Leading From the Middle

Hey, this is Tim, and welcome to the Student Life Podcast, where we explore the everyday challenges and big questions of life through a biblical lens while navigating the realities of a secular world. Enjoy. Hey yo, what's up? So I'm your host, Tim Pratt Jr., and we're going to jump straight into this one today. I, I act— this is actually bonus content, and we're going to be talking about under authority. With authority. In other words, leading from the middle, managing from the middle, whatever terminology you want to use. We're going to be talking about leading from the middle. And man, I'm— so let's just go ahead and get into it. I'm not even going to start with the verse, but I do have scripture today. But one of the things I want to say before I get started this episode is I sit in a seat, couple seats, but I sit more as a coach that spends a lot of time with upper senior leadership and then with teams, then even kind of digging into individuals depending on like high performance and trying to cultivate high performing teams. A lot of tension I sit in the midst of. In the ministry context, I sit more like an exact— I function more as an executive pastor, helping again kind of do something similar with ministries and the operations of local church. Of course, I'm teaching pastor, things of that, but that's probably where I sit. So what I'm trying to say is leading or managing from the middle, it carries more tension than many of us would like to admit. And one of the things I believe that happens or why we feel this tension and don't speak to it or don't want to admit it, because it can come off as we're criticizing either the leadership we report to or help work with, or it comes off that, that we are, um, what I'm looking for, not hearing or respecting the people that's giving us the feedback and we're trying to lead. It's kind of like we have a problem. So that's why I believe that leading from the middle— it's not the tension that's the problem, it's when we aren't naming it in the safe spaces and with people that can really help us walk this thing out and lead better or manage better from the right posture. So first and foremost, character and integrity is everything. It is because one of the things that we have to understand, and this is— this will be influenced because I don't want to keep quoting them, so this is kind of inspired by Dr. Tracy Reynolds, a little bit of John C. Maxwell when he wrote the book 360 Degree Leader, Second Chair Leadership by Tracy Reynolds, Dr. Tracy Reynolds, and again, my own experiences and things. One of the things that we have to understand in this unique position that we sit in is that we We have access up, we have access across the board, we have access down, and we're consistently in the middle of friction, like a tug of war approach, almost to a degree. Maybe that's a poor choice of words, but it's that, again, it's that tension that we feel because we consistently being pulled. We, we are hearing the vision, but we also sit in the midst of reality. And before I get into— no, I'm gonna leave that kind of weaving in. So I want to go scripture here real quick, then I just want to flow. In Matthew 8 and Luke 7, we see this satyrion. And my brother Caleb, uh, on a leadership talk that we were doing, he was talking about, for I myself— he had quoted scripture. He said, man, we have to keep this in mind. For I myself, as a man under authority, with soldiers under me, and essentially soldiers under my authority as well. Now, of course, we know in context Jesus was talking about faith here, but, but I love this because there's some important observations that we can make about this scripture. And I wish I would have paused, man, and really unpacked when Caleb hit that verse. But I love this because he understood authority because he lived inside the tension of it. In other words, he was both submitted— and a lot of us don't like that word in leadership— he was both submitted and responsible. Like, he— and that, that's how we have to be when we sit in the, in the tension of this, when we sit in these unique seats because of the different type of collective perspectives, the layered perspectives that we have. And this is why we have to really work hard to be a bridge and not a bottleneck. I'm not trying to give you clichés and statements and sound overly polished, but we have to really work hard at being a bridge. Because in my experiences, sometimes I have went too far at protecting the vision at the expense of the people, and then there are times I went too far at protecting the people at the expense of the vision. That is tension. But I have to learn how to steward both of them, and it takes deep character, deep competence integrity, and striving to be postured to reconcile these approaches. Because a lot of times— not always, but a lot of times— when vision is declared, it meets reality. And it doesn't mean that people are always pushing back somewhere and don't want to carry out the vision. It's just that there's challenges there. And sometimes people can be so full of vision that they become blind to the reality. And then sometimes people can be so blind by the reality that they just can't execute and see the vision. And, and let me