Leadership positions are not for "people pleasers". Because real leaders have a personal vision for the way they want their world to be, they are focused on doing the right thing to make their vision a reality. Since any vision involves change, it also inevitably means that some of the old rules will be broken and the existing "establishment" or the traditional way of doing things will be challenged.
This lesson in leadership is distilled from the gospel of Luke where Jesus announces his vision and mission in his "home church". His vision challenged the traditional wisdom that being Jewish alone made a person more valuable to God than the Gentiles. Talk about bombshells--Jesus launched his mission with a bang! He also first articulates the timeless truth "no prophet is ever welcome in his home town" just before the Nazareans, the people who had known him since birth, run him out of town.
Everett Rogers classic research into the adoption of innovation sheds some light on this incident. Rogers evaluated more than 1800 studies looking into the way in which new ideas and technologies are adopted, and then classified the various types of responses to these changes into 5 groups of people. His groups are:
1. Innovators (2.5%)
2. Early adopters (13%)
3. Early majority (34%)
4. Late majority (34%)
5. "Loyal defenders of the present" (16%)
It is most likely that members of this last group led the charge in running Jesus out of Nazareth. As Everett clearly proved, in any large group, nearly 1 in 6 people will actively resist ANY change proposed by a visionary leader (or anyone else). Jesus, being a supremely insightful leader, did not stay to debate or persuade these people; rather, he left town!
Contrast this strategy to those of most "leaders" in organizations large and small. When a new initiative of some kind is announced at some "all hands" meeting, there is nearly always an opportunity for questions. Of those asking the questions, most will be members of the "loyal defenders of the present" faction, and they will be passionate and persistent in expressing their views and challenging the new plan, process, or whatever. Both during and after the meeting, the "people pleasers" in the leadership team will devote endless hours to trying to get these vocal opponents "on board", to no effect.
These ineffective leaders take the opposition to change personally, and frequently express the opinion that their inability to get "everyone" to sign on is a personal failure of their leadership ability. It is, but not in the way they think. It is a failure to understand that some people never change, and don't want to, period. Visionary leaders focus their efforts on those who are interested, not on those who are resistant.
So here are the lessons:
First, all leaders have or develop a substantial group of opponents by virtue of the fact that they have a vision for change and are inspired talk about it.
Second, visionary leaders don't waste energy trying to convince the unconvincable. They move on.
