Apologies are difficult.  Those of us who have been given even a tiny bit of authority are often reluctant to apologize to those we work with. Isn’t apologizing a sign of weakness?  Won’t people see through you?  Aren’t leaders supposed to have all the answers, to always be right?   Well no, but we feel that pressure anyway.

The problem is that those of us who are in charge have an advantage: we (usually correctly) suspect the person under our authority will be hesitant to correct us, challenge us or confront us.  We could fire them, hold it against them and, well, we’re the boss and they’re not.

Don’t be that way.  Just don’t.  All of us have worked for someone at some point who stole our ideas, took the credit, made poor calls and refused to accept the responsibility, and who – even when it was clearly due – would never apologize.  I don’t want to be that guy.  And I don’t want to work for that guy.  Nor does anyone.

Case in point:  today at our weekly staff meeting I apologized to someone who reports to me.  At Connexus we produce ‘title packages’ for our series.  The title package for the current series arrived a bit later than we’re used to, and quick final view left me unsatisfied.  At the time, I said I thought the video package lacked punch…it didn’t make the point we were hoping to make. I loved the basic design and concept…just wasn’t sure it told the story we wanted it to tell.  Our Service Progamming Director,  Justin, who is a year into his job, recently out of college and who designed the package, liked it the way it was.  I trusted my judgment on this one, not his.  But we didn’t have time to remake it and we ran it as is.

Turns out…I was dead wrong.  He was right on in his judgment.

We ran it ‘as is’ and I’m so glad we did.  In almost three years of weekend services, it is the only time I’ve ever heard people respond to a title package.  They loved it.  They laughed out loud, started conversations with friends next to them and buzzed about it after the service. It just worked.  (Check it out for yourself here.)  He called it.  I missed it. And I was wrong.

As a leader, I had a choice.  I could have pretended it was my idea all along, (nah, that’s not me).  But I could have ignored it…pretended it didn’t happen.  Or pulled him aside private and apologized.  But since I had said I didn’t like it when others were present, I felt I needed to apologize when those same people (and in this case, more) were present.  So I did…I told our staff how off my judgment was and what a great call he made on it.  I apologized for getting in the way of a great decision.  It’s pretty kindergarten if you think about it, but it actually doesn’t happen enough in leadership.

It should though.  The more freely we apologize as leaders when we’re wrong, the more we:

• Give permission to release the best ideas in the organization (they usually aren’t the bosses’ anyway)
• Create a culture where people can apologize and forgive freely
• Foster trust
• Prevent the need for the people under us to “vent” to others
• Remind ourselves that we are hardly the smartest, best or brightest people in our organization

Leaders:  what have you learned about apologizing?   And for all of us, what are some of your worst/best moments when it comes to apologies? 

So I like Apple.  True confession.  (And no surprise to anyone who knows me.)  Last week they taught me a key lesson in customer service I’m going to share, but first, the back story. 

When I entered into Apple world three years ago, I assumed Apple would have exceptional reliability.  That’s their reputation after all.  For sure, all my Apple products have better reliability than any PC I’ve owned (not to mention being way more fun to use). but after less than three years, my MacBook Pro died.  Apple tried to fix it more than once, but it died.

That could have been a deal breaker.  Try a product, it fails.  You grow disillusioned, cynical and move to another company, only to repeat the process.  But that didn’t happen.  Not at all.

What shocked me is Apple’s radical commitment to customer service.  They really tried to fix my old laptop.  In the last month, they put over $2000 of brand new parts into my three year old laptop last month.  When it didn’t fix the problem, Apple decided to give me a brand new 15" MacBook Pro.  I didn’t even ask for it.  A senior manager arranged a direct pick up at the Apple store in Toronto so I could just walk in and swap it out. In the end, they gave me an even better computer than my old one (I got the top of the line i7 processor) because it was the only model they had in store when I was there.  They could have told me to come back or that they would ship me a new one, but they didn’t.  They gave me one worth much more than my dead one.  Unbelievable. 

And maybe that’s the key.  On this side of eternity, everything breaks.  People are flawed.  Systems are flawed.  Even really cool products break down and die. 

Often we’re tempted to make exaggerated claims about how great our product is.  We claim might even claim it will never break down.  In church world, I’ve been tempted to say "our church isn’t like that’ or ‘we won’t do that here.’  But the truth is, we’re a divine organization populated by sinful people.  We will mess up.  We will let people down.  We will make mistakes.

Maybe the key isn’t whether your product or community is flawed – maybe the key is what you do when things break down.  I’ve had far too many customer service people run away from their product when it broke down.  Apple didn’t run away from their product or their customer; instead, they embraced both.  

