74 - Pitfalls of Leadership: #3 People Become Things
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The 5 Pitfalls are descending steps. One step connects to another with predictable effects.
Some leaders have referred to the descent as a “chain reaction.”
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 finds freedom from them.
People Become Things
Leaders enter the world of doing good because they wish the pain of the world to be treated, bettered, or healed.
However, as the leader slips into the pitfalls:
the people that the leader wishes to serve become burdensome objects that have to be dealt with
the people that the leader works with become objects that have to be manipulated
his/her family members become burdensome objects of needs that have to be met
the leader who originally planned to benefit others reaches a significant crisis point
they must move into neediness as human beings or fade into despair as “human doings.”
The leader whose worth is trapped in work, and whose performance is valued more than their presence shows symptoms of people becoming things
They experience “feeling drained” of the passion or energy that had compelled them in the beginning.
Whether slowly or rapidly, the leader becomes restless, irritable, and discontent.
Indicators of restlessness and irritable can be overt or covert, but the symptoms are “known” to the leader, but not accurately taken responsibility for.
Compulsivity takes over for “being compelled.”
Blame, projection onto others, and denial are hallmarks of the impaired leader at Pitfall #3.
*The family is usually affected first and foremost, before the signs are noted by others who the leader influences.
In the name of loyalty the family members begin to take on feelings of “self-blame” and toxic shame that comes with the leader’s self-negligence.
Those people who work closely with the leader begin to operate in “self-blame” and toxic shame. They will often overcompensate by:
1. Rescuing the leader
2. Guessing what the leader wants and needs
3. Withholding the truth in the name of self-protection
4. Operating reactively in hypervigilance and often avoidance
5. Focusing on not being a bother and “not getting in trouble.”
This scenario devolves into a “fear-based, toxic culture.”
The tragedy is that the leader’s compelling passion begins to be controlled by anxiety-driven attempts to “get it all done, all the time,” and they cannot.
No one can get it all done all the time.
Work addiction is the drug that once “fed” the leader and is now harming/ “starving” the leader.
Jesus even rested, and the leader now is attempting to “out-perform” Jesus!
A person cannot give what they do not have.
If the leader does not admit their own feelings and needs about their limits and seek replenishment and restoration, things will become more painful for everyone.
When a leader does not stop to replenish daily, people will become things.
The leader sees himself/herself as having no “margin.”
Others will become someone who will be seen as a “problem to solve.”
The leader sees himself/herself as “used” more than valued.
They treat themselves as “human-doings;” therefore, every other human being becomes a “thing” the leader has to “do” something for, rather than a person to care about.
Trust that others’ care is doubted, and simply not believed.
Expectations of others “wanting my best” is seen as their attempts to control or manipulate the leader.
The leader begins to experience himself/herself as internally exhausted.
Tolerance for others is at a low.
Vulnerability of neediness has been discarded, yet the leader knows he/she is in need.
Fantasies of escape usually begin to form.
Listen to Living with Heart Podcast:
Chip discusses Codependency in Episodes #32 - Episode #44
The internal loneliness of the leader is not processed anywhere. Denial of very real neediness is entrenched. The leader is isolated from God-created humility that will allow them to ask for help. The leader has forgotten or never knew the simplest words that every child is born to speak: “I need help.”
In II Corinthians, Paul exhorts us through his own experience of humility, trust, and faith to need so that we can remain able to lead:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion
and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles,
so that we can comfort those in any trouble
with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ,
so also our comfort abounds in Christ.
II Corinthians 1:3-5 NIV
The Bucket
A leader, like every human being, has only a “bucket’s worth” of courage for the day. If we live the day, we will be “emptied” by the end of the day. We need to re-fill our buckets daily, so that we can continue to offer what we have been created to offer.
Stopping the Pitfalls starts with:
self-awareness 🡢 that leads to self-admission 🡢 can lead to the help leaders need
Leaders can intervene on the Pitfalls by seeking the help they need.
Leaders must return to being human This begins by needing that which they offer. No one is above being human; no one is above being in need.
Leaders must ask for help, so that they can be human beings who continue to offer the gifts they have to a world in need of their gifts!
You and I cannot give what we do not have.
We must not lose what we have been given.
We must come to our senses, which begins when we:
Feel the feelings God gave us.
Dare to name the needs God gave us.
Tell the truth to the right people about “where we are.”
And trust that there is a process that can heal us.
Helpful Resource by Dr. Chip Dodd:
Dr. Chip Dodd
Voice of the Heart Center