Challenging The Status Quo
As a leader, you’re trying to cast your vision so that your tribe of followers will know what to expect and where you hope to lead them. After all, we (your followers) will follow your leadership because we trust you, knowing that you’re taking us where we want to go in life. But have you—our industrious leader—ever challenged the status quo?
In other words, why exactly are we (your tribe) doing what we’re doing? What is the reasoning, the rational, behind our efforts. What is the goal and can we achieve it by keeping on with the status quo?
When it comes to whatever you’re doing—whether it is pastoring a church, minimalizing your office and living space, blogging, building a tribe of followers, or running a small business—ask yourself why it is that you’re doing what you’re doing.
- Are you doing it that way because that’s the way it has always been done?
- Is there a better way to do this?
- Has tradition become the reason we keep doing this each and every year?
- Is this program helping our tribe or hindering its growth?
Seth Godin has an awesome section in his book, Tribes, which deals with the status quo. There might not be anything at all wrong with the status quo, but it might need some tweaking or—better yet—to be thrown out the window once and for all.
Organizations that destroy the status quo win. Individuals who push their organizations, who inspire other individuals to change the rules, thrive. Again, we’re back to leadership, which can come from anyone, anywhere in the organization. The status quo could be the time that “everyone knows” it takes you to ship an order, or the commission rate that “everyone knows” an agent ought to be paid. The status quo might be the way everyone expects a product to be packaged or the pricing model that everyone accepts because it’s been around so long. Whatever the status quo is, changing it gives you the opportunity to be remarkable.
What Should You Do Next? Allow Me To Suggest Two Things:
- Please leave a brief comment or suggestion below and let me know what you think about this article, whether good, bad or otherwise.
- Look down. See those social sharers? Would you mind tweeting, sharing or “liking” it to your social media followers? (You’re awesome, by the way. Thanks!)
Give an example below of a time in your life (in a tribe or in your business or at church or…) when you challenged the status quo. What were the results and how did other people respond?
I am currently trying to change the status quo of my school district. It’s corrupt with the misuse of power which is impacting the education of students with disabilities. I have been written up, placed on two admin leaves with pay-still on my second one since 2/25/15, lies still being told by personnel and my principal in an attempt to intimidate and scare me to make be quiet and resign. I choose to only fear God, and if I am doing right by him, I will continue to stand. I am risking it all for my students and their parents because they do not have a voice. I have shared all the secrets with our new superintendent. I choose to love my students with disabilities more than I fear the politics. I have placed it in God’s hands. I trust in the Lord. I have faith in what I hope is to return to my school of 15 years where my students’ rights have been violated per federal law of IDEA.. I pray our new superintendent will see past the lies to the honor the truth and choose to love students with disabilities more than fear the politics because the entire state is corrupted with the tangled chain of commands. Please pray for my students, my parents, and me that our voices will be heard and that the superintendent is for the Lord. Pray the Holy Spirit fills our state, our district with God’s purest love that the light fills all of our souls involved in this sad unjust situation. I know God is for our students with disabilities. In Jesus’s name I pray. Glory be to God! Amen!
Well I wasn’t intentionally trying to change the status quo, but I was being who I was called to be in Christ. My manager mentioned to me one time how different I was from the other managers. That’s when I knew that I wasn’t living or acting like everyone else. I was living based on my Christ convictions.
That’s awesome, Juan!
The “world’s” idea of the status quo is to live sinfully without God. When a Christian lives out his faith, it bucks the system…and people notice. Which is a very good thing. Keep up the faith!