The conditions at the Andersonville (Ga.) Prison during the Civil War were nothing short of horrible. Union soldiers interned there were constantly exposed to the elements. The food was inadequate. The water was impure. The entire camp was crowded and filthy.
More than 49,000 prisoners were held in this stockade, including as many as 30,000 at any given time. Nearly 14,000 of those prisoners died, many from epidemics caused by the conditions. The prison superintendent was eventually tried by a U.S. military court, convicted of murder and hanged.
It’s appropriate that this historic prison site is home to the National Prisoner of War Museum. My wife and I spent several hours there last year, and I was particularly moved by the testimonials from prisoners of various wars throughout history. Among those is the account of Admiral James Stockdale, who survived seven years in a Vietcong prisoner of war camp and eventually was awarded the Medal of Honor.
How did Stockdale survive for seven years in one of the worst prisons imaginable? He focused on two seemingly contradictory things: his life could not be worse then it was at that very moment and his life someday would be better than ever.
Management researcher Jim Collins uses this “Stockdale Paradox” to describe a trait he found in what he calls “Level 5 Leaders” – those leaders who are the very best at what they do. I call it “fact and faith” leadership, and I agree that it’s essential for moving from good leadership to truly great leadership. It’s the challenge of simultaneously holding the tension of facts in one hand and faith in the other hand.
Max DePree says the first responsibility of a leader is to define reality, and that means leaders determine the facts. Napoleon pointed out that leaders are dealers in hope. And as strange as it might sometimes seem, the two ideas aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, it’s essential that you master them both if you want to move from good leadership to great leadership.
Focusing only on the facts can be pretty depressing, especially for an organization that is just starting out or is in need of a makeover. Even an organization that’s doing well can get stymied by focusing exclusively on the facts. But it’s also all too common for leaders to build an organization only on vision and faith in that vision. Such organizations lack a foundation of reality. You don’t build an organization on dreams; you build it on reality. After you have reality, the dreams stand a chance.
Facts are the foundation upon which we build things. Faith is the wings with which we fly. Facts are used for evaluating people. Faith is used for encouraging people. Facts are what managers see. Faith is what motivators see.
So it’s not one or the other. It’s not whichever one fits the moment. It’s holding them in both hands and understanding, “I have to be realistic, and yet at the same time I have to have faith.” Going from good leadership to great leadership means balancing facts with faith and never forsaking one for the other.
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John Maxwell grew up in the 1950s in the small Midwestern city of Circleville, Ohio. John's earliest childhood memory is of knowing that he would someday be a pastor. He professed faith in Christ at the age of three, and reaffirmed that commitment when he was 13. At age 17, John began preparing for the ministry. He attended Circleville Bible College, earning his bachelor's degree in 1969. In June of that same year, he married his sweetheart, Margaret, and moved to tiny Hillham, Indiana, where he began his first pastorate.
While serving in his second church, Maxwell began to study the correlation between leadership effectiveness and ministry effectiveness. On July 4, 1976, while preaching at a service commemorating America's bicentennial, John sensed that God was calling him into a ministry to pastors. Within days after that event, pastors began to contact him, asking for his assistance in nurturing their churches. Over the next four years, on an informal basis, John helped scores of fellow pastors. Then, in 1980, he was asked to become Executive Director of Evangelism for the Wesleyan denomination.
Though his time at Wesleyan headquarters was productive, John soon realized that his deeper desire was to help pastors from numerous denominations. He knew that desire would be unfulfilled if he were to stay at denominational headquarters. As a result, in 1981 John accepted the call to return to the pastorate, this time at Skyline Wesleyan Church in the San Diego, California area. But he did so with the church's blessing to pursue his vision. The Skyline congregation allowed him to continue mentoring and assisting pastors even as he led them to new levels.
In 1985, as he continued to equip and encourage other pastors, John took the next crucial step in leadership development. He founded a new company called INJOY and created the INJOY Life Club, featuring a monthly tape for leaders. The fledging operation, established in the corner of a garage, was soon bursting at the seams. The INJOY Life Club tapes were received with great enthusiasm, and the number of subscriptions quickly increased from hundreds to thousands. Simultaneously, the demand for other resources and seminars exploded. Pastors from coast to coast were responding, and their desire for help was even greater than John had anticipated.
As the years passed, INJOY began demanding more and more of John's time. In 1995, he resigned from his position as senior pastor at Skyline following a very fruitful 14-year tenure. The church had tripled in size and its lay ministry involvement had increased ten-fold. Dr. Maxwell is in great demand today as a speaker. Through his bestselling books, audio and video resources, and major conferences, he communicates directly with more than one million people every year. He is frequently asked to speak for organizations such as Promise Keepers and Focus on the Family, but his greatest joy and desire is to help pastors become better leaders.
Because the need for leadership development knows no borders, John established EQUIP, a non-profit organization which trains leaders in urban communities, academic institutions, and within international organizations. EQUIP is also spearheading a movement which has enlisted more than one million pastoral prayer partners who covenant to pray specifically for those who shepherd God's flock.
John continues to seek new opportunities to help churches and church leaders. He knows that one thing is constant: the only hope for the world is salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ, who gives life abundantly.