Inside North Point

Most leadership principles are fun to apply. They may be hard work, but they’re enjoyable because there’s usually growth, teamwork, and high fives all around. This is not one of those leadership principles. This principle is usually accompanied by hurt feelings and personal loss—and very few high fives. And yet, failure to apply this principle consistently will lead to greater loss for the organization and much more pain to many more people. It’s like that strange cousin at every family reunion; we do everything we can to avoid him and only engage him when forced to.

Before we get to the principle, I want you to know why it’s so difficult to apply. There are times in the life of every organization when personnel changes are necessary if the organization is to remain healthy. Sometimes an individual fails morally or ethically and you have to make a change.

Occasionally, you make a hire that doesn’t work out and it’s just a chemistry thing. In a fast-growing organization, you’ll often find that a position outgrows an employee. Then you’re faced with what to do with a wonderful person who did a great job when you were at 300, but can’t cut it at 3,000. And as a leader, it’s the toughest call of all, because you are dealing with peoples’ futures. You’re affecting their kids, their marriages, and their mortgages—and it’s always messy. So, what’s a leader to do?

Here is the principle, or in this case, the ugly truth. Always sacrifice the one for the many, never the many for the one. Never let the pain or loss for the one lead to greater pain and greater loss for the many people that depend on and are impacted by your organization. When you keep people in leadership that you have to work around, you are essentially sacrificing the many for the one, and, each time you lose.

As cruel as it may sound, this principle stands at the center of all we believe as Christians. You may say, “What about grace?” And, “Didn’t Jesus leave the 99 to go after the one?” Yes! But remember that the genesis of that grace was God’s willingness to apply this principle. In other words, it’s as if God looked down and said, “I have a choice to make. I can let the one die for the sake of the many, or I can let the many perish in their sin.” Fortunately, our heavenly Father decided that for the sake of the many he would sacrifice the one. But not just any one; his one and only son. Just as God made the difficult choice to sacrifice his son for the benefit of all humankind, there will come a time as leaders that we must do the hard thing and choose the good of the many over the security, happiness, and feelings of the one.

This principle holds true at every level within your organization. Not only does it apply to your staff, it applies to your volunteers. For those of us who lead organizations that depend on volunteers, we can adopt the view that if people are willing to serve, then we need to let them serve, even if they’re not qualified or effective. And yet we can all tell stories about the destruction left behind by disgruntled or ineffective volunteers. Failing to remove or reassign an unqualified volunteer out of compassion is actually the most insensitive thing we can do. Everybody benefits when everybody is pulling his or her weight and everybody suffers when someone is not.

Compassion for the one results in suffering for the many. Ultimately, the morale of the organization, as well as its financial health, will suffer. In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins said it this way: “Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to all the right people, as they inevitably find themselves compensating for the inadequacies of the wrong people.”

Counterintuitively, ignoring this principle is insensitive to one other person. When you allow a staff member or a volunteer to remain in a role for which he is unsuited, you dishonor him. In most cases everyone, including the person, knows what’s going on. Failure to deal with it robs him of his dignity and the opportunity to be productive somewhere else. We must be willing to take the difficult step of “freeing up” people’s futures, for their benefit, as well for the benefit of our organizations.

Everyone has bad days and we all make mistakes, so how do we know when we’re putting the many at risk by keeping the one? One indicator is a “nagging” sense that someone needs to go–and other staff members have confirmed it. Another is to ask yourself two questions: “Would I be relieved if this person quit? Knowing what I know now, would I hire this person again?” Answering these two questions will tell you if you’re working with this person or around him.

As leaders who are called to a higher standard, it’s important to remember that removing someone from a circle of leadership doesn’t necessitate removing him or her from a circle of fellowship. The relational fallout is the most painful. We must minister to the hurt, even if we feel responsible for it. Also, removing a paycheck doesn’t always mean removing financial assistance. In the end, it will be money well-spent.

This is one of the most difficult decisions a leader ever makes. In the aftermath, somebody is going to be disappointed; somebody is going to be mad; and only a few will understand exactly why you did what you did. But never forget that when you sacrifice the many for the one, ultimately, nobody wins. When you sacrifice the one for the many, eventually, everybody wins.