Don't Step on the Rope

Reflections on Leadership, Relationships and Teamwork, Walter C. Wright, 2005, Paternoster Press.

Some years ago I was introduced to the writing of Walter Wright (Executive Director of the De Pree Leadership Centre at Fuller Theological Seminary and formerly President of Regent College) through his book ‘Relational Leadership’. There he defined leadership as a relationship of influence; in which one person seeks to influence the vision, values, beliefs, attitudes, behaviours of another. As a Pastor, seeking to lead a church towards its calling in God, it was helpful to understand that the heart of leadership is relationship, rather than position. Wright enabled me to understand that such leadership is rooted in servant-hearted character and measured by influence on those who follow.

Having been blessed by his book on leadership, when I found out that he’d written again on teamwork, I bought the book; but it has sat on my bookshelf for a few years now, patiently waiting to be read. As I began my Sabbatical, it was the first book I picked up. 

For over 30 years, Walter Wright has been enjoying the wilderness in the company of the same close-knit team of friends. Together they arrange expeditions; climbing mountains and exploring the backwoods in one another’s company. Becoming increasingly adventurous over the years, they found a need to learn proper mountaineering skills. One of the principal lessons was the need to rope together to safely negotiate vertical climbs, precipitous ridges and treacherous glaciers. In this book Wright uses the metaphor of the climbing rope, and those who have clipped into it, as a defining image of what it means to be team. In his words;

Teams are groups of people who have chosen to tie into a common rope...The rope is the relationship between leader and follow-up...Tying into a rope team is an issue of personal choice and personal risk. Your future is now connected to the strengths and weaknesses, the vision and values, the skills and abilities of another, and others are tied to you.

Teams begin with and are shaped by, a shared vision, which also shapes shared values that hold a team together. Wright points out; 

Effective teams are bound together by virtual ropes. It would be well for us to keep those ropes in mind and to know the people to whom we are tied.

In joining a team, “we have abandoned ourselves to the strengths and weaknesses of others”. Each team member contributes their own knowledge, skills, experience, and interests. But together the team has abilities that exceed the capacity of any one of its members. This informs Wright’s definition of a team as;

‘a small group of people working together on a common objective, dependent upon one another’s contribution, knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses, caring about each other’s growth and development, and holding one another mutually accountable.

Teams depend on trust and mutual respect to hold them together when the purpose of the team takes priority over the agenda of individual members. It’s this basic compatibility, this sense of belonging together, that gives them synergy. Without it, teams are little more than collections of individuals.

Because of this need for trust and respect, the ability of a team to work effectively is directly proportionate to the strength of its relationships. Communication is at the heart of every relationship. Thus the effectiveness or otherwise of team communication, is an issue of success or failure. In this context Wright highlights the importance of listening and of talking. Talking about hopes and dreams, fears and anxieties, what we’re learning and what we want to know. And listening well enough to hold each other accountable to the vision and values we profess. 

It is this strongly relational context that enables teams to handle the inevitable conflicts. In Wright’s words;

A strong community cares enough for its members to hold them accountable to their commitments and to confront them when necessary. Confrontation is a sign of caring. 

In this context it is helpful to see Wright’s distinction between confrontation and criticism; 

Confrontation is holding you accountable for your stated values and commitments because I care about you. Criticism is often holding you accountable to my stated values and expectations because I care about me.

As someone who tends to avoid conflict until last resort, I found it reassuring to be reminded that, ‘All great relationships, the ones that last over time, require productive conflict in order to grow.’ It was helpful to see conflict not as something others impose on me but as something that comes from within, an ‘internal response we have when we encounter something different from what we expect or desire.’  Wright has confronted me (!) with conflict as a natural part of developing relationships that must be faced and dealt with. His wise advice being;

...the sooner we talk about these feelings the sooner we can learn how to resolve them and move forward in the relationships...When conflict is not faced, relationships are damaged and team objectives are clouded.

This book encouraged me to reassess what I contribute to the teams I am part of. In his words, ‘The strength and the weakness of teams is that the actions and attitudes of each individual member impact the effectiveness of the team as a whole.’ As each team member’s contribution affects everyone else, the effectiveness of the team is directly proportional to the quality of each person’s contribution to the shared values and vision of team. This means that each member must take responsibility for the team and continually seek to sharpen their competence and strengthen their contribution towards it.

Team members are each in turn, shaped by their own experience and communities. We are who we are because of the events of our lives and our network of relationships. Thus; 

What happens in any community to which we belong affect who we are and the strengths, weaknesses, fears, and confidence we bring to the team...The strengths and weaknesses that make up who we are at any moment, shaped by our own interactions with a network of relationships, govern what we bring to the team. 

