Are You Climbing Ladders or Climbing Stairs? There IS a Difference…

Both ladder and stair are constructed to bridge a large vertical distance by dividing it into smaller vertical distances called, steps or rungs.

So, you might ask, where are you going with this?

We’ve heard the stories or maybe even been involved and seen first hand, people who have climbed the ladder in corporate, government and even church organizations.  Individuals who rise from one level to the next, moving and shaking and sometimes stepping on team members in order to place their foot on the rung of the ladder that will position themselves for the next vertical elevation.

These individuals are not really concerned about the team or productivity that isn’t linked to their own influence and efforts.  We say they climbed the ladder to the top.

Most of the time, these ladder-climbing peeps find themselves at the top, alone and empty handed.  It just didn’t payout like they believed it would.  Personal lives are in shambles, families broken, hearts wounded, professional careers have prestige without fulfillment, and personal conscience has morphed into hard, selfish images of the god they believe they have become.

You may have heard of an account where high profile individuals or leaders step away, sell out and walk from their pressure filled, empty life and buy land to establish gardens/nurseries or work at a local coffee house.  Why?  They came to the place that their DO didn’t produce or support what they wanted to BE.  They came to the realization that, what they had BEcome was far removed from what they wanted to BE.

The harsh reality of time, resource, and people that were wasted on the journey is a weight of regret that causes the soul to become bitter launching vain choices in an attempt to bring some kind of pleasure as a reward.

They climbed to the top, but couldn’t experience the life they longed for.

Climbing a ladder is different than climbing stairs…

Stairs and ladders both bridge a large vertical distance, yet stairs are engineered and built to support more than one person. Two or more can fill the entire stairwell.

Ladders are used to reach shelves, rooftops and tree branches; places that allow a task to be completed or a different perspective.

You can’t live on a shelf or rooftop.  The quality of life doesn’t lend itself to relationships or community of which we were designed and created for.

Stairs, however, lead to levels of living or working.  Each step has space to stand—supported and balanced with room to move.  There is place and space for others on the stairs.

In a home, they span obstacles from the family room to the bedroom—each facilitating different aspects and levels of intimacy in relationship.

In business, they lead from the lobby to the break room or the office of leadership.  Leaders use the perspective to meet clients’ needs and cast a vision for teams.  Relationships built in break rooms and supported on the stairs—working side by side, giving place and space for others, unit and work together for the cause and the people who enter the lobby.

Stairs support multiple lanes of commerce from level to level, each person traveling with others—greeting and celebrating the strengths and talents of those they meet in the oncoming traffic that transport goods of knowledge, skill and wisdom that build the vision and create a space for individual fulfillment.

Stairs can move a person from one level to the next.  Stairs make room for a person to lead and support another to a new place.

Ladders have rungs that are narrow and require the foot to be tightly gripped as the person shimmies to the top.  Ladders are unstable and often require someone else, left at the bottom, to support the ladder while the other climbs.

Ladders are about SELF.

Stairs are about OTHERS.

Ladders lead to limited, unlivable locations.

Stairs lead to different levels of living and working.

Ladders support ONE.

Stairs support MANY.

So, are you climbing ladders or are you climbing stairs?  There IS a difference.  Climbing isn’t bad.  It just depends how and what you use to climb.