Sherpa Leadership Podcast
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Sherpa Leadership Podcast
Episode 5 Part 1 - The Reluctant Leader: Finding Your Path Through Others' Encouragement
Leadership seldom begins with confidence and clarity. For Dan Shields, lead pastor at Valley Real Life, it started with resistance. "I was what's called the reluctant leader," he shares, describing how leadership opportunities kept finding him despite his protests. This compelling conversation explores how sometimes our strongest resistances point toward our deepest callings.
Dan's journey began unexpectedly in kindergarten when he organized a kickball game, prompting his teacher to identify leadership qualities he couldn't yet see in himself. Though raised by a pastor father who modeled servant leadership by prioritizing Jesus first, family second, and ministry third, Dan initially declared, "I'm never going to be a pastor." Yet the pattern continued—opportunities to lead kept emerging, and others consistently saw potential in him that he resisted acknowledging.
The transformative moment came when 18-year-old Dan, "a white kid from the suburbs of Seattle," found himself leading a youth ministry in East Los Angeles with zero training. This baptism-by-fire experience forced him to become intensely teachable, drawing wisdom from professors, pastors, and books while gathering fellow college students to serve underprivileged Hispanic youth. Through this experience, Dan discovered how vision creates community when it helps people see that "their life has deep meaning and purpose that can create a ripple effect for generations."
Perhaps Dan's most practical insight is his observation that "what you celebrate, people emulate." By consistently highlighting wins aligned with vision—like weekly baptism celebrations—organizations help everyone understand what success looks like. This intentional repetition isn't boring; it's the foundation of organizational clarity. While methods should adapt to changing contexts, the core message must remain consistent.
Dan emphasizes that authentic leadership requires genuine belief: "If you don't really buy into the vision, it's not in here, it's not who you are, then you're going to find not too long down the line that why is it that I don't have other followers?" His story offers hope to reluctant leaders everywhere—sometimes the path we resist most leads to our greatest purpose.
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I was what's called the reluctant leader. Okay, Because as the pastor's kid, especially if you're in a smaller church, there is a microscope on you and they think well, because you're the pastor's kid, you need to lead. And I didn't want to lead and yet I kept being pulled into opportunities to lead. And so if you've got guys that are reluctant in leadership or don't feel like they should or could lead, it's interesting the empowerment of other people who begin to speak truth into your life, even at a young age, to say I see in you either what you may not see in yourself or what you don't want to experience in yourself.
Speaker 2:You're listening to the Sherpa Leadership Podcast, your guide to climbing higher in life and leadership. I'm Reid Moore and, alongside Chase Williams, we're here to help you break through obstacles, scale your potential and lead with greater clarity and purpose. Leaders, welcome to the sherpa leadership podcast. I'm your host, reed moore, along with my buddy, chase williams, and we have an exciting guest for you today. As always, we love for you to like, subscribe and share this post with another leader to help them climb higher in life and leadership. As always, you can go to sherpa consulting groupcom for all the goodies and you get to our podcast that way as well. So, chase, what do we got going?
Speaker 3:today. Well, we have a very special guest for everyone today, and this is actually someone that you and I have been lucky enough to be led by here at our local church Valley, real Life and so Dan Shields, lead pastor. So, dan, tell us a little bit about kind of your journey into leadership, whether that was pre being a pastor, that was the starting point of it. Give us a little background into how you became a leader, the backstory, the backstory.
Speaker 1:Well, I think my first experience of leadership probably happened when I was in kindergarten. Of all places, when they divide up on recess, you know who's supposed to do what. Nobody was doing anything and we're supposed to play a little kickball, and so I just stepped forward and said all right, here's what we're going to do. And it was only then that the teacher pulled me aside and said hey, danny, we think that you're supposed to be a leader. And I was like well, why? Well, because you did this. And I was like I'm a five years old, you know, at the time, and so I distinctly remember that.
Speaker 1:I remember also dad modeling. My dad was a pastor as well, and he modeled what it meant to be a servant leader. What does it look like to serve your family and to serve your kids? People ask me and I don't know about you guys, but in my industry, in my area, boundaries are always an issue, and so people are always asking hey, pastor, we need help, can you meet with us? Can you come?