just pause here for the cause. Um, one thing that kind of irritates me, again, because I, I want to say this because this, this is very— a lot of tension here. But one of the things, maybe I shouldn't say irritate me. Well, I am going to say it. When it's weaponized, it's when vision is declared and the pushback is always people don't understand the seat that I sit in. Now, it is a lot of truth in that, but a lot of people, when they say God said— if God truly said it, because again, we— I can give you scriptures to back up. I'm not going around that by any means. I've been that person, and the— where I've had to say, hey, listen, I, I've been praying, I've been fasting, and I believe that the Holy Spirit is leading me in this direction. And again, I don't really fully understand everything, but this is where I believe God is leading me, and I, and I can't give language to it. However, I do not like when leaders weaponize that to manipulate people, and because they don't want to speak or have conversations or have invitations, because some people have said God said 10 times in a vision casting and they have missed 8 out of them 10 times. And it's like, nah, you just don't like to be challenged. Now, if it's not that, to God be the glory. But if it's that, I, I would be careful. I just want to pause there because again, like, I, I can— man, I— and I don't have time because it's not— this is not what this episode is about. But also too, like, I live in a space that I know things can be weaponized. And I see that, and again, I totally understand it, but let's just make sure as leaders we're not weaponizing it. But getting back to the topic at hand, the point of this conversation is that when we're leading from the middle, I love that we have to strive to be a bridge because in this Soterion, when we really look at it in the context of scripture, his clarity about authority allowed him to exercise authority, Authority the right way. Authority the right way. Now again, Jesus called this great faith. We know that it was about faith, but it's powerful because he didn't resist. He didn't resent being under authority. He did not. He understood how it flowed. And this is essentially what this is all about. We have to learn how to steward both well. We feel the tension of hearing the vision and trying to execute it. So here it is. I hear the vision, whether it's in the ministry sense or in your organizational secular sense. I hear the vision. Now I'm trying to drive that execution. Oh, now it's met with reality and challenges and feedback. Now let me translate that back to leadership. Leadership still wants to hold to the vision. Now, as an executor— and this is why I believe sometimes we don't, we don't have a necessarily vision problem, we have an execution problem— and we have people that are not well trained and well submitted in how to be a bridge, and they just say, burn it, man, I'm, I'm just gonna pick sides, I don't care anymore. And this is now progressively what I said earlier when I was like, sometimes I have, I have protected the vision so much that I lost sight of the people, at the expense of the people. And I protected people so much that it came at the expense of the vision. But I'm required to steward both. And that is why I have such a high respect for people that lead from the middle with excellence, with character, with integrity, and know how to sit in that tension. I'm not saying you're not going to have challenges you want to throw in the towel, but strive to keep showing up and being a bridge because it's needed. It is. And it, it takes unique people to do this because you are in the midst of some very challenging perspectives. It, it's challenging. So leading from the middle, again, that's why I say like a lot of people might not like the name The Tension because of how it can come off, but it's tension there. But again, you have to have safe spaces to the right coaches, the right people, because there are people out here that understand what you're going through and they can help you unpack that. They might not have all the answers, but they can help you unpack it. And it's better when we think together versus sometimes just consistently thinking and trying to lead in isolation. So we have to find the right community. But, but again, I, I love it because he understood both. He understood what it was to be under, and he knew what it was to exercise it. And it is very dangerous to have a consistent problem with wanting to submit to leadership and wanting to be a leader, because what in the world do you think you're gonna get when now that you are the leader and you need people to submit to the things that you're asking? Like we have to learn how to follow well. We have to know how to sit under the— under two. Like, I, I personally believe that on both sides, in the marketplace, it— to some degree, even if you are the CEO or whatever, you should be submitted to a board of directors. In pastoral sense, you should be submitted to a board of elders. An eldership board? Because if neither is the case, like, there's— man, that's just too much power for one person. So again, in, in, in the context of this episode, um, all of us probably live this in some capacity, whether it's again being up under