73 - Pitfalls of Leadership: #2 Performance over Presence
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.
The Pitfalls are descending steps, one connects to the other with predictable effects.
Some leaders have referred to the descent as a “chain reaction.”
This descent can be stopped at any time, with an intervention from others who the leader listens and healthily responds to, or a cry out from the leader in descent who is heard and responded to by others.
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.
Pitfall #2: Performance Begins to be Valued More than One’s Presence:
When a leader’s primary personal value is associated with performance, they become someone they are not—"human doings.”
To be present means to be able to present the truth of our inner selves as human beings to others.
Presence is the ability to speak the feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hopes of one’s own heart.
People who are actively present can be “in need” and be led.
Performers develop contempt for their neediness. They also eventually develop secret contempt and fear towards the needs of others because they see others as the ones who demand that they perform.
The “ease” of being one’s true self is lost in the “dis-ease” or stress of believing that one is only valuable for their performance.
People who are performers can be driven by anxiety
A leader who believes that their performance matters more than their personal presence is actually driven by anxiety, more than they are compelled by inspiration or mission/calling.
These performers:
compete and compare, more than they are called and compelled
tragically believe that they are only measured by their last mistake, or the mistakes they haven’t made yet
have pride and arrogance, rooted in toxic shame, can drive the leader away from being in need
A leader is expected to be effective and productive
A leader is expected to perform and meet the needs of those they are on mission to help, which is good. However, every leader needs a place to go where they can honestly share their own needs, without toxic shame, and where others can do the same.
Leaders need peers and mentors with whom they can be deeply vulnerable and truthful about their struggles.
For a deeper understanding, listen to “Living with Heart” Podcast
Episode 6, “The Need for Security”
Episode 7, “Forming a Circle of Secure Relationships”
Security equals friendship
Leaders need others in their lives who can cut their sorrows in half and double their joys—which is a definition of true friends.
In order to be a good leader, we must need others well:
A leader has a mission that they are called to “complete,” but they are also limited in their abilities.
No one person has all the answers, so leaders need the help of others to fulfill the tasks of the mission; which means the leader must rely on others’ gifts and abilities.
By the very nature of genuine leadership, a leader “needs” to be good at asking for help.
Leaders must be good at the vulnerability of “needing” help. Not only is the leader good at assigning tasks, they have to be good at needing help.
The more “important” the mission, the more the leader needs to:
perform, and not forget their need of others
remain vulnerable to their limitations
have a circle of security to take their most vulnerable struggles, where they can need and meet the needs of others who are in the “same boat”
remember that they serve a cause; they are not the cause
remember that their fuel is remaining internally-compelled by the cause mattering to the ones they serve, more than having to live anxiety-driven by the external measurements of others
remain in healthy relationship with God, as a refuge and restoration relationship
remember daily to remain conscious of their need for help, and to remain open to the feedback of helpers
These seven factors apply to all leaders, whether leading as a parent or a president.
“Living With Heart” Podcast
Episode 2, “How We are Made: Introduction to Neediness”
When leaders do not attend to these seven needs (and of course there are more), they are at high risk for losing connection to the “love” of the mission:
Limitations are ignored that indicate “tiredness” or “exhaustion” that let a leader know that they are “running on empty.”
Phone calls, emails and texts become dreaded as demands and “shoulds” that leave the leader in chronic stress.
Resentment begins to take the place of desire.
Hidden self-pity takes the place of being able to talk about difficulties and losses.
The leader begins to lose connection to their “what for” and begins to depersonalize.
(Depersonalization means that a person sees himself or herself as a thing, more than a person, a
“human doing,” more than a human being.)Suppression of feelings leads to loss of motivation.
Depersonalization moves the leader to see everyone and everything as a problem—even family and friends, and the “once-loved” mission.
Once one’s work becomes confused with one’s worth (Pitfall #1), it is only a natural consequence that the second pitfall is triggered.
One’s performance begins to matter more than one’s humanity, or presence. To maintain worth, a leader has to perform to have value.
“Living With Heart” Podcast Episode 25, “The Ladder”
Instead of living who God called the leader to be and become, the leader begins “survival-living” for the “applause-approval” of the next moment.
The tragedy is that the “trophies” one receives will never be as valuable as the family and other relationships that are lost.
We all need a place “where the trees stand still.” This phrase is the title of a song by Bebo Norman, “Where the Trees Stand Still.” In its lyrics are expressed the desire of the human heart to live fully where our lives are most meaningful, and to fight to have that secure place out of which we perform our missions and callings.
The solution to the Pitfalls is about returning to how we are created as feeling creatures who are created to find full life in genuine relationships with our own hearts, the hearts of others, and the heart of God.
We must return to seeing who we are made to be, and then move into what we are made to do.
We must never leave behind our own feelings, needs, desires, longings, and hopes, as we live in the leadership callings or missions.
Dr. Chip Dodd
Voice of the Heart Center