of mission and purpose that causes them to promote decisive actions. This inevitably means inviting your people into God’s new future in ways that are challenging and uncomfortable. And this will always lead to resistance and disappointment among at least some of those you lead. In any system there will be a strong preference for the status quo and there will always be some people who will work hard to maintain that status quo even when it seems illogical or self-defeating. Effective leaders understand this and anticipate it. They continue to lead in the direction of the mission but also understand they will sometimes disappoint the people they lead.

These people are still your people and God’s call to you is to love them as passionately as God has loved you. Change is hard under any circumstances but it is virtually impossible in a community where people don’t know themselves to be loved. Even those who engage in sabotage are among those we are called to love and that means staying close enough to them to maintain a positive relationship that is obvious to both.

We therefore work hard to lead change at a rate people can absorb. We recognize that change inevitably involves loss and grief and we honor the processes attached to such grief. In the same way that you can’t rush individuals through the stages of grief, neither can you rush congregations through their stages of grief. Indeed, one of our primary responsibilities as faith leaders in a time of transition may be to help our congregations grieve their losses so that they are better equipped to deal with needed change. This means staying connected to your people rather than getting too far ahead. While this is not easily done, it is the surest path to needed and essential change.