From the Ground Up

By Sam Chand

One day, while looking out a window, I saw a man standing on a ladder painting an exterior wall. I watched the man paint, and I noticed he could cover only a limited area. As I observed him stretch as far as he could to the left and right, it occurred to me that he could only climb and reach the height at which he was comfortable. Immediately, I wondered what would enable him to climb higher, and it struck me—he needed someone on the street level to hold his ladder steady while he worked.

What a revelation! Those who hold the ladders are as important as the leaders themselves. Since then, I have often used the illustration of a ladder to describe one’s leadership journey and ladder holders as those who support the leader’s vision by holding the ladder. But not all ladder holders can stay ladder holders. Sometimes, they need to become climbers.

As I look at my own experience and consider the upward path of others, I suspect that most of them started at the bottom. That is, their careers began after they learned to hold the ladder securely for someone else to move smoothly upward. They did more than hold the ladder. They observed, they learned, they saw the techniques used and they understood where the ascending person was going. The day came when those same people who held ladders started their own climb upward. How did they do it? Their ladder climbers invited those ladder holders to climb with them. Thank God for that—wouldn’t it be a shame if we left ladder holders to be ladder holders forever?

Every ladder climber once started as a ladder holder. No leader starts at the top of the ladder. Their journey starts in a lowly position. This is the biblical way. We read about Elisha, a man about whom the Bible records twice as many miracles as that of his mentor Elijah. But where did Elisha start? He held the ladder of the great prophet of Israel and faithfully followed until his turn came.

Jesus called twelve disciples. He planned great ministries for each of them. From the beginning, He knew that one day He’d climb the ladder that would take Him all the way to heaven. He didn’t leave the ladder empty but chose those with potential to become expert ladder climbers. Both Elijah and Jesus recognized that if we don’t plan to turn ladder holders into climbers, ladder climbing becomes nothing more than a self-serving club. At its core, leadership is about more than just leading—it’s about cultivating and developing future leaders.

The need to train and develop may seem obvious, but I want to point out three things we need to do to ensure that we reach out, grab others by the hand and help them take the first steps in turning ladder holders into ladder climbers.

STEP 1: SPIRITUAL FORMATION

In spiritual formation, we deal with security issues, finding purpose and our destiny. Using the concept of baseball, Rick Warren identifies spiritual formation as first base in The Purpose Driven Church. The focus is on spiritual discipline and developing individuals into who they are so that they can answer these questions:

• What am I passionate about?
• What are my gifts and talents?
• To what kind of work is God calling me?
• What frustrates me?
• What makes me cry?
• What brings me joy?

If we can tune into those existential concepts, we’ll get the best results and put people in the right places.

STEP 2: SKILL FORMATION

To Warren, skill formation is second base. This is where leaders change and begin to focus on others. I was greatly challenged when I read the book The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive by Patrick Lencioni. Written as a parable, Lencioni tells the story of two companies that flourished. One of them grew, and its employees were happy and healthy. The second succeeded by cutting corners. Even though outwardly successful, the people in the second company were never as happy as those in the first. In the healthier-happier company, people knew who they were and what they were doing. They understood the soul of their company.

Here’s what I took from Lencioni’s message: turning ladder holders into ladder climbers starts with making them acutely aware of your core values and then ensuring those values are inculcated into their souls. I do this based on a simple principle: What you do must flow out of who you are. That is, what you do should be who you are, not just a project.

By contrast, some churches train but don’t develop. Whereas training carries a specific, narrow focus, developing is a broad focus.

• Training is task-centered; development is people-centered.
• Training is about a job as an usher, as a deacon, as a Sunday school teacher; development involves the whole person.

In churches, we often do not take people beyond tasks to really develop them spiritually, and that is why people come and people go, but they don’t plant roots.

STEP 3: STRATEGIC FORMATION

Here, we focus on extending God’s kingdom on earth and leadership development. This refers to ministry to the church at large and represents what Warren describes as third base. Strategic formation is all about ministry to the church at large. We can be members of one church but have a heart for helping the homeless. Our church doesn’t have a ministry to those needy people, but we remain members and involve ourselves in a parachurch ministry to the homeless.

Strategic formation happens when we’re not confined to ministry exclusively within the walls of our local building. We’re developing our vision and focusing on global outreach. We can sometimes reach third base, but we don’t win games by staying there. We have to make it to home plate. That is when we develop other leaders. For ladder climbers, bringing someone home happens when we turn our ladder holders into ladder climbers.

In developing leadership skills, I’ve learned that it’s more difficult to unlearn than it is to learn. And speaking of learning, I certainly learned the hard way when I tried my hand at golf some years ago. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t shake off my old grip. Yes, it looked easy, but I couldn’t seem to unlearn it. I had been holding my fingers the wrong way for too long. It’s been over two decades since, and I can confidently say that golf and I have broken up for good!

Your value as a developer of climbers is greatly increased when you can remember that before holders can become climbers, they must first unlearn how to be only holders. Church leaders can save themselves a lot of heartache if they think carefully about and remain sensitive to those who want to become climbers but may behave like holders for a little while, and this is especially true for future climbers who join your church after having been long-time members of another congregation. If leaders come pre-loaded with that knowledge, they can proactively assist new members in unlearning old methods and practices before it’s too late. In some cases, the challenge may just come from undertrained leaders.

Imagine visiting a new church next Sunday. You enter through the doors and listen to a powerful message, and the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin. You raise your hand when the pastor extends an invitation for salvation. You walk down the aisle, and someone leads you to a back room, prays with you and teaches you how to surrender your life to the Lord. You ask, “What happens next?”

