A Problem to be Solved or a Tension to Manage

By Chad Haverkamp  |  November 9th

Tension…

When I say that word, what comes to mind? Do you feel a desire to run away from it? Or, when you identify it, do you want to lean into it and lead?

I don’t know about you, but my relationship to “tension” has been like a roller coaster. At times, I feel ready and desirous to lean into the tension, and at other times, I am tired of it and just want simple solutions that don’t require the difficult grunt work. You might even say that I exist in tension with tension itself, swaying from one side to the other.

Today, I hope to invite you, for a few moments, to lean in with me into tension, even if just as an intellectual exercise.

As the leader of your organization, you are consistently badgered with issues. Perhaps some of these will resonate with you:

• A bathroom sink has a leak…
• A bus broke down on the side of the road…
• A family or two needs to leave the school due to the increasing cost of tuition…
• A staff member has some personality traits that grate on students, staff, and parents…
• A parent has a concern with how you managed the discipline of another child that hurt theirs…
• A group of members in your community hijack the direction of a membership meeting…

I pray that you have not experienced all of the list above; however, what is true in all of these situations is that they are issues that require attention. Some people may call them problems, some may call them tensions, and others may say that you need to come up with solutions.

Last year, the Niagara Peninsula Cohort Zoom group worked through a book called Lead With AND by Tim Arnold. The premise and challenge within the book is that we often need to reframe our perspective of problems that arise to see them for what they truly are. They are not problems to solve, but tensions to be managed.

To elaborate on this point, I hope to use a specific example of a tension to manage: the one between financial needs and educational needs in our schools.

Often, students with higher learning needs require more resources. More resources require more money. More money usually requires more tuition or fundraising. So, (fully realizing that this is not true in all cases), supporting more diverse learning needs in your school will require more funds.

Of course, your school wants to provide the best education possible and also open its doors to students with more diverse learning needs. However, what happens for that family that is already struggling to meet the financial requirements for tuition?

And this is the tension… Learning needs and financial needs are not two ends of a spectrum in which you choose one or the other; they are two factors that every school needs to engage in meaningful research and conversations of how they both work within the vision that your community has established. You will not be likely to solve this problem and even if you think you have, the next year’s budget will place whole new demands on you to consider and then make a brand new decision!

As a result, I hope we can all consider that the problems that we face are often not necessarily problems. They are actually tensions that God calls us to step into and lead with intention.

And your school needs you to step into the tension and lead! If you ignore the tension and hope it goes away, or if you treat it like a problem and make a quick decision to get it off your plate, then we are really not serving our communities in the way that God needs us to.

Leading in tension requires that you deeply seek understanding of the various factors at play, as well as the people that are affected. We need to sincerely and deeply care about those impacted by the tensions and, also, humbly show the grace and empathy we have for them. Yet, we also need to keep the vision central that God has given to your school community and seek his direction in how you move forward in the tension.

Now, to start off this article, I asked you about how you view tension and that was intentional. Problems can be solved and moved off your plate. Solving problems can actually hit the reward centers of our brain! However, tensions are the opposite. They often require us to exist in discomfort, moving contrary to the very human nature that we have. We want to avoid discomfort and get away from it as much as possible.

If I can be so bold… God has called you to this role of leadership that you have. In that, may I challenge you to learn to enjoy the discomfort of tension… not because it feels good, but because leading those tensions well is what will define the success of your community!

Solving problems effectively is necessary for your school to function, but managing tensions well is a whole different skillset that is more murky and less black-and-white. It has similar parallels to walking in the wilderness, relying on God, and sometimes only seeing a few feet in front of ourselves.

Whatever problems that your school has, may you solve them well. However, for whatever tensions your school is managing, may you bring yourself fully into the tension and lead well with intention!

Chad Haverkamp is the Niagara Peninsula Cohort Leader for Edvance, and COO and Principal of Jarvis Community Christian School.