Speaker 1:It's nine o'clock at night, it's on a Saturday, it's a Sunday afternoon and, unfortunately, you can sacrifice your family, and what my dad modeled for us is that Jesus was going to be first, the family was going to be second and the church and the work was third, and that kind of servant leadership in the home actually encouraged me to follow in his footsteps. So he modeled by how he lived and how he prioritized me. That made me want to say I actually want to do that with my life. That's a big deal. So that you know, that's just a couple of little things that kind of come to mind in terms of just leadership lesson stuff.
Speaker 3:So it started with a kickball.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 3:Right, learned a lot from your dad, that's right. Right, like, tell us about kind of those early years of becoming a leader inside of the church, like how what did that look like from a training perspective and from additional lessons in the, you know, on top of what you got from your dad?
Speaker 1:Well, if I'm going to be honest, I was what's called the reluctant leader. Okay, because as the pastor's kid especially if you're in a smaller church, there is a microscope on you and they think well, because you're the pastor's kid, you need to lead. And I didn't want to lead. And yet I kept being pulled into opportunities to lead. So, whether I'm in middle school or high school, the youth pastor saying, hey, danny, can you actually step up and lead this? And I would say I really don't want to. He's like I really think you should. And so I would continually reluctantly step into these opportunities.
Speaker 1:And so if you got guys that are reluctant in leadership or don't feel like they should or could lead, it's interesting the empowerment of other people who begin to speak truth into your life, even at a young age, to say I see in you either what you may not see in yourself or what you don't want to experience in yourself. I told my dad when I was 15 or 16, I'm never going to be a pastor. I don't ever want to do what you do. I just never want to do it.
Speaker 1:And what God was doing in my life was that he was kind of nudging me through reluctance, that sometimes the very thing we're most against gives us an indication of maybe a direction we're supposed to follow, and I believe that's not just in Christian faith, I think that's in all walks of life.
Speaker 1:You can see it with your kids, you can see it with your coworkers, you can see it with your neighbors. That sometimes, when you see an emotional response to something, that's an indicator for me in my own life that there's a leadership lesson or there's something that I should learn, grow in or press into into somebody else's life or into my own, that there's something there that's greater than what's being perceived. And so I found myself more reluctantly being pushed in these things than finally embracing them. You know, on things like sports, you know, being captains of different teams or going on a mission trip, you know, and serving in different places Till finally I just surrendered to this. All right, I guess I'm supposed to be a leader. And now what does it mean? How can I embrace that? And then going into college as an 18 year old just saying I'm going to embrace this path, I'm going to embrace this direction, that I feel like that I'm supposed to go on?
Speaker 2:Man, that's amazing. So one of the things I love about that is a few episodes ago we talked about kind of not intending or not wanting to be a hollow leader, right. So that's like self-leadership, leading in the family and all of that, and there's consequences if you don't do that Right. And then there's, of course, a lot of value that's provided when you do like operate that way. That's right. So at your early age, with your dad modeling that for you, did he continue to model that for you, and was that something that you continued to see around you as you grew in your leadership?
Speaker 1:Yeah, as I got into college, my dad became more the resource reference leader than the. Listen to me. I'm going to tell you I'm going to model and do what I do. So he knew, based on my wiring and personality, that if he continued to remain more the domineering or the I'm going to encourage you to head in this direction, he would have lost me in terms of the influence in my life. I needed more the dad and the support and the question asker than I needed somebody to dictate or direct my life. So then it became more professors in college. It became other pastors. It became books I was reading. It became other people I was just learning from and I just began to unknowingly just starting to pull different pieces of them because I was thrust into a leadership position that I had no business being involved in. So when I was 18 years old, I was asked to be a youth pastor, with zero training and experience, in East Los Angeles. And here I am, a white kid from the suburbs of Seattle, that my cross-cultural experience was our. A third of our church was Filipino. So I actually got a C in Spanish 101. I nothing to do with it, and yet I've been given this opportunity and I could just sense that God wanted me to lead in East Los Angeles.
Speaker 1:While going to school in Fullerton and driving 30 minutes out and you're saying here's the keys go do it.
Speaker 1:Sometimes the best leadership is you got to be thrown into the deep end of the pool and that's my personality, like throw me in a situation where I can't depend on me. I actually have to learn from others and I'm going to be the most coachable. I'm going to be listening, I'm going to be reading, I'm going to be just soaking it all in because I'm in a leadership position. And because I'm in a leadership position, I have to learn. And so then I put myself into other classes upper level classes, even in college, to try to learn from other people who were much further along than I was, and gathering a bunch of other college students with me who thought we could go change the world and be like hey, let's go do this together. So I got 15 or 16 of 18 and 19 year olds to drive out 30 minutes every single week on a Wednesday and then again on a Sunday to work with underprivileged Hispanic kids in East Los Angeles.
