“Your relationship with another person is not the same relationship he or she has with you.”  I heard Andy Stanley say this in his recent message series, “The Weight of Your Words.”  I wish had heard it decades earlier.  It explains so much of my life, my frustrations in friendships, and my frustrations as a leader.

The truth of Andy’s statement is obvious when we think about our relationships with our parents and with our children.  These are not relationships of equals.  Most of us start our marriages by believing we can be equal partners.  The truth is I don’t want my wife to be my husband and she certainly doesn’t want me to be her wife.  We try to keep power dynamics out of our marriage, but we have a different relationship to each other.

I have been in several relationship triads.  Three of us were close friends, but there are times when I felt like the third wheel. Our relationships were not the same.  The other two in the triad had been friends longer and had more shared experiences; I was the newcomer they let in, but was always having to hear about experiences they had before I knew them.

In the first church I served that had staff, I thought we were a team and I would be first among equals.  It took me about fifteen years to learn that would never be the case.  As the pastor, I was the leader.  I often felt left out of the social moments on staff retreats.  I would walk into a room for a meeting and the laughter would stop.  I was not one of the guys.

I made the dynamic worse by trying to be “one of the guys.”  I would cut up and joke, and then get mad when everyone wanted to keep joking around and I was ready to be serious.  That was my fault. I didn’t help matters by getting mad when the staff didn’t respond to my agenda swings.

Our executive pastor reminds me my words weigh more than anyone else’s on the team.  I might make a sarcastic comment in some attempt to be funny, not realizing I just wounded someone.  A flippant idea might be taken seriously when I meant for people to simply think about this as a possibility and report back if it feasible. 

I often see this with Student Pastors.  They want to be “Buddies” with the kids they lead.  If a person takes this approach, they will fail.  Students need leadership.  Yes, you have relate to the kids, but kids can sniff out a phony faster than a pig can find a strawberry.  A student pastor’s relationship with his or her students is not the same as their relationship with him.

Edwin Friedman reminds leaders they are different than the people they lead.  He calls this “the self-differentiated leader.”  You do not depend on others for your sense of self.  You cannot expect others to understand what it is truly like to sit in your chair.

Jesus understood this.  When James and John asked to sit at his right and his left when he came into his Kingdom, Jesus responded, “You do not know what you are asking.  Can you drink from the cup I am about to drink from.”  They responded, “We can.”  Jesus, maybe with a smile on his face, said, “You will, but to be seated at my right and my left is for my Father to decide.”  I think that was Jesus’ way of saying, “ You will experience the thrill and pain of leadership, and it won’t be like you think.”

If you are a leader, own it.  Your relationship with the people you lead is not the relationship they have with you.