Multiple Realities - Part III

“Multiple Realities” is a term from my Family Therapy Training at the Kantor Family Institute. Acknowledging this relationship reality is key to leadership. It is about respecting multiple perceptions and truths from different locations within the congregation. In systems thinking, context is everything. Power positions, personalities and interpersonal posture are all in the eyes of the beholder.

I have listened too many times to a new pastor telling their story of entering a congregation with the agenda of enforcing church polity rules and regulation (in my system the "Book of Discipline). How quickly they learned about what it means to be absolutely "right" and simultaneously "dead wrong." The old adage, "choose what crosses you want to die on!" is rooted in an understanding of multiple realities.

During my "rookie years" as a pastor, I attended a workshop with Church Consultant Kennon Callahan. He stated, “Perception >Yields Behavior >Yields Destiny.” My take away from that conference was an increased dedication to observing my biases and prejudices regarding leadership, creating influence and change.

Author and Clinical Psychologist David Feinstein, frames the importance of managing your own mind and perceptions in neuro-biochemical-psychological reasons. He states “For better or worse, your expectations release a flood of chemical in your brain. Every sensation, emotion and passing thought causes millions of neurons to fire together, shaping your next response to whatever life presents.” Your perceptions of possibilities lead to more possibility thinking. Perceptions of defeat and despair lead to more of the same.

Each one of us has our bias and point of view. Multiple realities affirms the value of each persons point of view as a source of the energy the leads to transformation. Learning how to use difference is key to creating enough cohesion and buy in to do transformative work.

During my junior year of High School I latched on to Matthew 7: 1-2. “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” This bible passage helped me to discover the importance of paying attention to perceptions. At an early age, I bumped into the healing/hurting power of perceptions.

In one of my workshops on “Transformational Leadership” a pastor who was new to her church, stated that she saw a lot of dysfunctional tops spinning around in her church. She went on to state that she was knocking over these tops left and right! As we were about to discuss church culture and the joining process, I smiled and said, “Choose your tops wisely.”
I am not stating that we should be afraid to take a stand (defining self without negative labels and judgements is key to transformative leadership). However, I am saying that we shouldn't be surprised when we get a push back to our efforts to change a church that didn't ask for change in the first place.

Therapist turned Organizational Consultant, Alan Slobodnik states that judgments result when our emotions are tied up with our preferences. We get into trouble when we start telling or covertly communicating to our target systems (congregations) that their preferences are bad or inferior (old school, etc.). Ironically, if you really want to change a system of people, judging them provides the least leverage. Maybe it comes from our misunderstanding of the location and role of the biblical prophets, but more often than not, the first misstep in leadership is making and proclaiming negative judgments about the congregation.

Slobodnik goes on to state, “….when you enter a system with respect for its right to exist, you have much greater potential for leveraging the possibilities for change. On the other hand, people will smell out judgment early on and will be very turned off by it.”