Leadership Transformed through Discernment, Part 1: Interview with Ruth Haley Barton

Over the past several decades, leadership has become an increasingly popular topic, fueling a booming multi-billion-dollar industry that produces more books, podcasts, workshops, and conferences than one could ever hope to consume. And while there’s seemingly endless wisdom to be gained and tools to be acquired, those of us longing to live and lead like Jesus can still quietly wonder if there’s something missing—if something more than strategies and skills is necessary become the kind of Christian leaders we long to be.

For over twenty-five years, Ruth Haley Barton has been helping leaders attend to that longing. As a spiritual director, author of multiple books, and founder of the Transforming Center, Ruth’s work has truly been “soul work,” existing in the overlap of spiritual formation and leadership. In this space, she shepherds leaders into sacred rhythms that cultivate deeper attunement to God and greater responsiveness to the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives, teams, and organizations.

In Part 1 of this interview, Ruth shares how she understands what it means to lead spiritually in any leadership context. She offers a rich and nuanced understanding of discernment, why it is indispensable to Christian leadership, and how she has witnessed leaders transformed when they prioritize alignment with God’s will above every other competency.

You’ve spent decades helping leaders attend to their interior lives as the foundation for faithful, Christ-centered leadership. How do you understand your vocation at this intersection of spiritual formation and leadership?

While studying to become a spiritual director and doing my work in formation, I was on staff at a very large and complex church that relied heavily on secular leadership models. When I speak of secular, all I mean is that there’s no space created for God in the process, not that there’s no wisdom in the secular mindset for leadership. So when I talk about “spiritual” leadership, I’m specifically talking about leadership that has a space for God built into it and is mediated by the Holy Spirit—third person of the Trinity. Spirituality means of the Spirit, guided by the Holy Spirit, or initiated by the Holy Spirit. I use the word spiritual very seriously, referring to the third person of the Trinity, and our ability to attend to the third person as a person.

That is what distinguishes spiritual leadership from other kinds of leadership. It’s right there in that space of discernment where I connect leadership and formation. Spiritual leadership, in my mind, is defined by a commitment to being aware, awake, and responsive to the presence of the Holy Spirit, not just in our own personal lives, but also in our work lives as we lead. Discernment is actually, to me, the center of where leadership and formation meet. If we are Christians, in the marketplace or in a church environment, the heart of our own spiritual leadership has to do with our responsiveness to the Holy Spirit. Period. No matter what kind of leader you are. Now, whether or not you have the ability to build space into your corporate environment for attending to the Holy Spirit is another question, but for any Christian who wants to be a spiritual leader, it has to do with discernment.

If we are Christians, in the marketplace or in a church environment, the heart of our own spiritual leadership has to do with our responsiveness to the Holy Spirit.

At the De Pree Center, we view discernment as a core leadership competency, regardless of the leader’s industry and season of life. Can you share how you’ve come to understand what discernment is and why it’s so critical for leaders today?

I, too, would define discernment as a core competency for leaders who want to think of themselves as being spiritual leaders, no matter where they are. My understanding of discernment has been shaped by my training as a spiritual director, which is all about helping someone attend to the presence of God in their lives. When I was doing my training, I wondered, “Why aren’t we doing any of this discernment stuff I’m learning about?” That’s where the whole idea was born inside me. Whether we’re in a secular marketplace role or in a church position, discerning and doing the will of God should be central and core. Discernment is the center, it’s the heartbeat, and it is the heart of leadership that is distinctly spiritual.

So I wrote Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership after that, and there are two chapters on cultivating community at the leadership level and discernment as the heart of spiritual leadership. But there was so much more to say. So later, after I wrote three more books, I said, somebody’s really got to write something that’s a little bit more substantive about corporate leadership discernment. And so I wrote Pursuing God’s Will Together, a spiritual practice for leadership groups to help leaders come together around this intention as well.

In your book, Pursuing the Will of God Together, you offer a robust, layered understanding of discernment. What are these layers and how do they build upon one another to create a full picture of discernment?

