One of the daily challenges leaders face is the unexpected. Great leaders expect the unexpected. What does that mean? It means that great leaders never assume any day will go the way it was planned. While having a plan and working that plan is crucial to great leadership, we must include margin in those plans for the unexpected, and we must be able to discern which of the unexpected interruptions in our lives is both important and urgent, and which ones are not. I received a call yesterday afternoon at 4:35, which was not only totally unexpected, but required changing my entire evening, because it was both important and urgent.
When I first started in the ministry more than three decades ago, I made the mistake of assuming that every unexpected phone call or interruption was cause for immediate action, that is they were both urgent and important. That was a mistake. After fielding a few phone calls from folks who “had to see [me] as soon as possible,” then rushing to their homes only to find out that they wanted to discuss an idea they had for an upcoming social event at the church, or a better way to order worship, or other “urgent” matters that were neither urgent nor important, I realized that I did NOT need to respond to every unexpected call or interruption in order to be a good pastor or leader. In fact, when I responded to every unexpected call or interruption I became less effective overall as a pastor and leader.
The first step in overcoming the trap of the unexpected was learning to screen the calls or interruptions, before I decided to invest a lot of time in them. When someone called and said, “Pastor, I need to see you right away,” or stopped by my study and asked, “Do you have a minute?” I learned to ask the caller, “Why is it you need to see me right now?” Quite often the answer would be, “Oh, I was just thinking about something that I think would help out the church, and I’m free right now, so I thought I would call.” I generally followed up a response like that with, “What was your idea?” The idea would usually take about ten minutes to discuss over the phone, and there would be no need for a visit. Occasionally, the need was urgent and important, but rarely. In those cases I would adjust my schedule and go if at all possible, or find someone else on the leadership team to do so.
I learned to respond to the people who stopped by and asked, “Do you have a minute?” By saying, “Yes, I have two. How may I help you.” This usually elicited laughter, but often meant a brief chat, rather than an extended interruption to my day.
Yesterday’s unexpected call was both important and urgent, so I rearranged my schedule. It meant missing some time with Nancy, but since I no longer put her on the back burner often, and generally only when the unexpected is both important and urgent, she was fine with changing our plans for the evening.
Over time as you become responsible for more in your leadership role, it is helpful to train those around you to screen interruptions for you. This is particularly true if you have a receptionist or administrative assistant. You need to help them learn that they serve you best when they determine whether an unexpected call or interruption is both urgent and important or not. Many times they can handle the situation, and keep you free to pursue your plan. Since I work from home most of the time, it is extremely important to me that the receptionists at the church screen “urgent” calls for “the pastor.” Since we have five pastors on staff, the receptionists need to determine the nature of the caller’s “urgent” matter, and if it truly is both important and urgent, which pastor or other staff member or volunteer is best suited to respond to it.
If you’re thinking, “I don’t have a receptionist or other staff members on whom to rely,” neither did I at first. If you’re the point person, all the more reason to make sure when the unexpected comes that you find out whether it’s important and urgent and if it isn’t it’s okay to be brief, or to say you aren’t available to address the matter. While it is the nature of every Christian leader to be a servant leader, we must always remember that our first service is to Jesus, and if we are being subservient to people with time on their hands, who think they have to see us, because we’re afraid to disappoint or upset them, then we aren’t going to be serving Jesus first in most cases. For example, If I’m writing my message for the weekend, and my phone rings unexpectedly and I answer it, even if it’s only a five minute call, I will lose fifteen to twenty minutes of message prep time, by the time I get refocused and back to the important matter of writing it. If I’m actually called away by that unexpected phone call, I may lose a whole morning or afternoon. Before I do that I want to make sure that it’s a matter of urgency and importance. I have a rule of thumb when it comes to phone calls and I’m working on something important: If the call is important, they’ll call back, or they’ll leave me a message and I can call them back.
My only exceptions to that is if I know I’m going to receive a call, and have planned to take it when it comes, or It’s Nancy, Abby or Emmy. I always take calls from them, because I know they wouldn’t call me during my work day unless it was a matter of importance.
One final challenge in closing: Don’t let your fear of missing out on something important keep you responding to EVERY unexpected call or interruption in your life. No one can do everything, and since Jesus already died on the cross to save us from sin and death, the role of “Savior” has been taken! That leaves us in the role of faithful servants who steward our time well, in order to serve Him best and advance His Kingdom.
Here’s to leading better by responding to the unexpected immediately only when it’s both important and urgent–today!