Leading Up
By Josh Reich

When we think of leadership, images of leading great teams, getting things done, inspiring those under us come to mind. We might think of the teams we lead, or the teams we are a part of, those who are peers to us. Few of us think about leading up, and if we do give it a thought, we don’t work at developing it. Why should we? Aren’t we just judged by how well we lead those under us? Isn’t that what leadership is all about? The old cliché comes to mind, “If no one is following you, then you aren’t leading.” But if you have been a leader for any length of time, you know that to get anything done, you have to lead up, and lead up well.

All of us have people over us. Maybe you are a volunteer that answers to a Pastor. You might be on staff and answer to the Executive Pastor or Senior Pastor. Maybe you answer to the board. All the people who are over us do not have to do anything for us, we have to do what they want. So how do we get them to make moves for us? By leading up.

I have spent the last ten years working in student and college ministries. Most of those years, I answered to the executive pastor in the churches I worked in. I have come to learn exactly how much people in those positions have on their plates. They are not thinking about my ministry night and day like I am. I believe all the people who led me wanted me to succeed, but I got paid to do the ministry, not them.

As an executive pastor now, I want the people below me to lead up well. I want them to have a relationship with me, be concise and specific about what they want from me, and I don’t want to feel like I am being used to extend their empire.

Relationship
Do you have a relationship with those you lead? What about those who lead you? If you want to lead up successfully, you must have a relationship with that person. Is there something more in common between you than just your ministry? If the people who lead you are going to go to bat for you, they must have some relational equity built up with you.

Many times as leaders, we just build relationships with those we lead, or those who are at the same level that we are. But if we don’t have a relationship with those over us, we will not get very far.

Pride
Many times when we talk with those over us and try to lead them, we come across as arrogant or trying to build our little empires. To be a leader, you must be confident in your abilities and where you want to take that which they are leading, but at the same time, pride turns people off. It makes those over us feel like they are only there for what we can get out of them.

This is why it is important to have a relationship with those over us. If those over us are able to see our hearts and our motives, they will more readily go to bat for us and believe in us.

Casting Vision
Before you can cast vision to not only those above you, but also those below you, you need to be sold out to your vision. Do you have a clear picture of where you want to go? Are you able to articulate it if you wrote it down? I am a writer, so before any meeting where I am going to be leading up, I write out what I want to say. If I can clearly write it, I can clearly speak it. Often, the idea makes sense in my head, but when I start talking about it, and trying to bring someone else along in the journey I am on, the vision gets cluttered.

When casting a vision, can you clearly show those above you what it will look like if they buy into your ideas? Many times in leadership, we aren’t sure how things will turn out, but we need to be able to cast a vision that says, “If we try this, here is what I think will happen.”

Be Specific
When you are leading up, it is important to be clear and specific about what you want to see happen. What do you want your leader to do? How do you want him to respond? What next steps would you like to see happen? If at the end of a meeting you leave things open ended without any action steps, nothing will happen.

As I said before, you need to be specific when you cast the vision, when you dream the dream with those above you. They need to have the clear picture in their heads that you have in yours.

Know What They Need to Hear
In sales, you only need to say what it takes to sell what you are selling. There is some truth to that when it comes to leadership. That doesn’t mean that you leave things out that might sway your boss from what you want to do. It means you need to know the personality of the person above you and what she needs to hear to make a decision. Most of the Pastors I have worked for have been high D’s on the DISC profile (see http://www.discprofile.com/whatisdisc.htm for an explanation of the different personality types). Type D’s are results-oriented people. They want to know the specifics, the downsides, the benefits and what I think the results will be. Most of them don’t want wasted details, they want the specifics. Many of them aren’t dreamers.

I had a boss once who was a high I with some S. It was easy for him to dream, he was an ideas guy. He also had a lot of compassion. He could dream new ideas and buy into a lot of what I wanted to do, but he always wanted to know, Will this hurt anyone? How will this affect everybody?

It is important to know how those above you are wired. This will help you know what buttons to push, when to stop pushing an idea, how much to say, how little to say, how many details to use, and how specific you need to be.

A Case Study in Leading Up
I took a position as the Student pastor at a church in Wisconsin. I reported directly to the Executive Pastor. The church was 130 years old and had a long tradition of Sunday school for all ages. When I arrived, they were starting to make changes and move towards a small group model along with their Sunday school program.

After spending ten years working in student ministries, I have my suspicions about whether or not Sunday school actually works. While they were interviewing me, the leadership of the church was intrigued by the idea of not having Sunday school, but instead, having students serve around the church.

To make a change of this magnitude, I knew I was going to not only lead down and out, but also up. I had a senior pastor and an executive pastor who believed in me, but they had spent 20 years in the system that was in place. To make any changes, I needed more than the people under me to buy into the idea, I also needed those above me to buy in. This is where many ideas die in leadership, we build excitement under us, but until we can build that same excitement above us, we won’t get anywhere.

Both the senior pastor and executive pastor were high D’s, but the executive pastor could sit back, take his time, and dream with me. Going in, I thought I would wait a year to make the change I wanted to make. The more I met with the executive pastor and shared my heart and shared my dreams, the more he was intrigued. He said, “Let’s not wait a year, let’s start in five months.” Whether or not that was the right decision is for another article, but that happened because I knew what he needed to hear. I built a relationship with him, and he knew I wasn’t just trying to build an empire. He saw how I thought through everything I could possibly think of, and he was ready to buy in.

Resources on “Leading Up”
Hock, Dee. The Birth of the Chaordic Age. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1999.
Maxwell, John C. The 360 Degree Leader. Nelson Business, 2006.
Hybels, Bill. Courageous Leadership. Zondervan, 2002.

About the author: Josh is the Lead Pastor of Beginnings Church (www.beginningschurch.com ) a missional community in Tucson, AZ. He lives there with his wife and daughter. Before that, he spent the last 10 years in student and college ministry. He speaks around the country and writes on the topics of student ministry, church, the emerging culture, worship, leadership, team building, and change. You can check out more of his writing, thoughts and where he is speaking at by looking at his blog: emergingthoughtstoday.blogspot.com.