senior pastors. I know you might not like that title, so I'll just say pastors, up under shepherds, under shepherds, under elders. We might be under executives or under directors, but then as well as we're over teams in our organizational structure or ministry structure. Like, you have to have structure, you have to have order, you have chaos. But I love the Satyrian passage of scripture because it, again, it teaches us that authority— authority is— it's not— help me say this the right way, Lord— it's not positional first. It's relational and it's structural. It's needed because if, if we live in a posture like where we just resist it, we always resisting it. We habitually resisting those above us, and then we, we consistently ignoring— we can't— we don't hear. We like, like the whole concept leaders eat last. Okay, if I'm consistently— think about it— if I'm leading from the middle and I'm consistently resisting the people that are leading above me, the people that are in authority— uh, why do I keep butchering this word— the people that are in authority above me, but then I'm ignoring the people that are below me, the realities and challenges they deal with, I'm essentially just going to distort the system. If I, if I don't kill it, crash it, the system goes belly up, whatever. But, but I have to move in a way that, that honor those above me, but then at the same time making sure that I'm representing those people below me. I have to sit in the middle of that. I have to translate that. That's it. Thank you, Holy Spirit. I have to translate that clarity in both directions. It's a tension. It's that bridgeful tension from leading from the middle of consistently translating. In both directions. All these perspectives, and I'm having to be the bridge. That is what makes middle management so unique to me, or leading from the middle, especially through my lens as a coach, as executive pastor. It's very challenging because you, you have vision and you have reality. And as I said earlier, Some people have so much vision that they're blind to reality, and some people sit in so much reality that they're blind to the vision. And now you have to kind of come in— what I spend my day-to-day doing, trying to translate that, trying to be that bridge of going back and forth, going back and forth. And it is so much weight to walk under, but I, but I love it. I love it. I love what I get to do every day. Matter of fact, I'm going to be spending 100% of my time operating as a systems delivery coach within the next week. That's what I'm moving into in my secular day-to-day. But, but I love it, but it is challenging. And like I said, a lot of times we don't like to name it because it's how we can come off, but this is the nature of the game. So again, uh, what I like to— like, if you go look in the context of Romans 13, uh, and I believe Hebrews 13, and you just sit with those passages of scriptures, uh, I would say to you, if you don't know how to be under leadership, you're gonna have a— you're gonna have a challenging time knowing how to exercise it, exercising the authority that has been given to you, the delegated authority that has been delegated to you. So you, you want to learn now how to sit in that tension. As I said earlier, if you don't know how to follow well, how are you going to expect that from others? So leading from the middle, like Dr. Tracy, uh, Dr. Reynolds was saying, Dr. Tracy Reynolds was saying, we We have a continual access to understand the vision, to interpret the vision language so we can execute within reality. Ooh, I think— I don't know if you said it like that, but that's how I interpreted it. Maybe that was the Holy Spirit bringing it back to me, giving me language to it. We have a— we, we have a duty. That's it. We have a duty because we have access to consistently interpret the vision so we can execute within reality. However, this emotional temperament that we have to maintain, again, because why? Because we're translating, we're being a bridge, to and fro, going back and forth. And this is, but if we sit with it and we sit in the midst of that tension and we making sure that we have these safe spaces, because with me, even if I'm tenseful and I'm venting sometimes, to get things out. Most of the people I know who I can go to and who can help me, but they know that I'm postured to go back with a solution and continue to just go back and forth because it's all about having informal conversations. This is what I like to call strategic intelligence. It's, it's being very strategic. It's sitting with things again and knowing who I can go to. So leading from the middle systems and all of that, they are amazing. But I believe AI, all of that type of stuff, it's dope. Don't get me wrong, like, I use it. Uh, I'm a big agility proponent. I love things about project management. I love the hybrid. But I'm sitting there based on my toolbox and I'm looking, what do I need? What can speed me up? Uh, what, what can I use? What can I automate here? What can I leverage AI for here to help me sit with people and help keep connecting them and being that translator? How can I keep operating in what I like to call strategic intelligence and help him inform me to have the right conversations and making sure