by Dr. Richard Blackaby
You know them. They show up in a variety of settings. They are often hard to miss.
Bill is always the life of the party (or so he thinks). Loud, often bursting into uproarious laughter, he loves to talk and crack jokes. In fact, he has a humorous comment to make about almost anything, even when such a comment is inappropriate.
Jill is passionate about her work. She is quick to help out her colleagues and often does thoughtful acts of kindness for people in the office. When she is “on,” she brings sunshine in the room as she enters. But when she is “down,” her colleagues tip toe around her as if they were skirting a minefield. When Jill is in a good frame of mind, she is a bundle of kindness, but at other times, something “snaps” in her, and everyone is left wondering if they inadvertently did something hurtful.
Jim is well-educated and endowed with a bumper crop of opinions, usually critical. His dry humor is often applied to people, projects, or trends he feels are deserving of his derision. The problem with Jim is that he tends to immediately see the negative of any proposal. While everyone else in the room may be excited about the possibilities, Jim feels obligated to point out the pitfalls. Jim has an uncanny way of raining on parades.
Becky has not had it easy. In fact, she has been unjustly fired from her last three jobs. This has wounded her and made her wary of people and management. After having been lied to and betrayed at her last three jobs, it is little wonder that she is guarded. She has also grown adept at recognizing the signs of danger to her position or job and is always prepared to retaliate if she needs to.
You have probably dealt with people similar to these at some point in your life. They are often enigmas. On one hand, these people can be charming and productive. However, at other times, they can generate significant tension and conflict. It is as if these people are cursed with a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide dual personality. It is not hard to identify some admirable qualities in these people, yet they seem to be consumed and derailed by the negative aspects of their character that always seems to rear it’s ugly head at the most inconvenient moments.
It is one thing for our character issues to interfere with our personal or social lives, but what about when it harms our work life and leadership roles? We can suffer years of frustration, conflict, and futility in our work because we never dealt with our personal issues. There simply is too much at stake to ignore or excuse behavior that inevitably leads to conflict or failure.
I have always liked (and identified with) the apostle Peter. He was a leader with issues! For one, he always needed to be at the center of the action. He was generally the first person to answer the Teacher’s questions. He was passionate for sure, but at times his zeal caused him to speak before he thought. He also had a competitive side. He tended to compare himself and his assignment with others. He was also overconfident. He boldly declared he would die for Jesus on the same evening he ultimately denied Him. Peter had to sort through his own personal issues before he was ready to be used mightily by God. Fortunately, Christ helped Peter face his character issues and the rest, as they say, is history.
The following are a few observations about leaders who struggle with unresolved personal issues:
- People generally don’t know themselves well.
- Our friends, family, and colleagues see our ugly side.
- Sometimes our results reflect our personality.
- Let Christ change you while there is still time!
1. People generally don’t know themselves well. It is amazing that in a society that is self-absorbed, people are often not self-aware. It is possible to spend a lot of time thinking about yourself without knowing truly yourself.
For example, I knew a pastor named Bill who worked extremely hard. If you asked him if he knew himself, he would exclaim, “Of course I do!” with a tone that made you feel foolish for even asking. He would describe himself as a hard worker who liked getting results. And that would be true. But what Bill failed to do was to go deeper and consider, why he was a hard worker. Truth was, Bill’s father was not a Christian. When Bill told his dad he was becoming a pastor, his father scoffed at him and told him he was wasting his life. After Bill became a pastor, he went home to visit his parents. While helping his father around the farm, his father teased his son and exclaimed that he wanted to avoid getting any “preacher sweat” on him because it might be toxic. Unconsciously, Bill sought to prove his father wrong. He might be a preacher, but he knew how to work hard. And he did. He also struggled to delegate, because that seemed like the lazy man’s way of avoiding doing work himself. Bill experienced great success, until the day he burned out. He grew so exhausted that he could not get off his couch for weeks. Bill didn’t know himself as well as he thought he did, and it almost cost him his career.
I know a businessman who became fabulously successful. He had the Midas touch. Yet, regardless of how much money he made, it was never enough. He made plenty of promises to his wife and children that he would slow down soon, but he never did. One day he made a discovery about himself. When he was a child, his parents fought every night about money. He and his siblings would go to bed or do homework in their bedrooms to avoid having to listen to the nightly arguments. As a boy, this man had vowed he would never have to worry, or fight, about money. He was on a relentless quest to keep earning money so he never became like his father. Only years later did he realize that, as a result of his boyhood vow, he had become just as obsessed with money as his father was. The only difference was that he was far more adept at earning it than his father had been.
