There’s a season of leadership nobody prepares you for. Not the crisis itself, but the strange, unsteady ground that comes after it.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Not as a theory, but as something I’m living.
Over the past few years, Arrow has been through a significant season of change. Team transitions. Staff changes. Systems rebuilt. Board renewal. Strategy reimagined. Programs refined. Not one single crisis with a clear beginning and end, but a rolling series of shifts that required constant adaptation, constant decision-making and an honest reckoning with what needed to change.
Last year felt like walking through mud. Everything was in motion and nothing felt solid underfoot. I was making decisions at pace, responding to things I hadn’t anticipated, navigating complexity across every area of the organisation. Sleep was hard. My brain wouldn’t stop running. There wasn’t much capacity for anything beyond work. If you’d asked me at the time what my StrengthsFinder profile looked like in practice, I would have told you my Adaptability was dialled up to full volume, while my Maximiser and Achiever sat quietly in the corner, waiting for a season that hadn’t arrived yet.
This year feels different. Not perfect. Not settled. But firmer. If last year was mud, this year is concrete that hasn’t quite set. I can feel the ground forming beneath my feet. I can see the shape of something more strategic, more sustainable, more prayerful starting to emerge but it’s not there yet. And I’m learning that the shift from crisis to stability doesn’t just happen. It has to be practised.
I wonder if you know this season. Maybe you’re a pastor who has been holding a church together through conflict or cultural upheaval. Maybe you lead a school navigating governance pressure, staff fatigue and the relentless pace of change. Maybe you run a not-for-profit that has been fighting for financial sustainability while carrying the emotional weight of the people you serve. Maybe the fires are mostly out, but the ground still doesn’t feel safe to stand on.
If that’s you, I want to be honest with you. Not from the other side of the journey, but from the middle of it. I’m learning that the transition from crisis to stability asks something different of us than the crisis itself did. And I think there are three practices that matter most.
Confront the brutal facts with grounded faith
Jim Collins tells a story in Good to Great about Admiral James Stockdale, the highest-ranking US military officer held prisoner during the Vietnam War. Tortured repeatedly over more than seven years, Stockdale had no release date, no certainty he would survive and no reason for optimism. And yet he endured.
When Collins asked him who didn’t make it out, Stockdale’s answer was surprising: the optimists. The ones who kept saying they would be free by Christmas, then Easter, then Thanksgiving. When those dates passed, they lost heart. Stockdale’s approach was different. He never lost faith that he would prevail but he also never pretended the situation was anything other than what it was.
Collins calls this the Stockdale Paradox: the discipline of confronting the most brutal facts of your current reality while maintaining unwavering faith that you will prevail in the end.¹
I think this has something to say to Christian leaders. We are people of hope. That’s non-negotiable, but hope is not denial. And faith is not pretending. Some of the most important leadership moments I’ve had in the last two years have been the ones where I told the truth, clearly and kindly, about where things actually stood. Not to catastrophise. Not to spread anxiety. But because people deserve honesty and organisations cannot be built on optimism that isn’t grounded in reality.
The Psalms teach us this. The same poets who wrote “The Lord is my shepherd” also wrote “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1). Lament and faith are not opposites. They are companions. And the leader who can hold both, who can name what is hard while trusting that God is at work, is the kind of leader who builds something that lasts.
Confronting brutal facts in the presence of God is a different thing from confronting them alone. Prayer becomes the place where honesty and hope sit together. Where you can say, “This is what’s true,” and hear, “And I am still here.”
Build honest support around you
Crisis leadership is isolating. The higher the responsibility, the fewer the people you can be fully honest with. And that’s not necessarily wrong. Not everything a leader carries should be carried publicly. Wisdom means knowing what to share, with whom and when.
But here’s what I’ve learned the hard way: if you don’t find safe places to process honestly, you will bleed to your team. Not intentionally. Not dramatically. But in the way you respond under pressure, in the tone of your emails, in the things you say in meetings that you later wish you hadn’t. Unprocessed weight doesn’t stay contained. It leaks.
Last year, I had mentors, a professional supervisor and a counsellor all going at the same time. I needed every one of them. Not because I was failing but because I was carrying things that needed somewhere safe to land. People who could hear the full truth without needing to fix it, give report it, or be unsettled by it. People who could help me think clearly, pray honestly and lead well even when things were hard.
I don’t say this to sound impressive. I say it because I think there’s a quiet lie in Christian leadership that tells us we should be able to handle it. That if our faith is strong enough, we won’t need that kind of support. But Jesus himself withdrew regularly to pray (Luke 5:16). He wept openly. He asked his closest friends to stay awake with him in his hardest moment (Matthew 26:38). If the Son of God needed support in his most painful season, we can stop pretending we don’t.
So let me ask you gently: who are your safe people? Not your colleagues. Not your board. Not even your spouse, though they matter deeply. Who are the people in your life who can hold the weight of your honest leadership without it becoming gossip, anxiety, or unsolicited advice? A mentor. A supervisor. A counsellor. A spiritual director. If you don’t have those people yet, finding them may be the most important leadership decision you make this year.
Take the step in front of you while keeping the vision ahead
In a crisis, the only question that matters is: what needs to happen right now? You’re putting out fires, making rapid decisions, managing risk and holding people together. There’s no space for long-term vision. There’s barely space to breathe.
But as the ground begins to firm, a different question starts to surface: where are we actually going?
This is the tension of the season I’m in. I can feel the shift from reactive to strategic, from fixing to forming, from surviving to stewarding. But I can’t rush it. The concrete hasn’t set yet. If I sprint toward the vision, I’ll crack the foundation. If I stay in crisis mode, I’ll miss the invitation God is extending into something new.
The discipline, I’m learning, is to take the next step in front of me with my eyes lifted. Not the five-year plan. Not the full strategy. Just the next faithful step. And then the one after that.
Hebrews 11:1 tells us that faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. That’s not a call to recklessness. It’s a call to faithful movement. Walking forward without needing to see the entire path. Holding the vision loosely enough that God can shape it and firmly enough that it gives direction.
For me, right now, that looks like beginning to dream again. Allowing my Maximiser and Achiever to come back online, slowly. Starting to ask questions about where Arrow is headed in 2035 and beyond, not just what needs fixing this week. It looks like giving myself permission to move from the crisis posture into something more spacious, even when part of me still wants to keep bracing for the next shock.
Maybe for you it looks different. But the question is the same: what’s the next faithful step in front of you? And what’s the vision you’re holding, even loosely, as you take it?
The ground is forming
The shift from crisis to stability isn’t a moment. It’s a practice. It asks something different of us than the crisis itself did. It asks for honesty: the courage to confront what is true and the faith to believe God is in it. It asks for support: the humility to let safe people carry some of the weight with us. And it asks for faithful movement: the willingness to take the next step even when we can’t see the full path.
I’m still in this. The concrete hasn’t fully set. But the ground is firmer than it was and I’m grateful.
If you’re standing in a season like this, whether the crisis has passed or is still lingering at the edges, know that you’re not alone. This is the kind of leadership that doesn’t make headlines but it’s the kind that lasts. The quiet, faithful, honest work of moving from surviving to stewarding, from mud to solid ground, one step at a time.
What season are you standing in right now? And what’s the next faithful step in front of you?
¹ Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t
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