Serving Bread

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This week’s leadership insight comes from our political landscape. Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been jabbing back and forth on the importance of leadership experience when it comes to assuming the role of President.

Clinton released an ad asking the question of who you trust to deal with the unexpected conflict at 3am. Obama, for his part, responded with a similar ad touting not his experience but his judgment in that particular situation.

So which is more important, experience or judgment?

I’m not going to publicize my thoughts of which candidate has the upper-hand in this post, but to say that both experience and judgment are important in leadership. Both are values that require some sort of nurturing to assure that the leader is leading well.

Experience is not necessarily something we can speed up. It is something that comes with time. But experience does not necessarily mean good leadership. Someone can have twenty or thirty years of leadership experience, but still not have the judgment or even the skills to lead. Experience can only be stewarded by regular times of learning and reflection that makes sure that we are learning from our experiences.

Judgment is an important value in leadership that does not necessarily depend on experience or age. We can practice poor judgment, regardless of the kinds of experiences we have had in our lives. However, it seems that judgment is often authenticated by experience. In other words, though judgment is not dependent on experience, it is often enhanced by our experience.

I recognize that as I continue to grow as a minister and leader, I need to steward both judgment and experience. I need to continue to learn from my strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures. I need to learn how to practice judgment and to learn how to make better and better judgment calls.

Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, claims that if people are looking for both experience and judgment, then he is their man for the job. I suppose voters will decide whether his experience and judgment are right for this job.