When I was younger in my leadership adventure I would look at more established churches, organisations, leaders, movements and be critical if I felt that they were no longer taking risks. I would hear about churches or organisations that started with such passion, enthusiasm and risk but ended up becoming slow and bloated. It’s not that they became bad organisations, it’s just they weren’t what they were when they began.

I determined that when I was leading, I would never lead like that!

Then I started leading and I’ve now realised how wrong I was to be critical. I now understand why the longer things go in ministry the less risk taking they can become. I don’t think it’s inevitable, and I don’t think that we should accept it, but I now have sympathy for those who have led a growing organisation over time. I also have developed an incredible amount of admiration for those who’ve managed to keep leading on a risk age the longer they have led.

Here are 5 things I’m understanding about why taking risks as time goes on gets harder.

1 – There’s more to lose – when you start a church, organisation etc. it’s usually a small team that kicks it all off. There are a handful of people, very few assets, little cash in the bank and whilst making a mistake at this early stage isn’t favourable there is room to make mistakes. However, as that church/org establishes it starts to collect employees, buildings, equipment, reputation etc. All of a sudden a mistake doesn’t just affect the small team that started, but it envelopes all that is owned, established and dependant upon it. That makes the leader want to protect it which naturally leads to less risky decision making

2 – There’s higher expectations – people don’t expect so much from a startup. For example, when a church is small and starting people are happy if things are a bit more robust, sympathetic if things are a little rough and ready to forgive when mistakes are made. The bigger it gets the higher the expectation becomes. If the sound doesn’t work in a larger church it can raise doubts about the level of organisation, if the speaker is unprepared there is little sympathy. The fact that the expectations are higher means that leaders can be less likely to take risks on letting others do the stuff or risking a new innovation.

3 – The leader is older – the older we get, the less risk adverse we seem to become. Again, I don’t think we should accept this truth (and I have met many exceptions) but it seems to be the norm. The young leader who planted the church/org is now an older wiser leader with family, kids and even grandkids. Once again this can naturally lend itself to less risk taking.

4 – The people are older – this maybe is church specific but it’s the same rule as above. The young group of people who were up for doing anything and everything all of a sudden get kids and/or other responsibilities. They have things to do, places to be, things to accomplish and their mindset turns to protecting themselves rather than stepping out.

5 – The church/org is slower – scale by its nature tends to slow things down. We know this to be true of ourselves and it’s the same for the things we lead. Larger organisations require more systems and structures in order to function well. Often these systems and structures remove flexibility, fluidity and speed from any decision making processes. This again stops the organisation from being as nimble and risk taking than it once was.

I’ll write soon about some things I am learning about how to avoid this……..