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 1:It was crazy, but it was one of the awesomest thing you know that I've probably experienced in my life, because I knew we were supposed to do this, didn't know what I was supposed to do and had my leadership lead just went like just crazy. Yeah, because I was just given the opportunity, and I think sometimes that's what we miss is we're not giving people opportunities to jump into those kinds of situations and experience failure, but have people come alongside and say you got this, I believe in you, and so, from professors to different pastors, to different people, they were instrumental for me.
Speaker 3:I love it. So you talk about like you talk about this opportunity to lead right and changing the world right, like my hallucination is that someone had some vision around why that was important and who it could impact, and you mentioned attracting other college students into working in this community. What was it about that vision? What was it about that goal you might even call it or that was so attractive to others, and how did you experience starting to use this idea of vision to move people in one direction?
Speaker 1:That's interesting. You're going to make me think you know and go back. What was it back then? I think the greatest impact for people when it comes to vision is helping them to see that their life has deep meaning and purpose that can create a ripple effect for generations or lives to come. So when I'm an 18-year-old and working with other college students, the vision pitch was hey guys, I've never done this before, you've never done this before, but what could be, and imagine if and can you consider that your life, although you're in college to be a elementary teacher, psychology teacher, you're going to go into the business world?
Speaker 1:I mean, all those different types of people went to our college it wasn't just those in ministry and all these people to say those are all great things. But there's a unique season and opportunity we have right now with working with some kids who don't have great home lives Most of you came from good ones who don't have some education experience which you have and are in need, and you have the time, opportunity and availability to just give this much. But it can make this much in the life of a student, in the life of somebody who's only two or three years younger than you are and for some reason they wanted to be a part of that and I think the greater the people who stayed on the longest was. They wanted to be a part of us doing something together. The idea of me going out by myself, not interested, but the idea of here's five, six, seven, now 10, now 15, we're going to get to go out and do this together and the stories we're going to be able to share together and the journey we're going to go on together. I think people are drawn to that and I didn't know that that was vision.
Speaker 1:I just saw the opportunity, I think, for me, just because my faith is so important to me. That's what I felt Jesus was doing. From a book standpoint, it was right about the time. Uh, the resource, the purpose-driven life was coming out by Rick Warren and the first three words of that purpose-driven, which is an you could say it's a vision driven as well, but purpose-driven is it's not about you, and I can't tell you how many people I've run into who've read that book and just said, huh, this whole world it's not about you. And when you make it about others and you invite others on the team and make it about others, it indirectly, does become about you because of the impact that is happening in your life, as you're impacting other people together as a team, and that's what I saw happen with these crazy 18 to 22 year olds. You know for those five years that we were doing it together.
Speaker 2:I love it. So, so, obviously the conversation today is around this idea of seeing in shape in the future, and the shorthand for that is vision. There's a few things, just observing your leadership, that I've just I have just encouraged me and helped me in my leadership. Number one is I've been able to see that teachability and coachability. When we first started coming to the church, just hearing you speak and watching you lead, I'm like I could see like, oh, these are the books that he's reading and he's being intentional and those things over there that aren't total chaos. That's hard to do. That's intentional leadership, right? Because people are?
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially volunteers. You know employees. You got a little bit of a dangle, you know, of a check behind it, but yeah, volunteers are tough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so just watching that it was so helpful and so like safe for me, I guess might be the way of saying under your leadership. The other one was I want to dig into this is vision. There's a level of requirement around vision that I'm not very good at and that is vision requires not going off of vision or not diverting or not seeing shiny things or getting uh, diluted in in focus, which means saying no, a lot yes. And the third one is the fact that that, um, that like let's go here together that that vision piece has been amazing. So I guess those last two like how do you keep it on the rails.
Speaker 1:How do you keep vision on the rails? How do you keep vision on the rails and how do you continue to inspire vision even when it's hard? It has to be received and then owned and then lived. If I can receive what the vision is, if I can see it, if I can understand it, then if I can own it, then you've got someone who's on the team with you and then they begin to live it. And so for us, we said all right, here's the vision, which is a preferred picture of the future, which is reaching the world for Jesus, one person at a time. That has never changed. I didn't even come up with it.
