What Does It Mean to Sustain Our Leaders?

Michael D Call

— 6 min read
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What Does It Mean to Sustain Our Leaders?

by Krista Call | People May Wonder

Every Sunday we raise our hands in sacrament meeting and sustain our leaders. Most of us do it without thinking much about it. But there's a lot more to the sustaining vote than just raising our hand. To sustain someone is to actively support, pray for, and uphold them. Sustaining involves lifting and supporting, praying for leaders, following counsel, accepting callings, defending and forgiving.

Coaching and the Reality of Connection

I've coached Girls Lacrosse for 12 years. It has been the privilege of a lifetime to meet and mentor many wonderful young women, to nurture their competitive drive and help them reach their highest potential. I can only hope I've made a small impression on a fraction of the girls I've coached.

The truth about coaching is this: there have been many athletes I've clicked with immediately, sharing a strong bond from the start. There have been others where that bond took long cultivation to create. And still others where I struggled to make any real connection at all. This is the reality of leadership. You will touch many with your spirit and your guidance, and you will fall short with others. There may be connections that will be hard-fought or simply never arrive.

What I've learned is that I can still treat every athlete with the same respect and honesty, regardless of whether I connect with them naturally. Just acknowledging that reality has made me a better coach and a better leader.

The Same Thing in the Church

I’ve experienced the same thing in the Church. Over the years, I’ve had bishops, stake presidents, mission leaders, and companions I connected with almost instantly. Others took much longer to cultivate, and a few I've genuinely struggled with.

What I've learned is that I can still sustain, still love, and still extend grace, even to those with whom I disagree. I can be a person with complex emotions and still have forgiveness in my heart for those who are serving. That doesn't look like blind loyalty. I can see a different perspective, even disagree with how something is administered, and still sustain.

I've had wonderful leaders who followed promptings when I was in desperate need, who inspired me to change and become more, who loved me the way I imagine He does. I've also had painful experiences with leaders, leaving me feeling unknown and disregarded. I have gratitude for those who guided me with love, and I give grace to those who fell short, knowing full well that I don't always get it right either. Just as some of my athletes probably had a great experience with me and some probably didn't, sometimes because of my shortcomings and sometimes simply due to circumstances outside anyone's control.

It's easy as members of the Church to watch from the sidelines and think: there's a better way to do this, or why aren't they doing more? It's easy to pass judgment when we're the ones sitting back instead of getting alongside and helping.

Assume the Best Intentions

I read a story in a sports coaching book that went something like this:

My first year coaching a new team, I inherited a kid named Marcus.

Marcus was good. Maybe the most talented player on the roster. And from day one, he questioned everything. Every drill I called, every play I drew up, every decision I made about lineup and minutes. Sometimes many questions.

This wore on me. I started reading it as defiance. I started feeling like this was a kid who didn't respect authority, who thought he knew more than his coach. I started pulling him aside less. I had a whole speech composed about how this team has one voice, and it isn't his.

About six weeks into the season, I finally sat him down, ready for a fight.

He looked at me across that desk and said, "Coach, I just want to learn everything you know. I want to be a coach just like you someday."

It dawned on me in that moment that the kid admired me. Every question he'd ever asked had come from a place to understand, to get better, to absorb whatever I had to give him. He wasn't pushing back. He was trying to learn. I had spent six weeks misreading the most invested player in my program.

The former CEO of PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi, credited her father with one of the most formative lessons of her leadership: assume positive intent.

"My father was an absolutely wonderful human being. Every day he reminded me to assume positive intent. Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different."

If we can simply assume that those in leadership positions around us are doing the best they can, our whole approach to that person changes. Negative feelings diffuse. We will think more clearly. We can give better feedback. We become more teachable.

One of our responsibilities as people who sustain is to forgive and even defend. The next time you feel the urge to criticize, even if it's valid, try assuming positive intent first and watch how your attitude shifts.

What It Means to Be Load-Bearing

The structural definition of sustain is to support, hold, or bear up. To bear the weight of something.

I picture a beam. A beam that sustains a roof doesn't have to agree with every one of the architect's design plans. It just has to hold. When we raise our hand to sustain a newly called leader, we aren't simply voting for them. We are agreeing to become load-bearing. We are agreeing to be part of the structure that holds them up.

There is a story in Exodus 17 that illustrates this. At the Battle of Rephidim, Israel is attacked by the Amalekites. Moses sends Joshua down to lead the fighting while he goes up on a hill with Aaron and Hur. As long as Moses holds his staff up, Israel prevails. When his arms tire and drop, the Amalekites gain the advantage.

"But Moses' hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun." — Exodus 17:12

Aaron and Hur "stayed up" their leader's hands when his arms tired and dropped. What a beautiful illustration of what it is to support and bear up those who are called to lead us.

Even the Savior, in His most critical hour, asked to be sustained by His disciples. While he suffered unimaginable pain that only he could carry he asked His disciples to just stay awake and be present with Him. To keep watch while he carried something they couldn't.

"My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me." — Matthew 26:38

And then the heartbreaking response when He returned to find His exhausted disciples asleep:

"What, could ye not watch with me one hour?" — Matthew 26:40

As His disciples on the covenant path, He is asking something of us as well. He's asking us to support and pray for our leaders. To accept difficult callings and help build up our wards and stakes. To assume the best intentions of those who serve imperfectly, and above all, to extend the same forgiveness and grace that He so freely gives to every one of us. We are all flawed. And yet, through His Atonement, He sustains us anyway. He's simply asking us to do the same for each other.

Can we not watch with Him one hour?

To those who are serving with me, and those who have been newly called as my leaders: I sustain you. I am with you. I know it costs you something to serve, and I am grateful you said yes. I don't expect perfection, and I give you my grace when it doesn't come. I will help hold your arms up when the weight feels too heavy. I won't always get it right. But this is what I'm reaching for. And to everyone reading this, I invite you to do the same for yours.

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