I see discernment as being multi-layered in Scripture. The first layer is that discernment is a mark of Christian maturity. It’s a very basic part of spiritual life. In Romans 12:2, Paul is writing to brand new Christians, saying, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you can discern what is the will of God, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. He’s creating a cause-and-effect relationship between transformation and discernment, and he’s writing to a group of new believers trying to build a new church. It’s not addressed to the individual. That’s the interesting thing—the word “minds” is plural. He’s saying, “be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” He’s writing to a group—a community of people who are trying to grow up in Christ together, meaning discernment is a mark of Christian maturity.

Secondly, discernment is also a spiritual gift, named in Paul’s list in 1 Corinthians 12. But it’s not only those who have the gift who practice it. No, what Paul is saying here is “there are some of you among your community who are gifted in this area.” All of us need to be discerning. That’s a mark of Christian maturity, but God’s given some people the gift of discernment so they can help all the rest learn how to do it.

But discernment is also a habit, one that helps us look at our lives through the lens of what God is doing, so that we can join him in it. Discernment is about alignment and looking at your whole life through the lens of, What is God doing? and, How can I join God in it and align myself with what God is doing? That can be anywhere: with a specific person, in this board meeting, this elder meeting, or in even larger settings.

Discernment is about alignment and looking at your whole life through the lens of, What is God doing? and, How can I join God in it and align myself with what God is doing?

Fourth, discernment is a practice we can engage in when we have an issue to discern, and there are practices associated with the practice of discernment that you can literally do when you are discerning a significant life question. That would involve extended time in solitude and silence. It would involve a certain set of questions that are very different than what other professionals might ask, like a coach or a therapist.

And then finally, the fifth layer would be corporate leadership discernment, where it’s a practice that leaders can engage in together to discern God’s will together in their leadership setting.

How does discernment become a way of being for leaders, rather than just a tool to use or skill to acquire? Additionally, how have you witnessed leaders be transformed by adopting this type of leadership that prioritizes alignment with God’s will above all else?

In general, discernment as a way of being is cultivated through friendship with Jesus. It is a relational practice where we are getting more and more familiar with the voice of Jesus in our lives. Consider John 10, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” They will not follow someone else, but they will follow Jesus because they’re familiar with his voice. And so part of the habit of discernment is becoming familiar with the voice of Jesus, and what it sounds like, what it feels like, what kinds of things Jesus says to us.

Discernment as a way of being is cultivated through friendship with Jesus.

We can cultivate familiarity through the reading of Scripture, and that, of course, tells us a lot about who Jesus is. Solitude and silence are practices that help us to recognize the voice of Jesus as being distinct from all the voices that clamor for our attention. It can also be through work with a spiritual director who helps us to recognize the voice of Jesus through the Holy Spirit as being distinct from all the other voices. And that can be a very visceral experience. Even the disciples on the Emmaus Road in Luke 24 recognized Jesus in the end, but they say, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road?” There’s a physical, visceral reaction that we can begin to recognize. That’s very exciting! Because once you start to see this as being a habit, a way of seeing—a life change. If you take this on, it does begin to change how you look at everything.

As for how I’ve seen leaders change, well, at the Transforming Center we offer a 27-month Transforming Community experience for leaders, and we see leaders changing in real ways that other people notice and witness.

First, they become leaders who invite others to participate. I remember one pastor who was pastoring a church that was 100 years old, and invited his elders to discern something with him, and they said, “You’re the first pastor that’s ever invited us to discern anything with you.” Discernment does have respect and reliance on the community. The wisdom is held and contained within the group, rather than just in me, like Moses coming down from the mountaintop.

Another way is that you see the leaders more willing to share power. Entering into discernment with others means that a leader is willing to share power, perhaps in a way they haven’t shared power before. And when that happens, it’s striking to the people who are involved and watching.

Finally, you also witness more humility in the leader. Leaders no longer see themselves as being the person who’s supposed to come in with the vision. Instead, they actually hold a process that helps everybody come to unity about the vision. It’s more collaborative. Because of the humbling nature of it, there’s a real humility in being willing to stay in touch with the inner dynamics of the group and to offer those, which is a very different way of leading.

Discernment can often get mixed up or conflated with decision-making. How do you help leaders understand the clear difference between discernment and decision-making?

In discernment, you’re making space for God. You’re making space for the Holy Spirit to actually guide you. Whereas oftentimes in decision-making, we’re making decisions out of our strategic thinking and our intellect, which we all love, and most people who have reached higher levels of leadership are very smart, and so they are really used to relying on their intellect. Or maybe there’s even some underlying darker motivations, you know? The drive for success, or the drive for image management, or the drive for financial security. You can see that the difference is that it has to do precisely with whether or not we’re creating space for the Holy Spirit to guide us.