Speaker 1:I inherited that and I'm like okay, I can, I can carry that because that can be language for me. And so, as we reach and disciple people, we're like here's a process, and then we try to help people understand. Here's your part to play in the process of accomplishing the vision. And the one thing that is so undersold when it comes to how do you keep, when you say, how do you keep that at the forefront what you celebrate, people emulate. So what you celebrate, people aspire to. So what you're celebrating, people are saying that is success. That is what I'm shooting for.
Speaker 1:There's a reason you go to a football or sporting event and everybody cheers at the same time. How do they know? Because when they first walked in as a little kid who didn't know what the heck was going on, when somebody put a ball in the hoop and people cheered, that kid all of a sudden says oh, that's success, that's what we're supposed to do. Hey, our team won, that's success. Well's what we're supposed to do. Hey, our team won, that's success. Well, how do I know I'm winning? How do I know I'm on the right path? How do I know? Well, what you're celebrating, people emulate, they copy, and so for us. We're saying how do we make sure that we celebrate the preferred picture of the future as we're going towards that future. So in our church, if we're here to reach the world for Jesus, one person at a time, you'll notice and you guys have experienced.
Speaker 1:There's a reason why we celebrate baptisms every single week, right, and then all of a sudden, people are clapping in service and they don't even know why. They come into our church and, like everybody else, is clapping. Why are we clapping? Because this person got baptized. Well, why is that important? And, as they're part of it, they're already experiencing what we value as one measure of success and they don't even realize it.
Speaker 1:So when we highlight, when we emphasize so you guys have been a part is every week we're trying to find a celebration story, a win story that our congregation, our people and our leaders every time I send out an email, an update of what's going on with it always is where we're going and celebrating the process that we've got to so far and we celebrate people like yes, and they're invigorated again and they're excited again and then they realize and here and then I've got to be clear here's how you played a part in helping that happen. You played a part because you prayed for the person you played a part. Because you gave you played a part. Because you prayed for the person you prayed a part.
Speaker 1:Because you gave you pray a part, because you invited you pray to play it apart, because and all of a sudden, I'm sitting there going oh, I'm a part, I made a difference in the life of somebody else, and because I made a difference, I'm part of what God's doing around here. And so the more you celebrate those things that you say are accomplishing a vision, the more people latch onto that and all of a sudden they're like oh, I've heard it, I now own it and now I begin to live it. Yeah, because you continue to repeat it differently and differently, in different ways, on a regular basis so repetition requires there's.
Speaker 2:There's this big thing in there that that I want to know like were you born this way or did you learn this? Repetition requires consistency, and consistency is not accidental, might be a way of saying that.
Speaker 1:Intentional, it has to be super intentional, in fact, almost boring, and I think I just learned it I don't know which book or which podcast, but it just resonated to say, yeah, the organizations, because I was studying business and other guys like you, guys that are doing incredible things. You know they're out there and like who are the winning organizations? And you look at some of the larger, you know like the Chick-fil-A's of the world, and you're just like, well, what makes them? They're boring, they're not changing. I mean, wow, look at, they added barbecue sauce this month.
Speaker 1:You know, and it's like this is amazing, you know, but that's not the driver of success when it comes to their employees, that's not the driver of success when it comes to their owners of the corporations and for the loyal customers that continue to come in. They're boring, but they're really, really consistent. And in the consistency they rebrand and reframe and redo, but they continue to celebrate and continue to push on the vision through specific, different steps. That doesn't deviate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so interesting because in the entrepreneurial space the idea of vision is sexy, it's neat, it's fun. The idea of boring and repetition doesn't seem like it's actually the underwriting factor, right, but it absolutely is.
Speaker 3:Well, that's what I want the listeners to hear is a lot of the pieces that you're sharing have actually been systematized into the DNA and how you run the organization the church in this case. Right, it's like, oh, we tell a success story, we celebrate baptisms every week, right? And so it's not systematizing vision in a sterile way, it's systematizing in a consistent way so that it never starts to drift, it never starts to leak. People never wonder why does this matter? Why does that matter and that's what I really want some of our listeners to hear is like you can make it new and exciting, maybe on how you say it, but you can also structure a lot of it to make sure that you're not drifting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think one of the things. But the method should change on a regular basis. So, when it comes to vision, your message should never change. This is who you are, this is where you're going Now, how you present it, when you present it, where you present it, that should change all the time, in fact. If it doesn't, you turn something that's consistent into boring and stale. And when you reach that level, then you see organizations, you see churches, you see, all of a sudden it just begins to fall because all we've just been saying the same thing over and over. You have to continue to do it just a little, not not do it differently, but you have to present it, you know, slightly differently.
