coping with everyday leadership challenges
Chris Holcombe invites us to consider the everyday leadership roles we all find ourselves in, and how God can meet us in them.
Chris Holcombe is a retired surgeon with many years of NHS leadership experience. He currently leads the CMF Christians in Healthcare Leadership Network (CHLN).
Leadership is influence, so if you have influence, you are leading.1 As healthcare professionals, we are all leading. Even when we say nothing, we have influence, and so, lead. God calls us to do exactly this: ‘So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering.’ (Romans 12:1, The Message)
We meet on a Sunday as the ‘gathered church’ for sustenance, inspiration, equipping, and fellowship, but it is as the ‘scattered church’ that we interact with the world, where we have influence, where we are salt and light, where we fulfil our Christ-given mission (Matthew 5:13-16).
For many of us, that will lead us to taking on formal leadership roles as our Christian vocation and the main outworking of our faith.
today’s reality
Leading in the health service today is hard. Day after day, we are faced with a multitude of imperfect decisions that can leave us demoralised and feeling we have not been able to fulfil our high calling to excellence as a Christian. Moral distress — that feeling of distress and discomfort when we know what we should do but cannot — is often not far behind.
Others are so frustrated that they explode in anger. But this is not effective, is often directed at the wrong person, and produces more heat than light. Others conclude they are useless and cannot do anything, while others just give up, worn out by the effort of trying to make things better in the face of inertia and apparent unconcern. It is just too hard, and the conflict too great. But it does not need to be that way!
Who we are as God’s children is foundational to all else:
- I have fallen short but have been forgiven, I know God’s grace (Romans 3:23-24, Ephesians 2:8-9)
- I am valued and loved by God, this is not dependent on how I perform at work (Genesis 1:27)
- God has a purpose and plan for my life and has put me where I am to fulfil this (Ephesians 2:10)
These fundamental, God-given values shape every interaction and act as a solid foundation on which to build our professional life; they give us hope and resilience in the face of the very real challenges.
They allow us to be a non-anxious presence, a leader secure in who they are and who they belong to, and able to differentiate themselves from what is happening around them. Leaders with a clear sense of the values and principles they live by, not swayed and influenced by the anxiety which swirls around them.2
When we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.3
Consider, if you will, an iceberg. In the same way that most of the ice is under the water, most of what influences how we behave is hidden. What we do day to day looks much the same for a Christian leader as it does for a non-Christian leader; but what is under the water, those fundamental characteristics of who I am as God’s child make all the difference. As a result what we do ‘feels’ different, and it is that, how our interactions feel, that is remembered.
For any person-to-person interaction you engage in as a Christian, your invisible personal virtues and values, assumptions, and beliefs, will shape that interaction. Your explicit conduct will reveal in your actions and body language how you relate to others and their needs. This is what will be remembered about you. No inauthentic behaviour adopted for the moment will dupe anyone. Knowing who you are as God’s child, his servant, is a very important strength.
We start with the firm foundation of who we are in Christ, but we are not alone in the challenge:
God-given resources for dealing with the daily leadership challenge
Wisdom: James entreats us to ask for wisdom: ‘If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you’. (James 1:5)
Who would not want the wisdom of the creator of the universe in dealing with that tricky colleague, or how to ‘pitch’ that new business case?
The Bible through workers’ eyes: It is easy to view the Bible as the accounts of exceptional, holy people who did great and spectacular things for God. People who were ‘special’ and not like us. But these were ordinary, godly men and women who were working out their faith while living for God, often in the secular workplace. This lens transforms our reading of the biblical narrative from a story distant from our day-to-day experience to one that is relevant to and informs day-to-day life in the health service in 2026.
Boaz is in the line that leads to David, but also a small businessman (Ruth 2-4). How did he deal with refugees? How did he treat a young woman coming to work in his fields? What does that tell us about how we should treat doctors coming to the UK to work in the NHS from abroad for the first time, or our attitude to sexism in the NHS?
What does the story of Joseph tell us about being falsely accused and how we should respond? (Genesis 39)
Fellowship: Our brothers and sisters are there for our encouragement. ‘And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another...’ (Hebrews 10:24-25)
We are filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2, 8; Ephesians 5:18). We do not and cannot leave the Holy Spirit behind when we go into work on Monday morning, and so we also take with us the gifts and fruits of the Spirit.
The gifts: wisdom, knowledge, healing, miraculous powers, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, speaking in tongues, interpreting tongues. (1 Corinthians 12:8-10)
The fruit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)
Who would not want wisdom and knowledge in the modern NHS? Who would not want the ability to distinguish between spirits? How desperately do we need peace and forbearance on a difficult day?
This has been helpfully summarised in the ‘6Ms’, popularised by the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity (LICC):4
- Model godly character
- Make good work
- Minister grace and love
- Mould culture
- Mouthpiece for truth and justice
- Messenger of the gospel
The 6Ms unpack the richness of the gospel in all its fulness. It is not just about saying ‘the prayer’. The 6Ms make sense for the modern healthcare workplace; we can do them, we are doing them! They act as the foundation for those more overt gospel conversations.
preparation – be intentional
Sabbath Rest: One of God’s ten commandments is to take a Sabbath day’s rest: ‘but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God, in it you shall not do any work’. (Deuteronomy 5:14) Take time to relax and recharge, spend time with God, and spend time with your family.
Prayer: Pray over your diary, pray over the difficult procedures you have to do, pray for your colleagues (Philippians 4:6-7).
Fellowship: Share and pray with a trusted friend, or even better, a Christian colleague who understands both the spiritual and the NHS. ‘As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.’ (Proverbs 27:17)
conclusion
God has called many of us to lead in healthcare. This is undoubtedly a challenge, but we do not face this alone. With God’s help we can transform those inappropriate and ineffective responses to the daily leadership challenge into a fruitful and fulfilling career, improving patient care, and empowering our teams and colleagues to thrive.