that I'm connecting the dots and stewarding well? That's it. Thank you, Holy Spirit. Stewarding well. Because if— I don't know if you're familiar with the, um, the, the remake Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, but the Jeffrey, uh, Jeffrey character on that, he operates more of a house manager. He owns— he doesn't own anything, but he manages everything. He knows like everything that's going on, all that flows and goes on within that house. He's aware and he's stewarding that in a way that's truthfully we should be doing. That's what it means, I believe, to think like an owner. I'm not the owner, but I'm thinking like an owner. It's, it's, it's stewarding well. We are called to be great stewards. We are. Stewardship is so essential in any capacity, but you really, really need it in this leading from the middle or managing from the middle. So when vision— when again, let us not be so full of the vision that we can't explain and sense what's going on around us, what we're hearing, the challenges. But don't let us also to get to a place where the challenges and the reality kill the vision. Because neither— the vision should guide where we're going, but it should never silence what we are hearing and experiencing. We need a bridgeable conversation to carry the vision out in the midst of all of this. And as I told you in my own personal experiences, because I failed at it before, And then I've had success at it before. But when we lose sight of, of the two and we forget that we are required to be a translator or bridge, whatever terminology you want to use, when we forget that, we become a bottleneck. We do. We're not effective anymore. We're— we, we have to continuously translate and keep the two together. So no matter what role you are in, you are leading in some capacity. Like, it's times that I need to lead from the front, it's times I need to lead from the back, from my house. It's times I have to sit in the middle of it. As a husband, as a father, I'm doing 360-degree leadership all the time within the context of my family. So again, Don't just— leading from the middle, managing from the middle, again, whatever terminology that you want to use. I'll just challenge you with two last things, or three. Don't lean too hard at protecting the vision, and don't lean too hard in protecting the people. Sit in the tension of both. Because essentially what all this is about, if, if I could put it in one sentence, what all it— what all this is about, it has nothing to do with power. It's all about stewardship. I don't own a vision, neither do you. Now, if you're a top leader, again, this is a middle management, uh, leading from the middle episode, but we don't own the vision. So again, It isn't about— it's not about power. It's about— it's all about stewardship, because we don't own neither. We don't own the vision, and we do not own the people, but we are required to steward both. So if you are feeling that tension, man, sitting in the midst of leadership and having these challenges, I would love to connect with you. I really would. Like, I, I love this space. Uh, it's a lot of incredible voices. I plan on partnering with a couple because I do have a heart. I've been— I just haven't been obedient. I have a heart for leadership under like that second tier, middle leadership, associate pastors, associate ministers. Like, I have a heart for it, and I'm, I'm about to ramp up in that space a lot. I'm still be working with senior leaders and pastors and things of the nature, but I, I have a heart for it because I, I think you, you have— we have to first know how to name it, and then we have to know how to strategically deal with it, prayerfully deal with it. And so if you, if you have those challenges, uh, like reach out to somebody. You have XP Gathering out there, you have, I think, Leading from the Second Chair, Leading Second. You have a couple of, I, I believe, really good solid resources out there. I know XP Gathering from a pastoral sense, uh, Kevin and his wife, I can vouch for them. Uh, just a little time I spent with Kevin, man, top tier guy, top tier guy, man. Has a heart for God, a heart for the kingdom. Uh, but anywho, I, I really wanted to, to challenge, just challenge us in this context, man, especially with my, again, my experience in the seat that I sit in. I spend most of my days always talking to directors, senior leaders, VPs, and then team leads, tech leads, engineering managers, product people, product managers, product owners, and down to the individual contributors that make up the team. I'm always gathering perspective. And then on the ministry side, I talk with the senior pastor, I talk with the eldership board, and then I'm talking to the when working amongst the people. So it's tension, but I have to operate in character and integrity as well as be competent in trying to keep those bridges going because there's a lot of tension there. So anywho, just want to challenge you, uh, man, to just keep doing it with integrity. So love y'all, be blessed. Thanks for joining me today on the Student Life Podcast, and remember Learning never stops, and wisdom grows as we seek truth in both scripture and life. And until next time, keep walking faithfully and thinking deeply. Be blessed.