To celebrate our most recent wedding anniversary, my wife and I hiked The Narrows at Zion National Park. It is a beautiful hike in a slot canyon through a shallow river. Depending on when you go the clarity of the river water can vary from clear to opaque. What makes the water opaque is the dirt and sand that has washed into the river. When we hiked The Narrows, the water was opaque. With each step it was a mystery to know what would come next. The bottom of the riverbed has various depths (from a few inches to a few feet) and various terrains (from soft sand to large uneven river rocks) making each step its own unique challenge.
In preparation for the hike, we brought poles to help us navigate the waters. The poles provided stabilization and gave us clues to the depth of the water and terrain of the riverbed. Our approach was intentional (often slower) and we used our poles as guides to have a better idea of what to expect as we hiked.
As I hiked, I was struck by how my experience could be likened to the act of leading. The opaque river with its uncertain depth and terrain is like the tough challenges we face in our leadership journeys. While we may want to see all the variables and elements of our leadership challenges, most of the time we have uncertainty.
In our leadership challenges, physical poles will not stabilize us during the uncertain times, but our purpose and values can act as “poles” to stabilize us in uncertainty. When I am clear on my personal purpose and values, they can give me clues as to how I might proceed with a given challenge. Couple that with intentionality, and I can make minor adjustments in moments of uncertainty to continue to make progress.
To make this more concrete, I am working on a project right now that has a tremendous amount of uncertainty. My purpose is to teach and invite people to act to bring souls to truth and this has served as my “pole” in navigating this project. There is a tendency to over index on the teaching content and miss the crucial element of application by inviting learners to act and experiment. As this project unfolds and I collaborate with the team, I am slowly and intentionally moving forward making adjustments along the way to ensure the work aligns with my purpose and values and that we are making progress.
Are the waters you are hiking through opaque? During those times we all need a greater stabilizing force.
If you have not written down your purpose I invite you to do so. If you have, how are you leveraging that purpose in your leadership challenges? Write down at least one way you can be more intentional this week with applying your purpose to your work to stabilize you and help move the work forward.
