There is a dangerous game we play as leaders. In order to execute our vision we build organizational structures, placing people by their gifts. Once people are serving by their gifts, we establish roles for them. These roles allow leaders to know who is doing what and how tasks will be accomplished. These roles lead good people into patterns. Leaders like the patterns because it meets our expectations and because we want to control outcomes. These patterns often lead to routines and our followers get so good at “doing it the way it has always been done.” We often times take pride in this, but routine eventually leads to ruts and then ruts lead to mediocrity and soon no one can remember the original vision or the purpose for their role.

And all along we thought we were practicing good leadership.