Leadership Ellipse

I finished The Leadership Ellipse by Robert Fryling this weekend. It's a spiritual formation book for leaders who are worn out from trying to balance the tension between our inner relationship with God and our outer ministry to others. He introduces the idea of an ellipse, an oval to those of us who aren't geometry enthusiasts. Ovals have two focal points, unlike a circle with just one big bull's eye in the middle. Too often, leaders burn out from neglecting their relationship with God, feeling like hypocrites and frauds in their work. Or leaders retreat for a time and return refreshed, but without many ideas on how to bring what they experienced into the rest of their lives. But authenticity by itself isn't much to shoot for - we need transformation. So Fryling wrote a book to help leaders develop "a harmony of our inner and outer lives that together are in harmony with God and his purposes in us and in the world."

His first two sections were excellent, but since I've read a number of spiritual formation books over the last year, the practices he suggested weren't new. Excellent, but not new to me. The last section was particularly helpful for me, though.

He talked about our fears and self-pity - seeing ourselves like grasshoppers. I know, weird metaphor. It's from Numbers 13:33; you can check out the whole story here. Basically, some of the Israelites charged with spying out the Promised Land came back and reported there was no way they could even hope of taking it over - there were giants living there, and they reported, "We seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” Fryling believes the practice of wholeheartedness can address the self-pity behind these fears.

He also challenged leaders to be attentive to the people around them, not just the structures they're trying to keep or develop. I think this was a good reminder to me of the pull I've been feeling to actually hang out in my students' environment, check their status updates on Facebook, and not just ask the "spiritual check-up" questions when we meet.

His last chapter, on being a grateful creature, offered a definition of leadership as "defining reality and saying thank you." One of my Area Director Josh Howell's favorite sayings is, "Reality is our best friend." Being honest with ourselves and students about what's really going on, where our choices lead, and that things are either much better or much worse (depending on the student's outlook) than they usually think. My chapter building coach and Associate Regional Director Andrea Thomas has told me, "Bring the fun!" We weren't celebrating at our leadership meetings when something went well, or just that we were getting to partner with God on campus. So we started having "forced fun" in the middle of leadership meetings and spending time rejoicing and praising God during prayer meetings. I think I'll try just outright thanking students more, too.