71 - Season 6: Pitfalls of Leadership: Slipping Into the Pitfalls
The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at chip@chipdodd.com. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.
Leaders Have a Need for Help:
Everyone, believe it or not, is created to lead. Everyone who cares about something and is investing themselves in what they care about is leading.
Leaders find much fulfillment in serving others.
Whether it’s serving as a CEO or a parent, the most significant moments for leaders come when they are giving their gifts, abilities, passion, and creativity.
Leaders who pour out great energy doing what is fulfilling also need to refill.
*Leaders need to be able to receive restoration and replenishment so they can continue to serve well. They refill by being humble enough to know their limits, to recognize their needs, and to ask for help.
I have worked with leaders for more than thirty-five years. I have recognized five common pitfalls that block leaders from receiving the replenishment that is essential to lead well. These pitfalls can stymie a leader’s passion and purpose. As a result, the people the leader wishes to help ultimately do not receive what they need.
Pitfalls of Leadership
Life is full of struggle, and the struggle is not preventable. Samuel Beckett wrote, “You are on earth. There is no cure for that.” Life’s struggles are inevitable, but the Pitfalls of Leadership are preventable.
The Five Pitfalls:
Work becomes confused with one’s worth.
Performance begins to be valued more than one’s presence.
People become things.
To be an example to others, the true self is isolated.
Secrets sap one’s passion and purpose.
These pitfalls can destroy careers, friendships, reputations, marriages and families—unless one is freed from them.
Everyone always wonders, “What happened to them? How did this self-destruction happen?”
These episodes on the “Pitfalls” are about preventing those questions from being asked. Whether you are a parent, a pastor, a plumber, or a pulmonologist, these episodes are for you.
These episodes are also about what to do when you find yourself in the “Pitfalls” or when the consequences have already impacted your life.
Hope in spite of the Pitfalls: The beauty of life and the beauty of God in our lives gives us the hope of:
redemption
recovery
restoration
One of the thieves on a cross beside Jesus asked for mercy. Yes, it was the last moment, but the story of the reward of mercy and grace for his dying request has lived on and on for centuries.
The thief said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
(Luke 23:42-43 NIV)
Though shame overwhelmed the thief and guilt rightly accused him, Jesus honored his request.
A leader’s mission matters, but the mission doesn’t steal a person away from “What Matters” most.
“What Matters” Is:
You are genuinely present with all your heart when you are at home.
You have real friends who can cut your sorrow in half and double your joy.
You have a place of security where you can be truthful and confessional about your struggles and heartaches.
You have an attachment to God who knows your inner life.
You are living one day at a time towards the future.
“What Matters” Is Not:
You are feared and “secretly” dreaded.
Your friendships are actually just business transactions.
A place of secrecy where you create counterfeit relief from heartache.
A religion that is an additional obligation requiring you to perform.
Being stuck in preoccupation with the future that diminishes the accomplishments of the day.
“What matters” leads a leader to concentrate on what the prophet Micah calls us to do.
He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
(Micah 6:8 NIV)
*The only way “What Matters” can be a replenishing power is for the leader to be known “in heart” or from the “inside-out.”
Good things happen to people who are known. They are living a prevention program that allows them to avoid the “Pitfalls,” and they have a place to go when they get stuck in the “Pitfalls”.
If a leader does get stuck in the “Pitfalls,” he/she will need to use the “What Matters” list as a guide to recovery.
In the movie We Were Soldiers, (2002), Mel Gibson plays a colonel preparing the volunteers for battle in Vietnam.
In the “Speech scene,” he says:
“We are going to what home was always supposed to be.”
This line from the movie speaks to what a leader knows is worth fighting for, and that is the “home” of “what matters.” The leader’s mission must never supersede “what matters.” “What matters” is the passion and the purpose of the mission.
In Charge, but Not in Control:
A leader serves a calling or mission. This means that he/she has been assigned something. They have been given a charge to do something, which means they serve an authority.
The leader’s job is to risk achieving results because of their desire to serve the mission.
The leader is not in control of the results, but they are in charge of risking the attempts.
God is in control of the results. We are in charge of taking the risks.
Teddy Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena” speaks to what being in charge, but not in control means:
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
—Theodore Roosevelt
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910
Simon Sinek wrote The Infinite Game that also speaks to mission and leadership, in which he urges every leader to know their “What For?” as a way to maintain integrity and avoid diminished personal returns in leading.
A leader is ultimately more interested in what others will carry in their hearts because of their mission, more than they are invested in what they have in their bank accounts.
Dr. Chip Dodd
Voice of the Heart Center