Leading With Silence Before Action
“I undervalue my silence too much. Too often I move from action into silence instead of the other way about.” – R. Morrison
My days have become a steady barrage of meetings, emails, texts, and phone calls as our team wrestles through the foundational ideas for our ministry as it moves forward. It’s been a workout, to say the least, but a GREAT workout – something that I’m extremely thankful for.
I’m thankful because we have a team of people that deeply care about where Student Ministries Worship at Cornerstone Fellowship is headed. I’m thankful because I’m not making these essential decisions alone or in a vacuum. We have intelligent and experienced team members that bring insight and experience and passionate opinion to discussions. I cherish these things.
But, amidst all of this, with my mind generally moving 100 mph, I can’t get the above quote out of my mind: “I undervalue my silence too much.” And more, “Too often I move from action into silence instead of the other way about.”
Those two lines stop me in my tracks. How often, within a leadership context, do I remain silent before action, to spend time in solitude and prayer before moving forward with any kind of decision making.
So I challenged my team this past week to move from silence to action, not the other way around. I challenged them to listen, to ponder, to let their thoughts and actions be swayed by times of quiet and rest and aloneness.
Silence first and action later is generally not the order I move in when I lead. But it needs to start being that way.
