The Unifying Theme of Strong Leadership
Eugene Peterson wrote in his memoir that he was hurt when his son said to him, “You only preach one sermon!” As an experienced and well-regarded minister who preached on many different texts and applications, the elder Peterson couldn’t believe his son would say such a thing.
Then one day, the comment made more sense.
His son was explaining why it was so hard for him to find a church he liked in his university town. “None of those other pastors have found their sermon,” he told his father.
He went on: “Dad, novelists only write one book. They find their voice, their book. And write it over and over. William Faulkner wrote one book. Anne Tyler wrote one book. Ernest Hemmingway wrote one book.”
The pastors in his university town didn’t preach from that singular voice, though. They were likely too focused on preaching various messages that they thought would attract kids from the university to their church. In so doing, they were failing to connect personally with anyone.
What was initially taken as an insult by Eugene Peterson was, in fact, high praise. Through his leadership and communication, Peterson had persistently returned to a central, coherent message. And that made sense of everything he did and said.
Could the same be said about you in all the ways in which you communicate to the world around you?
Consider your central, coherent message. And remember, it isn’t literally a speech you deliver, but the thing that drives you. Your core mission. Your why. The creative theme that keeps repeating itself in your work and relationships.
Why should you keep repeating that core message in different ways, contexts and applications?
First, it makes your life and your work coherent. In other words, it produces integrity.
Second, it focuses the choices others make if they are going to follow your lead.
Ok, you might be thinking, how do I know whether I have a coherent message in my work and life. And if I don’t, how do I develop one?
What it Takes to Have a Coherent Message in Life and Work
The key to unlocking your core message in life is to resist anxiety — the anxiety that causes you to second-guess what you really want to say, or to ignore your instincts and defer to what you think people want to hear.
Here’s how Edwin Friedman describes people who consistently reinforce their mission and core values rather than reflecting what they think others want them to say:
I mean someone who has clarity about his or her own life goals, and, therefore, someone who is less likely to become lost in the anxious emotional processes swirling about. I mean someone who can be separate while still remaining connected, and therefore can maintain a modifying, non-anxious, and sometimes challenging presence. I mean someone who can manage his or her own reactivity to the automatic reactivity of others, and therefore be able to take stands at the risk of displeasing.
It’s not an easy thing to do. Consider:
- It’s very difficult to be the coach who pulls the star player out of the game because that player isn’t fostering teamwork.
- It requires a non-anxious mindset to decline a revenue-generating opportunity that doesn’t leverage your strengths.
- It can be exhausting to hold a friend or high performer accountable for poor performance.
- It’s hard to stay on course with your product or strategy if you’re not seeing short-term results or if another “shiny rock” opportunity crosses your desk.
Anxiety can be found at the core of all temptations to change message.
How Do You Determine Your Central Message?
My last post encouraged an inside-out approach to your core identity. I said that it helps to regularly consider this question: What do I most want people to know about who I am and what I value?
The answer to this question becomes the filter by which you make choices — at work and in your personal life.
You can further add context to the question by asking:
- As a leader at work, what do I most want?
- On this project I’m working on, what do I most want?
- When I deliver this upcoming presentation, what do I most want?
- As a parent, what do I most want?
At the core of each of these answers, one coherent message should surface. It’s your one sermon to the world.
Last week I read a pleasant but somewhat ambivalent book review in the Wall Street Journal. While it covered a lot of interesting ground, the reviewer concluded that the book had no “unifying theme.”
My hope for each of us is that we’d not be described in ambivalent ways. Rather, that we’d be found to have a unifying theme in all that we do so that we live a life of integrity, purpose, and leadership.
What’s your one sermon?
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