Which means, ‘what is happening in the larger life of team members can impact their contribution and thus further or limit team success.’ For this reason Wright encourages me to see a significant part of my contribution to the team as learning to care more passionately for fellow team members; 

...I need to know what is going on in the larger life of the people to whom I am roped...that is why a good team cares about what its members care about. The more we can help one another with our larger journey through life, the stronger the team will be.

Wright redefines the nature of leadership in a team context. Teams call for a different type of leadership that recognises the mutuality of team; where everyone participates in the selection of destination, the strategy for achieving the objective, and the competencies that are needed for success. Wright insists it is critical that a team has an identified leader. But in a team, the leader facilitates decisions that the team makes together. Thus the leader is not above or in anyway set apart from the other members of the team but rather is a participating, contributing team member, assigned as leader, who knows where the team is going and keeps that objective before the team. For Wright:

The responsibilities of team leadership always embrace two outcomes: the objective or mission of the team and the care and development of its members. Leadership is the responsibility of service. It is a specific assignment given to keep the vision in view, point the direction, and clarify the issues at hand.

Alongside this though, team leadership is also an; 

...assignment to keep an eye on the rope–the relationships that connect the members of the team and help or hinder their progress. The leader is responsible for the team as team.

In the end;

In many ways, leadership rests in the hands of those who choose to follow.… Unless the team chooses to follow, the leader does not go anywhere! The leader is tied to the team. That may be the single most important truth to understand about team leadership.

This highlights the need for trust, which is at the core of all relationships but is especially important for effective teamwork. Trust is acknowledging dependence upon each other. Trusting others gives us freedom, and enables us to take risks. Wright points out that building trust starts with vulnerability; someone choosing to reveal something of themselves that they would otherwise conceal:

Trust is built we make ourselves vulnerable to others whose response we cannot control. We earn trust by giving trust. We receive trust from others as we demonstrate our trust in them. Trust is reciprocal; it is relational.

Alongside trust, Wright points out that effective teams depend on forgiveness. Forgiveness accepts failure, though expecting a person to have learned from their mistake. Thus forgiveness treats failures as milestones, turning failure into learning opportunities. As Wright points out; 

Forgiveness is something we need, given our vulnerability and it is something we must offer others, increasing vulnerability in building trust.

Because it is the relational connections between members that make the difference between a group of people and an effective team, these relationships need to be nurtured. As Wright observes; ‘Relationships, like most living things, a subject to entropy. If they are not tended, they deteriorate.’ We must recognise our dependency and need of one another in order to achieve the team vision set before us.

The team also provides a healthy context for reflection; as we stop and reflect we learn from both our own experiences and the combined wisdom of the team. It’s easy to allow vision to slip and become focused on what we do, rather than continue to wrestle with the loftier and more difficult questions of what’s really important? and, what matters? 

Corporate memory allows us to review where we’ve been and what we’ve done. It recalls why we are on this journey, what we hope to accomplish. Remembering goes back to the beginning and connects the choices that bring us to the present.

Doing this together helps us to remember more accurately than any one of us can remember personally. 

Reflection and assessment enables teams to measure progress. By asking questions such as; where are we going?, what is the mission that brings us together?, what do we want to accomplish together?, who do we want to be together?; we are reminding ourselves that the defining mission, vision, and purpose that forms the team is the standard against which progress must be continually measured. Wright points out that such measurement is important because we tend to accomplish that which we measure and keep track of what we think is important. Therefore teams need to clarify what they want to accomplish together, measure their progress and adapt their strategies in response to that feedback.

As someone who also loves mountains and wild places, I found this metaphor of the rope helpful and resonant in understanding team. But as someone who is prone to self-reliance and ‘going it alone’, the relational richness and security of team as advocated by Wright is both hugely appealing and profoundly challenging. 

I know my limitations all too well and am deeply conscious of my great dependence on others. Yet I confess to not grasping the full implications of team. On this Wright challenges me; to reassess my own investment in and nurturing of team relationships, to confront my fear of conflict and not simply ignore difficult situations in the hope they will fix themselves, to fully invest as a team member who shapes and contributes to team effectiveness, to be more trusting and vulnerable with fellow team members, and to appraise my contributions alongside the contributions of others; each vital to the team as a whole. 

I’m prompted to sharpen my contribution, bringing the best of who I am, focussed on the team’s purpose. At this time of Sabbatical, as amongst other things, I seek to clarify my personal vision, Wright reminds me that not ‘stepping on the rope’ means being aware not only of that personal vision, but of the wider vision of those with whom I am ‘roped up’. Sure, my vision has to find a fit; I need to be sure that I can make an appropriate contribution to the wider vision, but it is the wider vision that gives purpose - and it is working with others who bring their own very different contributions to that wider vision - that enables us to achieve far, far more together than we could ever achieve on our own.

Finally, as both a good outdoorsman, and Christ-centred leader, Wright urges us to remember; at in the end of the day it is the trail that matters, how we walk it, and who we walk it with; not the summits we climb, or how high we can go.