Do You Welcome Advice?

For many years, I worked for a small, liberal arts college. Like many other institutions of higher education, they were working hard to manage rising tuition costs, decreasing numbers of traditional college students, and maintaining competitive salaries for staff and faculty. During the years I was there, the leadership changed a couple of times. But no matter who was in charge, at some point, consultants were brought in. I had never observed or understood the role of consultants before, and I found it fascinating.

The process was always the same. A group of people would arrive, usually younger than me, dressed much better than me, and clearly making more money than me. They would gather in a conference room and meet with groups of staff, faculty and students and ask questions: What do you like about your work? What do you not like? How is communication handled? What do you see as the biggest challenges? Then they would listen. And they listened for a long time.

I was always amazed at how long the consultants stayed on campus. It seemed like they met with so many people and pored over so many pages of data. And then, once they had done all the listening and the reading, they offered their advice.

I think this process happened three times in the years that I worked there. I was pretty far down the hierarchy ladder, but it was always interesting to see how people received the consultants’ suggestions. Some in leadership seemed grateful for the outside opinions, while others were resistant. Some welcomed the ideas or at least mulled them over; others appeared irritated that these “outsiders” thought they would know better than those who had been in the trenches.

The process of allowing outside evaluation is hard. It is humbling to ask, “Is this going as well as it could be?” It is intimidating to let someone else look at our work with a critical eye. It’s hard to recognize that we may need to change something, and then, even harder to actually do it.

An outside evaluation is exactly the type of thing that took place many, many years ago as the Israelites were in the desert. Prior to their rescue out of Egypt, Moses had sent his wife and two sons to his father-in-law, Jethro. Jethro later brought Moses’ family back to him, and the reunion was a sweet one. They greeted each other and then went into a tent for good, long catch-up on all that Jethro had missed.

The following day, Jethro got to witness the day-to-day schedule Moses had set up. As thrilled as he had been to learn about all that had happened up to that point, he saw some problems with how Moses was leading the people. I will direct you to Exodus 18:13-24 for the full text, but here’s a summary of what was happening.

Moses was serving as a consultant for every little thing that was happening among the Israelite people. He was working hard from morning to night to teach the people about God’s decrees and instructions as well as making judgments upon disputes. Considering there were several hundreds of thousands of people, this made Moses a very busy man. After observing this, Jethro in his wisdom was direct in his assessment. “What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you” (Exodus 18:17-19 NIV).

Now, I don’t know what Moses was thinking. Some have suggested that Moses was arrogant and controlling because he was trying to take care of everything on his own. I think it is just as likely that the poor guy was simply trying to do what he thought was best in this new role. Leadership can be overwhelming. There can be so many challenges and daily snags that it sometimes just feels easier to take things on ourselves. We may not want to burden others, feel we have the time to train someone else, or simply don’t trust that others are going to do the job the way we want it done. But as Jethro pointed out, leading alone will always cause us to hit critical mass at some point. God designed us to be in relationship and community, even when we’re in a leadership role.

This example from the story of Moses is a powerful one for us to consider related to our own positions of leadership. Whether those positions are in our families, places of work, or places of worship, there are times when outside advice is going to allow us to see and implement things that we would not have done on our own. We need the Jethros, the men and women who come along, listen well, and then look at what we are doing. They are people who, because of their outside perspective, can offer welcome advice that will hopefully benefit us and the people we serve.

Older, younger, well-dressed or not, it is important to keep our eyes out for the “consultants” who might arrive in our lives. If God sent Jethro to Moses to help make him a better leader, I think we can expect that this will be necessary and helpful at various points in our own journey as well. Let’s keep our hearts open and be willing to consider the advice that comes our way. It may just be the gift we need.

Anne Rulo is an author, speaker, professional counselor, marriage and family therapist and veteran coach’s wife. She and her husband Tim have two children and are passionate about reaching people for Christ and sharing information on coaching, marriage, family, and mental health. Read more from Anne at www.annerulo.com.

Photograph © Gabrielle Henderson, used with permission