Attempting to Eliminate Risk in Leadership
If you want to eliminate risk from leadership…
Here’s what you have to accept:
It will be expensive – You’ll have to eliminate every thing which could go wrong. That will not be cheap to accomplish.
It will be time consuming – You will have to research all scenarios and answer all questions. That will take considerable time.
It may seem impractical – Getting to zero risk may never actually happen regardless of how hard you try. Risk seems to find its way back into the equation, in my experience.
It may be unrealistic- Life is a risk. Risk is all around us. If it involves people, time or circumstances, risk seems more realistic than no risk…to me. I’m not saying it won’t, I’m just questioning how practical that really is and really whether or not that’s even leadership. Leadership by application involves risk.
I’m not trying to stop you from trying to eliminate risk in leadership. Study. Evaluate. Question. Critique. Make practical plans as much as possible. That certainly sounds like good stewardship. I try to do each of those. You can certainly keep doing so until you are comfortable the risk is eliminated. Go for it!
My personal thought, however, is that when eliminating risk is a primary motivation you may lose opportunity. Try to eliminate risk and the world and the best ideas may pass you by.
Eliminating risk certainly doesn’t mesh with my understand of faith, nor does it mesh with the passion or adventure God seems to have given to the people He created. We seem to be by nature seekers of adventure, discovery…risk.
But, if that’s your goal…to eliminate risk…don’t let me stand in your way. Zero risk on the way…right?
Bonus question: What is the biggest risk you are currently attempting?