Wonder if that’s what people are looking for you and I to do.  The promise of the church isn’t that we’re a perfect organization.  Far from it.  When we stand up as leaders and tell people we’re great, no one really believes us.  When we admit we’re not perfect, absolutely no one is surprised (especially those closest to us).  Maybe we should just be more honest about who we really are.

I’ve taken to telling people who are new to our church that we will let them down, we will make mistakes, but where I hope the difference will be is that we’ll look them in the eye and own it.  We’ll journey with them through our mistakes and be as accountable as we can for our failures, working together to make it right.  

I haven’t got it figured out by any stretch…all I know is this.  When a leader or organization makes a mistake, being honest about it, owning it and having them assume full responsibility for the consequence of the failure makes a world of difference. That’s what Apple did.  And I’ll be making many more purchases from them in the future (and telling others about them yet again).  I’m all evangelical about them, actually.  Maybe there’s a lesson there. 

What do you think?  What are you looking for in your leaders?  What do you hope will be true of them?  

Most of us secretly want to be better known, valued and appreciated than we are.   For some of us, that’s just in a wider relational circle.  For others, it’s more public.  We long to be better known in our ministry, in our company, to see our product selling, our album get recorded, our blog get traction or to find ourselves thousands of Twitter followers or Facebook friends.  If we were to pry behind the secret motivation…we think that would make us successful.

I know I’ve struggled with this over the years.  When I was starting out in ministry, I wanted to be that guy who spoke at conferences and was well respected as a leader in ministry. You don’t talk about that kind of thing much, but if you were to gain access to my sinful mind, the thought spun around  in my head from time to time.

Then in a season of my life a few years ago, God wrestled that down.  Well, that’s putting it nicely.  He snapped my ambition.  He took me to a place where I realized that as much as I didn’t want to admit it even to myself, much of my motivation was selfish and not God-honouring.  I finally surrendered it to him.  In fact, I he brought me to a point where I could see myself serving as an effective pastor without ever anyone knowing who I was.  I didn’t really want that definition of success.  But I embraced it anyway. As best I could, I surrendered my ambition to God.

Ambition kills servants of God and turns them into servants of themselves. I’ve come to enjoy the slow death of selfish ambition in my life.  It’s not complete, but it’s in progress. Here’s what I’m learning and (now) loving about the difference.

1. When you’re motivated by selfish ambition, your personal sense of worth goes up and down with the opportunities ahead of you.  When you’re motivated by God, your value is solidly found in Christ every day.
2. When you’re motivated by selfish ambition, failure is terrifying.  When you’re motivated by God, failure becomes an opportunity for grace and growth.
3. When you’re motivated by selfish ambition, you think you’re the deal.  When you’re motivated by God, you know that He’s the deal.
4. When you’re motivated by selfish ambition, you use people to get you where you want to go.  When you’re motivated by God, you value people as you go.
5. When you’re motivated by selfish ambition, you take the credit.  When you’re motivated by God, you realize how much God and the people around you deserve the credit.
6. When you’re motivated by selfish ambition, you strive for breadth of exposure.  When you’re motivated by God, you focus on depth in your walk and let God determine the breadth of exposure he gives you.
7. When you’re motivated by selfish ambition, you are always thinking about the next thing.  When you’re motivated by God,  you’re always thinking about what God wants to accomplish in your life today.
8. When you’re motivated by selfish ambition, you’re always comparing yourself to the other guy.  When you’re motivated by God, you begin to celebrate what God is doing through the other guy.
9. When you’re motivated by selfish ambition, it’s hard to say no to any opportunity.  When you’re motivated by God, it’s easier to say yes to balance and priorities.
10. When you’re motivated by selfish ambition, you can feel entitled to any success that comes your way.  When you’re motivated by God, you simply feel grateful.
11. When you’re motivated by selfish ambition, the need to win is greater than the need to love.  When you’re motivated by God, the need to love is greater than the need to win.
12. When you’re motivated by selfish ambition, you are always insecure.  When you’re motivated by God, your security comes from His steadfast love.

I’m so grateful for these learnings.  The journey isn’t over yet, but I’m glad it’s begun.

The ironic part of this story is that a year or so after God broke me on this issue, I got a call from a major church to speak at a conference in front of thousands of people. When I got the call, I was a bit blown away, but it didn’t mean what it would have meant a year or two earlier. I could hold it loosely.  It was an opportunity for the Kingdom, not just for me.  Ironically, I’ve had more opportunities to do what I used to dream of doing than I ever did before God broke me.  But I don’t accept all of them – and those I do, I hold more loosely than ever before.  And when they’re over, I’m not ‘fulfilled’. Increasingly I’m just grateful that God would use me in that way.

What are you learning about this struggle?  What would you add to this “list”?   In what ways is God speaking to you on this?