How to Navigate Inherited Relational and Organizational Challenges

If you were to ask me to list all the relational and organizational challenges confronting me in my work on a daily basis, I could quickly produce a long and detailed list. In fact, I’m confident that most of you could quickly produce a similarly long and detailed list of the relational and organizational challenges you face each and every day. As Dr. Meryl Herr comments in her book When Work Hurts, even though God intended for humans to delight in their work and find joy in one another, human sin and disobedience caused their work and relationships to become fraught with pain and toil (cf. Gen 3:16–19). Our work in the world, though not hopeless, is bound to be full of challenges.

Reflecting on my own experience of working and leading, I have noticed a unique set of challenges that are present at key moments in my professional life. These are challenges that I did not cause but have inherited from an organization or from a predecessor. These inherited challenges tend to present themselves when I start a job at a new organization or when I am promoted to a higher position of responsibility.

For example, when I was first promoted from an assistant to a director role, I inherited the supervision of a team of 12 people and responsibilities to work across departments to achieve the goals of the center. And while my predecessor was extremely competent and set me up well in my new position, I quickly found myself enmeshed in relational challenges and dynamics that I didn’t cause but had to navigate and solve. And I was left with the following questions:

• What does it mean to inherit the relational challenges of a system or an organization?
• What do I do with people who were frustrated, hurt, or disenfranchised by something someone else did?
• And how do I ensure that I work toward healing these inherited challenges and not repeat the same mistakes?

Over the past few years, I have found the Bible to be full of stories depicting how the effects of sin get passed on through communities and systems across generations. But even more than just demonstrating the problem in vivid color, it also reveals how God is constantly at work to heal and save God’s people from these diseased patterns of living together.

In what follows, I want to take a look at how Jesus’ missionary instructions to the seventy in Luke 10:1–20 can provide guidance in how we navigate these inherited relational challenges.

Get to Know People in Their Place

I would like to highlight that Jesus’ instructions in Luke 10 are meant to enable the disciples to understand the social fabric of a household, town, and city. In other words, these practices, if done well, should provide the disciples with insight into the inherited ways of doing life together of particular people in their particular places.

Jesus prohibits the disciples from greeting anyone on the road, but instead commands them to enter into houses and cities. Within these homes and cities, Jesus twice instructs the disciples to eat whatever food is put before them. The role of food, the prohibition from greeting people on the way, and the orientation toward homes and cities suggests engaging with people within their communities, as rooted in the inherited structures and practices that have developed in a place across time. These practices require the disciples to engage with people patiently, slowly coming to discern healthy and painful aspects of a people’s life together through close connection with the social fabric of a community.

Similarly, it’s important to realize that as leaders, a key component of our work is to understand how the systems and practices of an organization developed. Trying to fix a system or reorient people’s behaviors before understanding the causes that have created them will only lead to frustration for you and those you lead. Understanding takes time and a willingness to listen to people’s longings and losses within the history of an organization or community.

Trying to fix a system or reorient people’s behaviors before understanding the causes that have created them will only lead to frustration for you and those you lead.

Given a leader’s level of authority, this might require leaving their office and entering into the offices or cubicles of their colleagues and direct reports. Or in a hybrid, work-from-home context, this might require getting curious about how a teammate’s Zoom background or work-from-home setup provides insight into their experience of work.

Lead with Vulnerability

Coming to understand the social fabric of a place requires the disciples to enter into an unknown space with an openness and vulnerability. The vulnerability of the disciples is highlighted by Jesus’ instructions for them to travel without a purse, bag, or sandals. Their vulnerability is heightened by the threats of violence that precede this prohibition: “I am sending you as sheep among wolves” (Luke 10:3). The disciples can take nothing to sustain them during their travels and so their very survival depends on the hospitality of the towns and cities to which they are sent. The disciples of Jesus must learn to trust in God’s provision through the hospitality of strangers, especially during times of intense opposition.

The disciples’ vulnerable presence becomes a conduit for the power of the kingdom of God because it creates the opportunity for people in a community to extend hospitality toward others. In this way, it also provides an opportunity for the disciples to discern who in a community responds to the presence of vulnerable bodies with compassion and hospitality, much like the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37). By engaging a community vulnerably, the disciples experience the positive and merciful aspect of a people’s life together that allows them to determine whether a child of peace resides there (Luke 10:6).