They tell you they have a ten-week-long class for new converts. That sounds great, right? Sure, it does, until you ask them what happens after the class. Their response tells you everything you need to know. “Just swim with the sharks and do your best to make it. Best of luck to you.” No one would actually say those words, but that’s the unspoken message you received from that church leader who has no intention of developing you spiritually or perhaps doesn’t know how.

It’s true—most leaders don’t know. That’s a big problem. In this scenario, that leader had the opportunity right then and there to commit to investing in your spiritual development, but he or she didn’t take it. I doubt the intentions would have been impure. Most likely, the problem was that they can’t develop what they don’t know. So, leaders must know. Why? Because you want those who follow you to say, “Now that’s a church I trust.” The foundation of trust is made when they see that you want to walk with them, step into their mess and develop them into a trusted follower of Jesus because the goal isn’t to keep them at second base—it’s to move them to third until they become who you are now, do what you are doing now and develop others as you are developing them—now.

My suggestion for ladder climbers is to strive for a holistic system to turn ladder holders into ladder climbers. We need to empower them and permit them to climb upward. I’ve learned that the best use of power is to give it away. We give it away by investing in others, but leading isn’t for everyone. There will always be people who love holding ladders and who have no desire to ascend them. That’s an acceptable choice. But don’t lose sight of your ladder holders who are meant to climb.

Here’s the challenge: we can’t pass on what we don’t possess because most of us teach the way we were taught. Are we going to inflict the same accidental leadership on the next generation? Or are we going to have a plan?

The new generation that’s already filing into our churches wants to know where we’re going. In the past, we may have been happy to go to church Sunday morning and midweek and become a member of the worship team. Not so with this generation. They want to know if there is more.

This is just as true in the business world. Those same people join the organization at the entry level, but most of them don’t want to stay there. If they’re eagles, they want to fly. If they’re ladder climbers, they don’t want to stay on the ground. As soon as they hit the ceiling—at whatever level—and realize the ladder they’re on won’t go any higher, they’ll leave. They’ll go to corporations with higher ceilings.

Jim Collins’s bestseller Good to Great helped me understand this. He used the idea of getting the right people on the bus and getting the wrong people off. Then we need to get the right people in the right seats on the bus.

The first two steps are pretty obvious—getting good people on the bus and getting rid of those who don’t belong. The third step gives us heartache because once people get on the bus, we’re not always sure what to do with them. The person who does an excellent job of holding a 20-foot ladder may not be the same person we need if we want to go higher. It caused me intense pain to realize that just because someone is a committed, hard-working person of integrity doesn’t mean we need them to help us move on to the next level. In other words, some ladder holders might be right for a season, but then you’ll have to reassess as your goals and ambitions change.

How do we respectfully disengage them from our organization, and how do we respectfully bring in or promote from within someone who was holding a six-foot ladder and put that person in charge of 40-foot-ladder holders? That means bypassing the 20-foot-holders or moving them out of their positions. That’s never easy.

Let’s say you have a secretary who has been on your staff for two decades. She is dependable, highly proficient and willing to make sacrifices when you need her in a pinch. The only problem is that you have now entered into a new century, and she can no longer keep up. The technology and systems are too advanced, too new and too confusing for her. Now, not only is she holding up your church or organization, but she has lost all the passion she once had for her position and her willingness to learn. What do you do then? Do you spare her feelings? Fire her? Demote her? Should you adapt the growing needs of your organization to keep her happy?

Most likely, you’ll just have to face the hard facts—she has maxed out—and her refusal to progress has made her obsolete. That may sound harsh, but it’s true. The moral of the story is that she was perfect for your 12-foot ladder, but she can’t handle your rise to 50 feet.

Whoever that person is for you, you must be prepared for their resistance to accept the reality that they are not capable of holding anything more than a 12-foot ladder. They won’t understand why you no longer need short ladders because they aren’t meant to be climbers. If they aren’t good climbing candidates, we can’t expect them to understand the most pertinent issues a climber faces and the difficult decisions that have to be made to sustain and grow the organization.

By contrast, let’s say you know someone who works for you in a different department but is very skilled in technology and has spent a lot of time learning your information system. She understands and can program your software. She can run everything and catch all the bugs in the new systems. Subsequently, your company is beginning to expand because you’re making more sales. Customers are buying from you. She has proven herself invaluable to the corporation, and she’ll move ahead.

This presents a great dilemma in leadership and is one of the most difficult tasks. As the leader, you have to address and respond to your secretary’s limitations. Even though you admire her and value her years of service, you must also admit that she is slowing you and others down. Eventually, you will have to fire her. Your other candidate—younger and more up-to-date on modern trends that impact every aspect of our lives today—has only been with the company for two years, but she will replace the 53-year-old who has been a long-time employee but has stayed at the same skill level for the past 20 years.

What can you learn from the experience with your secretary? Many things, I’m sure, but I hope the big takeaway is that you need different ladder holders for different levels in the organization. Old leaders are rarely new leaders because people continue to view the organization at the level they came to it, whereas new leaders see it as it is now. Nevertheless, your assignment is ongoing and unchanging—you need to develop climbers.

As you reflect on your role, consider this: are you empowering others to climb higher than you ever could? Leadership isn’t just about achieving personal success; it’s about building a legacy. The real triumph is not reaching the top alone but ensuring there’s a line of climbers ready to surpass you. That’s leadership with purpose—that’s the climb worth making.