Connections and Leadership (Influence)

Two conversations in the last couple of weeks have come together into an ah ha moment for me.

CONNECTION

• In a conversation with a long-time friend, I was reminded of the basic human need to connect.  Perhaps it comes out of our created-in-the-image-of-God nature.  The relationship connection in the Trinity is perhaps reflected in our desire to connect with others.  In the difficult times of marriage, my reflex is to find some way to reconnect with my wife.  When my kids are aching, I lie awake at night wishing I could be with them.When I worry about a presentation at work, it is a worry that my perceived value to my bosses will be disconnected.

• I think this connection thing is really about ensuring the integrity of a relationship despite the circumstances.  It is a seeking after a more profound principle of mutual concern and effective care.  When that happens in the context of relationship, the word we use is love.  Stuart Briscoe put it this way:  "It is the overwhelming preoccupation with the well-being of another regardless of their position or response."
  

• If we have overactive connection sensors, I'm guessing we are insecure about our relationships and we compensate by spending too much energy securing a secure relationship.  I think this is what happens when people tell us to chill out about one thing or another.  Others with overactive connection sensors might devalue their own sense of worth, separating themselves from relationships.
  
  I have a friend who alternates between the two.  Sometimes she's annoyingly present.  It's a kind of awkward do you still like me packaged in a guest who can't just have fun in a group.  Other times she intentionally disconnects.  I can't always figure out if she's hoping that we'll reconnect for her, or if she's thinking that she just  doesn't deserve the connection.  (More on that later.)
  

• If we have under active connection sensors, we may just be callous or clueless.  More likely, however we're just connecting with something other than people.  A game, a job, a hobby, a chemical, a book, a computer, or whatever.

It seems to me that the underlying success of Facebook is an expression of this desire to connect.  It shows the entire spectrum of connectedness:  Casual friends from decades ago whose posts I rarely read.  Close friends and family members whose every Like and Tweet get priority on my smart phone.  Because people seem to say things in social media that they'd never say in person, it seems that we now get clarity about expression, over-expression, and under-expression of our need for connectedness.  It must be a sociologist's playground.

But Facebook is too easy an example. Watch a city get excited together as their football team progresses to the Superbowl.  See hundreds of people gather in tents near their state capitols in the Occupy movement.  Watch cancer patients connect to online communities of mutual support.  These are mass connections.  See a dad take his daughter on a date.  A manager who mentors a new employee.  A neighbor who welcomes a newcomer.  Individual and powerful connections.

But all of this is prelude to the more important point, and it comes to my second meeting of the week.

INFLUENCE

Mel Lawrenz has a new book coming out in July called Spiritual Influence.  Anyone who is a parent is aware of the dynamic of influence.  We worry about what group of friends our kids will hang out with because we know of the influence of a crowd.  In this book he describes influence and talks about ways to have positive influence... especially for people whose life situations put them in a position of influence.

I was in a discussion with a few others about what Mel points us to in his book.  We were talking about what healthy influence looks like.

Now make the connection:  CONNECTION AND INFLUENCE.

• People will attempt connect.  It is how they were wired in creation.
• Those who have influence can facilitate connections to what is good... or to what is destructive
• Good spiritual influence is the skillful application of our lives in a way that helps others to form good, productive, honoring, and loving connections with others.

Perhaps our role as leaders or influencers is to take that God-given, DNA-wired need to connect and to facilitate connections that are healthy and honoring.  Can we steer people to a connection with God, the source of all that is good?  Can we help our friends to connect to a skating club or a bowling league instead of  the drug culture?  Can we get them into a musical ensemble or a book club instead of the bar scene.

Can we draw people into deep relationships with other people instead of pseudo-connections to a computer, a bottle, or a workplace?  In the end, the ultimate facilitation we can do is to connect those in our sphere of influence to the one person who can give them a fully satisfying connection:  Jesus.


COMPONENTS OF CONNECTED INFLUENCE

The exercise of connected influence may be the skillful application of our gifts and resources in a way that is preoccupied with the well-being of others.  I think there are three components of our influence

1. Influence that leads to selecting healthy targets as we connect... with whom we connect
2. Influence that leads to selecting healthy methods for connecting... how we will connect
3. Creative expression that makes our influence effective... how we will facilitate connection

But for all that, wait for Mel's book.