I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I work at Brigham Young University (BYU), the flagship university of the Church’s system of higher education. For the first 32 years of my career as a professional librarian, I worked in places (a bookseller and then three different state universities) where religion was not part of the culture. BYU is very different; as a higher-ed institution it has an explicitly and unapologetically religious mission, and that means that our beliefs and the principles taught by our church are deeply integrated into the work that we do here every day. Our goal is not just to help students become more educated, but also to help them become better and more deeply dedicated Christian disciples and keepers of covenants with God. In fact, that’s our primary mission; higher education is the means whereby we carry it out.

What this means, among other things, is that it’s quite common in my library for us to talk about the work we do in explicitly religious terms, and this can be particularly the case when we’re dealing with personnel issues.

I’m going to go out on a limb a bit here, and offer to what I assume is a predominantly secular readership a lesson in personnel management based on a parable of Jesus. It’s one that many might recognize, drawn from the book of Matthew, chapter 18, verses 11-14 (here I’m using the King James Version of the Bible):

For the Son of man [i.e., Jesus] is come to save that which was lost.

How think ye? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?

And if it so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoicenth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray.

Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.

Without getting drawn into the practical implications of leaving the “ninety and nine” behind in order to go in search of one lost sheep — this is a passage of scripture that generates a lot of discussion along those lines — what I want to focus on here is the leader’s orientation towards a “lost sheep.”

What might a “lost sheep” look like in the context of an academic library? It might be someone who:

• … is struggling to meet the requirements of tenure.
• … has tried to get tenure, and failed, and is now on a terminal contract.
• … has gotten crosswise with university administration and is now in their crosshairs.
• … has offended a student (or a large group of students) and is now being targeted on social media.
• … drives everyone in the library crazy and has no friends.
• … has cancer and a grim prognosis.
• … has just lost a child or spouse.

If you’re a manager or an administrator, it can be very tempting to steer clear of employees in these (and similar) situations. If they’re in trouble with the university, you might not want to be seen as their ally; if they’re on a terminal contract, you might avoid them because you don’t know what to say; if they’re obnoxious, you might steer clear of them because they’re, you know, obnoxious.

All of these are 100% understandable postures for a leader to take. They’re also the opposite of what you should be doing. Part of doing a leader’s work is pushing past the very understandable impulse to let that “lost sheep” wander off into the wilderness (where it will conveniently leave you alone to get your work done), and instead embrace the imperative of finding that lost sheep and, if possible, bringing him or her back to the fold.

Of course, bringing him or her back to the fold won’t always be possible, because library employees are agents who make choices, and also because sometimes they’re lost due circumstances beyond both their control and yours. That librarian with the terminal contract will be gone at the end of the contract regardless of whether you reach out to him; the obnoxious employee will probably not magically gain a new personality and the love of her colleagues just because you’re kind to her. You can’t cure your employee’s cancer.

But being an effective leader is not only a matter of bringing about desired organizational and HR goals. It’s also a matter of showing genuine love and care for your people, and creating an environment in which that love and care are pervasive. Doing that successfully won’t mean that everyone is always happy; it certainly won’t (and can’t) mean that everyone will always get what they want. But it will mean that your people will know that you care about them, even when you’re saying “no,” and even when you’re enacting policies they don’t like, and even when you’re holding them accountable.

Does that sound idealistic and sappy and naïve? Maybe it does. That’s okay. I’m convinced it’s a true principle anyway.

Now, I want to make one thing very, very clear: I offer this particular post very much in the spirit of “do as I say, not as I do.” I want to be very up-front about the fact that I am not good at the principle I’m promoting here. Not only am I a shy and introverted person by nature for whom normal social interaction is tiring, I’m also just as averse as anyone else to potentially awkward and difficult interactions with the people I’ve been hired to lead. I don’t necessarily know what to say to the person on a terminal contract, or with a terminal diagnosis. I don’t want to extend myself to the people in my organization who drive me (and sometimes everyone else) crazy — I count it a good day if I go home without seeing those people.

I’m also an unusually impatient person, and decades of leadership experience have done little to change that, or to make me more likely to extend myself to those who are struggling when I know that doing so will be difficult.

But I know that I need to do better. I’ve learned this from both the good and the bad leaders with whom I’ve been privileged to work over the years — I’ve seen how powerful it can be when a leader extends a hand to someone in the organization who is struggling, even if it’s just a hand of empathy and kindness, and I’ve also seen how powerfully negative it can be when a leader writes someone off and treats her as unworthy of the leader’s time and attention.

So by writing this today I’m publicly calling myself to account to do better in this regard. I owe it to my organization, and I also believe that, as a covenant disciple of Christ, I owe it to my Savior. But you don’t have to believe as I do, or believe in anything at all, to try this principle out and see it work.