Idealism Without Wise Counsel: When vision floats free of reality and no one dares to tether it. Leading with ungrounded ideals, without the humility to seek wise counsel or remain teachable, narrows vision, stifles creativity and skills, and kills team spirit, limiting both the leadership team and the mission they hope to serve.
One of the most valuable qualities of a missional leader is their idealism and passion. A job description for a nonprofit Executive Director listed the primary requirements as a “deep and authentic passion for the mission; a fierce advocate for the organization…”. Naturally, we want to be inspired and led by someone like this. These leaders can bring out the best in their organizations, their people, and their mission.
But a leader’s idealism can also become a burden on the organization and its people. When left unchecked and unchallenged, those ideals become unrealistic and impossible to live up to. Instead of inspiring vision, they weigh down members with a deep sense of shame and failure. These ideals, while well-meaning, can be misguided and oppressive.
What is often overlooked in our modern view of institutions is an appreciation for their formative role in people’s lives. Our organizations are primarily human endeavors meant to foster human thriving when they operate at their best. We analyze business, nonprofits, and government as if they are machines to be maintained by leaders who are essentially like mechanics working under the hood. But no human endeavor succeeds in this manner. People join our organizations with histories, hopes, insecurities, emotional baggage, and wounds. We expect them to “be professional,” “keep emotions out of it,” or other such mantras that dehumanize our people. Our ideals can hinder the development of individuals into mature, emotionally, and spiritually intelligent organizational citizens capable of advancing our missions.
In the classic novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote is a nobleman who has read too many chivalric romances and sets out to revive knighthood and defend the helpless. He is deeply immersed in his fantasy of being a knight-errant, blurring the lines between reality and fiction in his perspective. He believes he is on a divine mission to restore justice and valor. And so, he sets off on his quest, accompanied by his loyal squire Sancho Panza, who is the voice of reason.
Early in his adventures, he sees a group of windmills on the plains of La Mancha and mistakes them for terrifying giants. Despite Sancho Panza’s protests, Don Quixote insists that an evil enchanter has turned the giants into windmills to stop his quest. With his unwavering idealism, he charges at one with his lance, determined to defeat the “giant.” As expected, the windmill’s sail catches his lance and throws him and his horse to the ground.
There is no question that Quixote acts with boldness and conviction, even when his cause is foolish and misguided. He becomes his own worst enemy because his noble intentions are undermined by his inability to see the world as it truly is. The story illustrates a leader’s noble quest for purpose, courage, and meaning, yet is distorted by a gap in the wisdom needed to navigate the mission in the “real world.”
The Wisdom Gap, our next Big 10 Culture Killer of Effective Leadership Teams, can be the most covert and insidious of all. It appears to be a compelling conviction and persuasive argumentation. But underneath, it is a failure to reckon with the world, with people, or with our organizations, with discernment and sober-mindedness.
What is the antidote to the Wisdom Gap? I believe it is humility. Wisdom is the currency of humility.
One of my favorite proverbs honestly discusses The Wisdom Gap, exposing its foolishness masked as idealism: “What’s the point of a fool having money in hand to buy wisdom, when his head is empty?” (Proverbs 17:16, NET). Wow! That’s pretty blunt. And it’s quite offensive to an arrogant leader!
But it’s true. In our organizations, we have been blessed with a wealth of wisdom resources to navigate the disruptive and unpredictable changes of the world as we work to guide our missions to success. That wisdom comes from the people we serve: their experiences, strengths, perspectives, personalities, and especially their differences. However, when leaders adopt a pedantic attitude of needing to be the smartest person in the room, they essentially cut themselves and others off from vital learning. They become, as Proverbs warns, empty-headed because of their arrogance.
In an interview with theologian and pastor A. J. Swoboda, John Dickson, host of the “Undeceptions” podcast, makes a significant statement: “Learning is the key to being undeceived” (episode 160, “Deep Learning,” aired September 22, 2025). They then discuss the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), a concept originating from studies where children are supported in their learning as a teacher adapts various strategies to help fill the gap (the ZPD) between what the child already knows and what they don’t. The ZPD represents the optimal zone for learning but requires the learner to accept help from a “more knowledgeable other” to close that gap and grow their knowledge and capacity.
The Wisdom Gap functions much like the ZPD. When we lead in our organizations, there is a gap between what we know and what we don’t, what we are capable of and what we are not. Humility involves accepting this as true and responding appropriately in our leadership. Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock, agrees: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Effective leaders who will guide our missions and organizations into the future are those with teachable spirits.
Swoboda, referencing his book A Teachable Spirit: The Virtue of Learning from Strangers, Enemies, and Absolutely Everyone, describes teachability as “those moments in my life when I choose to put my pride, arrogance, and ego to the side and let the Spirit of God say things to me that I don’t want to hear.” He says, “To be teachable people, we actually have to bring something to be formed.” But this runs counter to our current leadership culture, which elevates the self-taught and self-made individuals who seem to know everything there is to understand and no longer need to learn. However, the leadership of the future is the humble leader who exalts the team. Dickson concludes, “A key to learning is humility. The logic is simple: people who imagine that they know most of what is important to know are kind of hermetically sealed from learning new things and receiving criticism.”
The question we need to ask is how we gain such wisdom. Humility must be formed in us, and our organizational settings are the best places to cultivate the humility that is suitable and life-giving for our mission and for people made in God’s image. We should approach leadership not with false superiority and fragile egos, but with a strong desire to learn and grow together through our Zones of Proximal Development.
Here are 10 leadership practices that help us combat the arrogance of false idealism and give us a posture of teachability:
- Practice Listening as Sacred Hospitality: Create space for others’ stories, perspectives, and pain. Listening becomes a form of welcome and reverence.
- Model Confession and Curiosity: Share your own uncertainties, mistakes, and evolving understandings. This invites others to learn without fear of failure.
- Discern in Community, Not in Isolation: Use communal reflection, spiritual direction, and shared inquiry to resist the myth of the lone visionary.
- Ask Generative Questions, Not Just Strategic Ones: Prioritize questions that open hearts and imaginations (e.g., “Where is God already at work here?” or “What are we being invited to release?”). Practice restraint in dogmatic expressions of opinions.
- Embrace the Margins as Sites of Revelation: Learn from those outside dominant systems as bearers of prophetic insight.
- Hold Plans Lightly, but Purpose Firmly: Stay rooted in mission while remaining flexible in method. Adaptive leadership thrives on responsiveness, not rigidity.
- Cultivate Rhythms of Rest and Reflection: Sabbath, silence, and retreat are not luxuries. They’re essential for resisting burnout and deepening discernment.
- Teach Through Story, Not Just Strategy: Use parables, testimonies, and metaphors to shape imagination and invite transformation beyond metrics.
- Invite Feedback as a Spiritual Discipline: Create feedback loops that are honest, kind, and formative. Normalize critique as a gift, not a threat.
- Celebrate Small Faithful Acts, Not Just Big Wins: Honor the quiet, consistent practices of love, justice, and presence. These are often the seeds of lasting change.