The other thing I would say is that I think discernment comes just slightly before decision-making. You know, so you discern what the will of God is, and then you make decisions about how you’re going to carry that out. Personally, you know, on issues that have a lot of impact in an organization, or a lot of impact on somebody personally. You don’t need discernment to pick carpet colors, or to pick, you know, the next computer system. You just need a committee that can research that and make a decision. But there are other things that really affect other people’s lives, that affect the souls of people, that really do need to be discerned. And so if discernment could come first and you begin with “what is the will of God concerning this?”, then you can make your decisions afterwards about how you’re gonna carry out the will of God.

Similarly, how do you help leaders understand the relationship between strategic intelligence and spiritual discernment—especially in organizational contexts where outcomes and performance matter deeply?

I would say that, similar to decision-making, strategy comes second. Now, sometimes the will of God is very strategic. One of the things I’ve experienced in being CEO of the Transforming Center is that we have practiced corporate leadership discernment from the very beginning, and in fact, it was one of the things that called us into being. Because we had all been in very high-level Christian leadership environments, but they were not exercising any sort of a discernment model, and we desperately wanted to experience leadership that was discerning.

And so we came together with the desire to lead together in a way that’s responsive to the Holy Spirit. So, we have always made decisions through discernment, and what’s interesting is that sometimes that discernment is really strategic. People will look at us and think that we made that decision because it was strategic, which is just never the case. But God’s will is sometimes strategic in ways you don’t even know as you discern it and put it into practice.

Then there are other times when God’s wisdom is the foolishness of this world, and so you make a decision to go smaller or to do something that’s not necessarily going to bring in the kind of revenue that you had hoped it would or that you need it to. Or you take a step of faith, whereas someone looking in objectively might say that you really shouldn’t make that hire, or you can’t afford it. But when you’ve been there before—where you feel a sense that God’s gonna meet you and your team—then you can say, we do need to make this hire, and we’re gonna take a bit of a step of faith.

One of the ways that this worked out for us at the Transforming Center was when we hired our first executive director. We didn’t have the money in the budget for hiring that kind of high-level position. But someone who saw what we were going through and believed in the person we were considering hiring, offered to fund that position for the first year. God was in that. We knew what we needed, and we were trying to move in faith towards making that hire, but we did need God to meet us. And God did, which allowed us to say, “We believe that God has led us here to go ahead and make this hire.” A year later, after the executive director had been functioning, we were generating enough revenue to be able to support that hire, but we just needed somebody to help us get there. So we stepped out in faith, and God met us there.

So these things—discernment, strategy, decision-making—all work together. But we have to be open, which is a hard place for leaders in any environment, but particularly in the marketplace, where oftentimes the bottom line is the only thing anyone wants to look at or consider. So then, what do we make of 1 Corinthians where it says that the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God and that God’s wisdom is foolishness to this world? If you really want to do discernment, you’re going to hit up against that. Because one of the ways we distinguish God’s will sometimes is because it appears foolish to the wisdom of this world. Sometimes you’re going to be led to do something that seems unwise to the wisdom of this world.

One of the ways we distinguish God’s will sometimes is because it appears foolish to the wisdom of this world. Sometimes you’re going to be led to do something that seems unwise to the wisdom of this world.

Click here to read Part 2 of the interview.

About Ruth Haley Barton
Ruth Haley Barton is founder of the Transforming Center, a ministry dedicated to strengthening the souls of pastors, ministry leaders, and the congregations and organizations they serve. A practitioner, teacher, and leader in the area of Christian spirituality and spiritual formation for over twenty-five years, she can always be found teaching and leading the Transforming Center’s two-year Transforming Community experience—a practice-based spiritual formation journey for leaders.

Ruth is a trained spiritual director and retreat leader, and is the author of numerous books and resources on the spiritual life including Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, Sacred Rhythms, and Pursuing God’s Will Together, plus her most recent book, Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest: From Sabbath to Sabbatical and Back Again. She reflects regularly on spirituality and leadership in her blog, Beyond Words, and her podcast Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership.