Grant Stucki has been serving as bishop in the Denver area for the past two years. His Church service has been a patchwork of familiar roles—seminary teacher, elders quorum president, priest quorum advisor, and once, a young missionary in the thin air of La Paz, Bolivia. He and his wife are raising six children, and they find their peace in the outdoors—whether they are navigating a mountain bike trail or waiting for a bite on a deep-sea fishing line.
Enter Grant…
My role as an oral maxillofacial surgeon requires precision and a certain level of clinical distance. But leadership in the kingdom is different; it is messy, deeply personal, and often leaves you feeling exposed in ways a surgical mask never could.
I’ll be honest: leadership at this level can be surprisingly lonely. You are the keeper of secrets, the shoulder for a hundred different burdens, and the person who must often stand alone in difficult decisions. This loneliness isn’t a result of a lack of support—I have wonderful counselors and a devoted ward—but rather a byproduct of sacred confidentiality and the unique pressure of the calling. It’s a vulnerability that is hard to describe to those who haven’t felt it, and it’s this very feeling that led me to look so desperately toward bishops’ council as a potential lifeline, only to find myself initially disappointed.
The Struggle with the Status Quo
I deeply believe in councils. I have sat in ward council meetings where the Spirit was so thick it felt like a physical presence—where we stopped looking at programs and started looking at souls. But for a long time, my experience with bishops’ council was the opposite. I would drive to the stake center once a quarter, tired from a long day in the operating room, hoping for a spiritual recharge, only to find myself sitting through two and a half hours of administrative logistics. We talked about stake initiatives, upcoming calendar dates, and policy updates passed down from the area. By the time we reached “meaningful discussion,” the clock was ticking toward 9:30 PM, and our collective energy was spent.
When we did talk, the conversation often gravitated toward the “extreme cases.” We would spend forty-five minutes debating how to handle a theoretical concealed weapon in a chapel or a tragic, highly specific instance of mental illness. While these are critical issues, they are rare. I found myself sitting there, thinking about the three marriages in my ward that were currently collapsing, the youth who were quietly slipping away into doubt, and the dozens of members who were struggling just to feel a spark of faith. I felt a growing frustration that we were ignoring the common, heavy burdens we all carried in favor of solving “safe,” technical problems.
The Performance Trap
As I reflected on this, I realized there was a human element at play: the performance trap.
We are bishops. We are supposed to have answers. When we sit in a room with our peers and our stake presidency, there is an unspoken, often unconscious pressure to appear capable and “in control.” We don’t want to be the one to admit that our ward council is a mess or that we don’t know how to mentor our youth. So, we stay in the safe zone of administrative updates and hypothetical policy debates.
We perform leadership rather than collaborating in our weakness. This guardedness creates a barrier to the very wisdom we all need. We are like soldiers in the same trench who are too afraid to admit our rifles are jammed.
A Moment of Vulnerability
After months of internal wrestling, I reached a breaking point. I realized I could either continue to complain internally—which was poisoning my own spirit—or I could offer a vulnerable suggestion.
I asked for a few minutes with my stake president. I was genuinely worried about how my recommendation would be received. I didn’t want to seem like I was criticizing the way things were done and I felt very awkward coming from a place of trying to counsel my stake president. It definitely felt like I was overstepping my bounds to a degree.
I sat in his office and told him the truth: I was struggling with the meeting. I told him I felt lonely in the work and that I needed the wisdom of the other men in that room, but the current structure didn’t allow for it.
His reaction was a masterclass in Christlike leadership. He didn’t get defensive. He didn’t cite policy. He took a long breath, looked at me, and said,
“Grant, I hate those meetings too. I’m not sure how to improve them, and I would love to get any ideas you have.”
That moment of shared vulnerability changed everything. It transformed our relationship from a hierarchy into a brotherhood.
The Path Forward: A New Vision for the Council
Together, we discussed a solution centered on intentionality and peer-led learning. The idea is simple but transformative: for every meeting, one bishop is assigned to lead a thirty-to-forty-minute discussion session. This isn’t training; it’s a facilitated conversation around a single, common leadership challenge.
A week before the meeting, that bishop sends out one or two deep, reflective questions. He might include a short scripture, a quote from a recent conference, or—most importantly—a brief personal story of a time he failed or struggled with that specific topic.
By moving the focus to the common challenges—improving ministering, helping marriages, mentoring youth, or revitalizing ward council—we give bishops permission to bring their real, raw selves to the table.
When the assigned bishop starts by saying, “I’ve really struggled to help my youth leaders feel empowered,” it shatters the performance trap. It creates a “safe harbor” where others can say, “Me too. Here is what I’m trying.” This isn’t just about sharing “best practices”; it’s about building a culture of trust and shared growth.
Imagine a council where we arrive not to report, but to be sharpened. Where the collective wisdom of ten or twelve bishops—men with hundreds of combined years of life and leadership experience—is actually harnessed.
We would leave those meetings not just informed about the stake calendar, but spiritually renewed and equipped with practical, battle-tested ideas for the people we love and serve.
The Strength of Unity
It moves the needle from administrative oversight to true pastoral care. I believe that if we can unlock the wisdom in these rooms, we can change the culture of our stakes. We can turn these meetings into the most valuable leadership experiences in the Church.
Leadership is heavy, yes, but it doesn’t have to be lonely. When we let our guard down and truly counsel together, we find that the Lord is not just in the details of the programs, but in the strength of our unity.
