Your Leadership Flaws are Showing

Were you alive when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986? The crew of seven all died including a civilian, Christa McAuliffe, the first “teacher in space.” The investigation that followed indicated that the fatal flaw that caused the disaster were rubber “O-ring” seals in the shuttle boosters that deteriorated due to the cold temperatures prior to launch. Although this design concern had been raised earlier, no one took it seriously until the explosion of the shuttle and the deaths of all on board.

During this Coronavirus pandemic, we are faced with challenges that we have not faced before, both personally and professionally. As we seek to respond, we find flaws not only in ourselves but in the organizations in which we work. These flaws were always there but did not rise to the surface until the crisis.

To think specifically about faith-based organizations such as churches, many of the systems we had in place four weeks ago no longer work during the crisis. Some churches had thought about online giving options, but just had never gotten around to it and depended on congregants dropping their offerings in the plate on Sunday mornings. The result, in many cases, was no service, no congregants, no plates, and no offerings.

Some churches had talked about livestreaming their worship services for those who could not attend due to health, work, or other factors, but there were cost concerns, or this did not seem to be a priority. Now the staff leaders in these congregations are taking “crash courses” in Facebook Live, Zoom, and other videoconferencing platforms.

In many organizations, the decision-making process has broken down. Planning sessions, financial decisions, and personnel actions that are usually done in person have to be done remotely. Perhaps decisions always had to flow through one person and that person is over-burdened or unavailable. This exposes deficiencies in leadership style, group dynamics, and interpersonal relationships.

The real danger here is to fail to learn from the crisis. Investigations found out what happened to the Space Shuttle and changes were made in the fleet to avoid a similar problem. The greatest fear I have is that when this crisis is over, there will be a great rush to return to “normal” and to fail to learn from our experiences.

A crisis exposes our stress points, but we have to decide whether we will deal with those stressors and be ready to avoid them when future crises come and, be assured, they will come!

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