Speaker 1:New times, new ages, new technology, new generation, you know that continues to come up. In fact, one of the things that always hit me, I think, probably when I was younger, I had a pastor that told me one time. He said you know, it's not your job to come up with vision. I was like what are you talking about? He goes it's your job to read and understand culture and then understand what vision should be played out. And I was like what do you mean? So in our context, it's not my job to come up with vision. It's my job to recognize if I'm a new entrepreneur and say the reason the apples and the uh, the different churches out there and the Sonys and the different things that you know got started is that they just didn't say we're just going to do what everybody's always done. They recognize what's going on. Then they come up with vision.
Speaker 1:Too many guys today, in the church world, the business world, they try to retread what has already been Now, some of the systems and processes that they should use. But it's a different generation, it's a different area, it's a. You know, can you contextualize and understand? When I come to Spokane, it may be a little different than Los Angeles, for sure, yeah. And then what's my vision? And then how do I accomplish that vision?
Speaker 2:for when it comes to this field or this industry, at this time it's so interesting to me because I would consider you a visionary, whatever that means, right, it's hard to quantify. But even in saying that you said that I received a vision and I think you know there's. There can be this like identity crisis, at least in the entrepreneurial world of like, yeah, I love having a personal mission statement and I care about that. I think it's worth crafting. But there's this emphasis on almost like I have to. You know, I'm lost until I can actually have my own little thing Right, my own little thing Right.
Speaker 1:So how did you come in with, with you know, like I want to how do you make peace with taking something that's been passed to you and propagating it the way you've done? Yeah, so it's that again, can I receive it? And I think sometimes we make a mistake is that we jump into a business or an organization or as an entrepreneur and we say we received it, but we've not, so we can't. You cannot authentically, because authenticity is such a key core ingredient to vision being actually established and communicated and celebrated. If you don't really buy into the vision it's not in here, it's not who you are Then you're going to find not too long down the line that why is it that I don't have other followers? Why is it that I can't get a company going? Because you don't believe in the vision. You think because I just adopted this, so it has to.
Speaker 1:If you're going to adopt, like I did, I had to resonate with my soul, and for resonates in my soul, resonates with my mind, then I can get around and then I can put the how to's you know behind it. If I'm going to adopt something, otherwise I would have to create, you know something new, cause I couldn't adopt. If you create, if you said hey, dan, you're going to take over this church and I want you to do this. We're going to reach small kids and we're going to focus on two-year-olds. That that's the wave of the future.
Speaker 1:Two-year-olds are going to become and I'm like that's not me, that's not me, that's great, that's you and God gave that to you, but that's not me. So I've got to be able to receive it, because I can't receive it, I can't own it. If I can't own it, I can't live it. And then I can't lead it and I can't share it if it's not part of who I am. And so, just like speed of the leader, speed going to lead an organization, if you're going to lead a business, you better darn well be the one who believes in whatever it is that you're selling.
Speaker 1:I've come across too many people, in whatever industry and you guys have too that they are saying all the right words, and authenticity is such a high value in our culture today that you can smell it in an instant and go. This person does not believe. I've actually, every once in a while I know this is contextualized in my environment Um, sometimes our worship leader, uh, they'll sing, you know a song and they'll get off the stage and I'm like I didn't believe you. Yeah, I was like, yes, you played it. Well, I said it sounded fantastic. I was like, but I don't believe you believe those words. Yeah, and I was like either your mind and heart are not engaged or you don't believe it, which is far worse than my area, and I'm going to, I'm going to trust you're just, you're not, you're not connecting today, but let's, let's try to make sure we believe in what we're saying, or not say it or not, live it and lead others to it as well.
Speaker 3:Thanks for listening to this episode of the Sherpa Leadership Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode with Dan Shields, you're in luck, because there's a part two and we hope you'll listen. Don't forget to like, subscribe or share the podcast with a fellow leader. For more resources, you can go to sherpaconsultinggroupcom and remember every step you take. Matters, so keep climbing higher. Take care everybody.