Why spiritual leaders are uniquely positioned to lead from the future

The moment I am writing these pages, it is the month of December where often people take time during the holiday season to commune with those they care about, reflect on the past year, and make new year’s resolutions. At its best, such new year’s resolutions anticipate on one’s personal challenges, opportunities and events in the coming year. Such anticipations can then inspire a new mindset, a healthy intention to show forth the right behavior. At its worst, they contain a number of empty, socially desirable promises (e.g., I’ll quit smoking, … but not really). In the story of creation (Gen 1: 14), it says that Elohim created the sun and the moon beside the earth in order to mark the seasons. Cyclical time, like a recurring December month, is important to God. Cycles of time give life a certain pace or rhythm, gives the seasons of the year a certain coloring, and allows us to reflect on the passage of time, to reflect on the past and to anticipate the future. Time, rhythm and the future are not only crucial concepts for leadership, they are also intrinsically spiritual concepts.

At its best, such new year’s resolutions anticipate on one’s personal challenges, opportunities and events in the coming year.

As an Associate Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, I usually teach the course Leading Change and Projects to master students in Business Administration. During that course, I regularly talk about how important the ‘future’ is for (change) leaders. Good leaders can optimize a particular status quo for a group. But GREAT leaders can lead from a deeper understanding, from a palpable vision of the future. They, as it were, are able to see into the future, they can see, smell, feel what it is like, and then return to the present with a clear graphical image of a better self, a better work relationship, a better team, or a better organization. We call this ‘leading from the future’. The greatest change episodes in world history have started with leaders who had a vision about an alternative future. Familiar examples are Steve Job’s vision of making a “Dent in the Universe”, John F Kennedy’s vision of putting a man on the moon, and so on. Research on vision, project and change management shows quite clearly that visioning is one of the most important functions of leadership. A vision is an image of who we might become. And it is inherently related to the future.

Yet, leading from the future is something that does not come naturally. In an interesting piece on the role of the future in organizational change, researchers Lord, Dinh and Hoffmann (2016) say that we have a tendency to think about the flow, or arrow of time as running from our past to our present, and then into the future. How can you then lead from the future? If the arrow of time flows from the past into the present, you cannot. This suggests that we are dictated by our pasts. Our choices, situations, and constraints that have resulted from our past choices can have such a strong imprinting effect on us in the present moment, that we feel we are determined by the past, almost as a slave to past decisions. It’s a bit like the smoker who makes a new-years resolution to quit smoking but who is then back at the cigarette within a few days (or even hours). Past choices have caused a pattern that is hard to get out of; one seems locked into a certain pattern.

But GREAT leaders can lead from a deeper understanding, from a palpable vision of the future.

The only way you can “lead from the future” is if you manage to reverse the arrow of time, such that the future can flow into the present. This can be done because we can imagine a different, alternative future. If we then also act in a way that makes this future more likely, make a plan, reduce constraints that hold us back, and instead work on creating facilitative conditions, this alternative future is more likely to occur. In a way, leading from the future involves an ability of a leader to take the future (NOT the past or the present) as the main reference point. When making a plan, a leader should ask repeatedly in a certain rhythm: “considering that this is the future we want to reach, and where we are right now, what steps do we need to take now to get there?” When situations become more uncertain and (change) projects become more uncontrollable, this rhythmic reflection on the future becomes increasingly important. It is called ‘planning-as-you-go’, and contrasts with the ‘stick-to-the-plan method of managing projects. If things around us shake, and plans and certainties of the past no longer apply, people look for leaders who have a vision of the future and how to get there. Having no eye for the future is then like flying blind, without a compass or a rudder. It is only the future which gives a sense of direction in such circumstances.

Here, spiritual leaders have an advantage. The Almighty and all-knowing God, who presents Himself in the Bible as the Creator of the universe, is the only One who factually knows the future. Knowing and understanding the future is part of a larger supernatural capacity called ‘wisdom’. In Isaiah 46: 9 it says: “I am Elohim, there is no other. I know the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are yet to be done. My spoken council succeeds and I will do My pleasure.”. Isn’t this powerful?

As humans, we were never meant to navigate through time all by ourselves for the simple reason that we cannot see into the real future by ourselves. No human actually has that capacity. We have imagination, but who says that this imagination is our real future? In fact, considering the impact the past can have and the daunting manifold of possibilities in the future, it is highly comforting to know that we are safe in the hands and wisdom of the Almighty God. In Psalm 139: 5 (Passion Translation), it says: “You've gone into my future to prepare the way, and in kindness you follow behind me to spare me from the harm of my past. You have laid your hand on me! This is a very accurate translation we you read the original Hebrew. God is a gentleman. For Him to protect us in this way, we do have to allow Him to be the master of our lives.

We have a tendency to think about the flow, or arrow of time as running from our past to our present, and then into the future.

If we try to navigate the arrows of time purely by ourselves, we are like that ship without a compass or a rudder. The bible also tells us that the constraints we feel coming from past decisions are spiritually very real: they result from what we call “sin.” (i.e., losing your destiny, perversion of an originally good design, or open rebellion against God and His ways). Indeed, sin allows darkness to gain legal access in our lives, even to the point of binding us to such a degree that we become a prisoner of the past, and a slave to sin. Like the Psalmist David (18: 5-6) writes: “The cords of Sheol [i.e., the place of the dead] surrounded me; the snares of death confronted me. Floods of the evil one overwhelm me.” A little further on in this psalm (verse 18) David writes that these bonds are stronger than himself, so he cannot save himself from this (spiritual, and sin-related) bondage. Many Messianic prophecies (about the coming of Jesus) in the Book of Isaiah talk about the Messianic hope that Jesus Christ can save from this sin-related imprisonment, from sickness, psychological hurt, and so on. In Isaiah 61: 1-3, for instance, it is written: “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners.” The good news is that in Jesus, because He has paid the price for our sin with His very life, we can be completely freed from the bondage of sin (i.e., spiritual consequences of our choices in the past) and can start with a clean sheet, and…from now on spared from the harm of our past.

God is a gentleman. For Him to protect us in this way, we do have to allow Him to be the master of our lives.

A similar idea holds true for the future. In, fact, the bible even says that it is not up to man to guide his own steps: “I know, O ETERNAL One, that mortals’ road is not theirs [to choose], that people, as they walk, cannot direct their own steps” (Jeremiah 12: 23). The bible teaches us that one should not be ‘wise in your own eyes (Proverbs 3: 5, 7-8). Yet, if we surrender to God, we can let Him guide our futures, as well as our present steps, as is written in Psalm 37: 23: “the steps of a man are established by God, and He bends his way into his destiny.” In fact, God even instructs us to ask Him about the future things and command / declare the work of His hands such that the way it is originally designed and legally decreed in heaven will manifest on earth (Isaiah 46: 11). This is why, God loves to give to his children gifts of supernatural wisdom and prophecy regarding the signs and the things to come. On the sons of the Israeli tribe of Issachar, for instance, it is written in 1 Chronicles 12: 32 that it was given to hem to understand the times and to know what Israel should do. This is a prophetic gift of wisdom. Anyone with that kind of insight automatically becomes the leaders, for in the same verse it says that the sons of Issachar were 200 chiefs and all their kinsmen were at their command. In the land of the blind, one eye is king. In our current time, if we become sons and daughters of God through Jesus, we can learn to listen to His voice and receive important prophetic information about our futures, our own destinies and the destiny of the things that are in our spheres of influence. In that sense, the wisdom that God can give, is the truest treasure. Anyone who adheres to God is therefore a potential great leader, who can lead from the future!