As leaders who have inherited relational challenges, especially those who have done so through promotion to new levels of authority, it is tempting to use this newly gained authority to distance ourselves from any threats to our position or status. When I assumed my first director-level role, I reacted strongly to criticisms of my leadership or claims that I had contributed to people’s frustration. My feeling of imposter syndrome only made my aversion to being vulnerable that much stronger. But over time, I had to learn that using my authority to distance myself from the pain of those I was leading or those with whom I needed to collaborate kept me from seeing and experiencing their gifts. It was only through embracing vulnerability and resisting the urge to protect myself at all costs that I came to better understand the ways people had preserved healthy practices alongside the pain and struggle.

I had to learn that using my authority to distance myself from the pain of those I was leading or those with whom I needed to collaborate kept me from seeing and experiencing their gifts.

Speak Honestly and Be Willing to Face Rejection

Jesus warns his disciples that they will not always be met with hospitality and welcome, nor will children of peace reside in every home or city. In these cases, Jesus instructs the disciples to wipe off the dust of that place in protest and proclaim the nearness of God’s kingdom as a warning of impending judgment. This act serves as a warning that their rejection of Jesus’ disciples leaves them entrapped in their inherited patterns that will lead to judgment.

It is important to remember that vulnerable leadership is not opposed to speaking hard truths or naming the systems and behaviors that are hurting an organization. Leaders always have a responsibility to lead, name what is wrong, and work toward addressing the very real and pressing issues facing an organization or team.

Sometimes, this slow work of coming to know the inherited challenges of an organization and calling for their reform will result in changes that heal old wounds and produce new ways of relating to one another. It might produce what we could call “organizational repentance.” But other times, the people and systems will reject what you see and refuse to change. A willingness to be rejected is part of what it means to lead with vulnerability and trust in God’s faithfulness to work out the divine plan over time. Two stories from Paul’s missionary travels illustrate these points.

First is Paul and Barnabas’s engagement with the city of Lystra (Acts 14:8–20). After healing a man who couldn’t walk, the residents of Lystra attempt to offer sacrifices to them, believing them to be the gods Zeus and Hermes. Paul and Barnabas tear their clothes, exhort them to turn from their vain gods and toward the living God of Israel, before ultimately being rejected and stoned. And even though the narrative doesn’t report the conversion of any Lystrans here, Paul is said to visit Lystra at least two more times to encourage believers in the area (Acts 14:21–22; 16:2)! God worked through Paul’s rejection to produce repentance among the people after Paul’s explicit time among them had ended.

Second, Paul’s engagement in Corinth (Acts 18:1–11). After preaching weekly in the synagogue, certain Jews begin to oppose and revile him. Paul responds by shaking the dust from off his clothes and going to the house of a man named Titus who lived next door. It is only after Paul leaves the synagogue with an act that repeats Jesus’ instructions to the 70 that Crispus, the official of the synagogue, becomes a believer.

Vulnerable leadership requires that we come into and leave an organization in a way that works toward the healing of the people and systems within it. And this kind of leadership is only possible because of the assurance that God’s desire to heal people and systems can produce fruit through our victories and our defeats.

Vulnerable leadership requires that we come into and leave an organization in a way that works toward the healing of the people and systems within it.

Find Trusted Partners, Don’t Do It Alone

Finally, a key aspect of Jesus’ instructions is that he sends the disciples out in pairs. The work of entering inherited patterns of relating to one another, discerning how these patterns are calibrated toward peace or toward sickness, speaking truthfully about these patterns, and potentially suffering rejection is heavy work. It’s not something that any leader should do on her or his own but requires fellow workers.

Sometimes, these are people on your team or your boss. Other times, I find partners in my direct reports through listening to their stories over meals and hearing about their pains in the organization. Listening to people’s stories has helped me to learn that we are working toward similar goals and want to enact similar changes, and in this way join our efforts together. And sometimes, by God’s grace, these partners come from people I once believed to be my enemies, either because they had wronged my predecessor or because they believed my predecessor had wronged them. But by vulnerably showing up, learning about their history with the organization, and admitting my own complicity in the present reality, we are able to come together and work toward a future we both desire.