I am not saying you must have a weekly session with your local psychotherapist to uncover all of your childhood angst. But I would encourage you to dig below the surface and take a good, hard, long look at your motives. What exactly is driving you? Is it really a love for Christ and His Church, or could some of it be an effort to prove your father was wrong about you? Is your anger really righteous zeal, or have you become filled with anger just like your father was? Do you really love the people you work with, or are you afraid of rejection?
I know this sounds eerily Freudian, but I have been around many church and business leaders and I have finally stopped being surprised at how many top leaders are still being crippled by issues from their past that they have never honestly faced.
2. Our friends, family, and colleagues see our ugly side. The truth is, our character leaks through. We may be blind to it, but others are not. It is extremely difficult to keep our mask on all the time. People who work close to us catch a glimpse now and then of what we are really like.
I have found, like a lot of other leaders, that our family is not as easily impressed with us as the general public is. I found that when I would have an extremely hectic travel schedule, people would thank me for “working them in” and speaking at their event. My wife, on the other hand, would ask me why I was unable to tell people “no.” When I would socialize with friends, I would tell people about where I had recently been and what I had done. On the way home my wife would reprimand me for doing more than my share of the talking and for failing to ask more questions about the lives of my friends.
As frustrating as this might be at times, I realize that my wife saw things in me that the public at large did not. I have an oldest child’s hyper responsibility syndrome. I carried the weight of my organization’s needs and I felt guilty if I did not say “yes” to every opportunity that came my way. I also took pride in how busy I was. After all, as public speaker, if you aren’t busy, you probably aren’t very good! So I enjoyed letting people know how many states or countries I had spoken in the previous week. My sense of self worth was unhealthily tied to how busy I was. My wife saw that. I needed to listen. I saw my importance and high demand. My wife saw my need to be needed, and busy. I needed to be freed from unhealthy drives in my life that were harming me, my organization, and those I loved.
3. Sometimes our results reflect our personality. Leaders can struggle to
see themselves and their motives clearly, but the results of their leadership are painfully obvious. I once met an exec who was outspoken and seemed a little “off” in his people skills. He was clearly a brilliant man with strong opinions on a wide array of subjects. Nonetheless, I was surprised at his lack of tact. On the last day I was to be with him, he confessed that his organization was facing some belt-tightening and he was going to be laid off. He assured me that he already had some other job opportunities and he was sure he would land on his feet.
I could have left it at that and wished him well. Maybe I should have. But I sensed this man needed to process what was happening to him. I asked, “What have you learned about yourself through this experience?” “I have learned to get a job with an organization that is not going through layoffs!” he retorted. I pressed: “So what changes do you need to make personally and professionally so you are not the first one laid off next time?” Ouch! But it was true. His company was not facing serious cutbacks. Few people were losing their jobs. But the company had determined that this man, though highly educated, and in middle management, was expendable.
This man could have gone through his career, explaining his rotten luck: he always seemed to eventually step on a landmine at work, the boss had it out for him, upper management chose to cut back in his department, his company chose to go in another direction, his boss didn’t keep his promises . . . Or, he could take a hard look in the mirror, and make some major adjustments so he was repositioned to succeed in the future.
4. Let Christ change you while there’s still time! I’ve already mentioned the apostle Peter. On the night he denied he knew Jesus three times, it seemed that Peter was destined to spend the remainder of his life as a failure: As someone with big aspirations who always fell short at crunch time. But God wasn’t finished with him. Jesus didn’t overlook his failure. He didn’t excuse it. He transformed it. We never hear of Peter denying his Lord again, despite plenty of opportunities to do so.
God doesn’t want to give you a pep talk. He wants to transform you. He doesn’t merely urge you to try harder. He makes you into a different person. But the key is: you have to surrender to God’s work in your life. You can’t argue or resist or complain when He begins to do a work in your life. You must surrender. But if you will, there are no character flaws, personality quirks, or sinful habits that He cannot free you from. It really depends on how much you want to change.
Conclusion
Every leader has issues they need to address in their life. No one is perfect. The difference is, some people are so desperate to change, they’ll do whatever it takes. Others are suffering the consequences of their imperfections, but they are not yet desperate enough to make the necessary adjustments. So they continue to languish with a life and career that is beneath what they are capable, and designed, to experience.
Take a long, hard, deep look at yourself. Are there indications you are suffering from issues in your life and character that are hindering you? Denying those issues exist, becoming defensive when someone mentions them, or hoping they’ll go away is a sure recipe for ongoing failure.
Let God address issues in your life that He longs to correct. Submit yourself to His divine hand, and advance into the life that awaits you!