Tag Archives: temptation

If everyone is insecure, what can we do about it?

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This post continues from my previous post, The root of insecurity.

What’s the solution to the prevalence of leaders operating out of insecurity? Spotting it in the leader of a country or company is no better than being an armchair warrior; we can’t do anything about it, and may not be in a position to raise our concerns in a constructive manner. So in this post, we’ll focus on what we have control over. We’ll look first at our own leadership and then discuss how to help develop those we supervise or influence.

Leading ourselves

Chip Ingram says the solution to insecurity is unmasking. In other words, being honest and bringing doubts, anxieties and weaknesses into the light. The starting point is to be honest with ourselves about what’s driving our behavior or reactions. Leading oneself is the first job of leadership, so reflect on the following questions: 

  • Which of the behaviors in my last post are you most tempted toward?
  • The last time you exhibited one of those symptoms, why do you think you responded the way you did?
  • When is the last time you overreacted to something? What triggered that response? 

To lead yourself, it’s important to understand your weaknesses, your tendencies toward sin and temptation, and the dark sides of your strengths.* 

Second, you need to be honest with God. As much as we might fault Moses for his excuses and finally begging God to send someone else, that honesty was a great starting point. Not for God, who already knows it. If he’s called us to something, it’s with full knowledge of the complete package of the one he has called. 

Acknowledgement of our insecurities keeps us in a strong dependent posture. When Moses says it out loud, it’s an important baseline in his relationship with God. Realizing he knows the worst about us invites new levels of unpretentious intimacy. It then leads to a greater appreciation of our position as children of God, loved and accepted without having to earn that status. 

My mentor Sunder Krishnan once said in teaching about Isaiah 24,

To be loved by someone who doesn’t know our dark side isn’t much consolation. “If only they knew what I am really like” plagues us. Conversely, to be known for who we really are, and hence not loved, confirms our worst fears about ourselves, that we are intrinsically unlovable. BUT, to be truly known for who we are and still to be loved is an unbelievably valuable gift. It is this gift that God wants to give us when He, through Isaiah, calls us to in-depth exploration of our sin in all of its ugliness so we can hate it as we should and confess it.

That understanding of being “beloved” is a game changer in how vulnerable we can be with others. I’m still learning. Internalizing that truth was one of my focuses over the past year.

Leading others

Now you need to model vulnerability based on the work you’ve done in private. As Patrick Lencioni says in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, trust within a team is established through uncomfortable honesty, and a team cannot achieve vulnerability-based trust unless the leader goes first. Others will feel safe to be vulnerable if the leader is willing to risk losing face. So, rather than covering up, join Chip Ingram in refusing to play the game. Let your team know when you’re feeling insecure, or let them see the real you when you would normally put on a mask.

This is the primary focus of one of my favorite leadership books, Leading With a Limp. Dan Allender says,

Why do most leaders live in fear that they will one day be discovered and known, exposed and humiliated? They know they’re a mess, but they hope against hope that no one else will notice (56)…. The more honest I name what is true about myself, the less I need to hide and defend and posture and pretend (152).

There are a number of benefits, including these:

  1. Disrupting the downward spiral of hiding. “This is the strange paradox of leading: to the degree you attempt to hide or dissemble your weaknesses, the more you will need to control those you lead, the more insecure you will become, and the more rigidity you will impose” (3).
  2. Preaching grace through leadership. When leaders make their weakness clear, “it is through their weakness that grace comes to be magnified. Weakness is the big idea of the gospel” (54).
  3. Challenging others to honesty. “Why admit your failures publicly? First, doing so invites others—by the Spirit’s prompting—to look more honestly at their own need for forgiveness, freedom, and courage” (p173).

However, Allender warns that vulnerability is a big risk for a leader. “To admit we are foolish, weak, and in need of repentance gives the vindictive and self-righteous camp plenty of ammunition to turn against us and to turn others against our leadership” (160). It turns the common model of leadership on its head.

Here is God’s leadership model: he chooses fools to live foolishly in order to reveal the economy of heaven, which reverses and inverts the wisdom of this world. He calls us to brokenness, not performance; to relationships, not commotion; to grace, not success. It is no wonder that this kind of leadership is neither spoken of nor admired in our business schools or even our seminaries (p55).

So, count the cost, tread carefully, and proceed with courage! 

Second, it’s important to recognize the tendencies, biases and motivations of those you lead—what has shaped them, where they hope to grow and how well they’re dealing with others. It will help you interpret reactions that are out of character. Recognizing the different masking techniques of members of your team will enable you to support them well and develop their character.

When you see a direct report overreacting because of an insecurity, you can’t afford to leave it alone if it affects their work. Ignoring or overlooking it could lead to a bigger problem in the future. Pray for insight and gently ask if they know why they reacted that way. A foundation of care and vulnerability-based trust should allow them to open up. 

Wrapping up

Take a look at Hebrews 11, the so-called “Hall of Faith.” It’s noteworthy to see how many of these insecure leaders are given pedestals for their faith: Abraham, Moses, Gideon, Barak, Jephthah and the prophets. Their insecurities didn’t define them, and neither did their masks. God was able to use them just as they were to accomplish great things and to lead others well.

I admit I haven’t perfectly followed this advice, or at least to the extremes Allender promotes. However, to the degree that I’ve implemented this way of leading, I’ve seen remarkable results. Almost every time I’ve admitted weakness or sought forgiveness, I’ve seen trust strengthened and received grace I didn’t deserve while also releasing some of the burden of leadership. How about you? I’d love to hear about your attempts to put these ideas into practice.

* See The Dark Side of Your Strengths, based on the book, Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership

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Suspect your ability to handle power

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As I’ve been reading The Lord of the Rings to my boys, a series of moments stick in my mind: the times that Frodo seeks someone to give the ring to. Surely Aragorn or Gandalf or the Lady of Lothlorien would use the power benevolently to combat the evil of Sauron! Each one contemplates briefly the possibility of harnessing such amazing power and concludes that they wouldn’t be any less ruthless and horrific than previous owners. They therefore studiously avoid touching or looking at it, some even taking great satisfaction that they passed the test.

Last week at a leadership development event, we read together Henri Nouwen’s message, In the Name of Jesus. Nouwen is a Harvard man of great earthly success who ended up as a priest working among mentally handicapped people at the Daybreak community near Toronto. He cautions against the rationalization many Christians go through regarding power: that as long as it’s used to serve God and other human beings, it’s a good thing. He points out the irony that, throughout Church history,  followers of the one who emptied himself of power have used power for crusades, inquisitions, enslavement, opulence and manipulation of all kinds and forms. Then he cuts to the point.

What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistable? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life.

Wow. Whether you follow Nouwen’s logic and conclude that love is the opposite of power, his words sure slice deep. He’s right: it is easier to control than to love, and yet the latter is clearly God’s command for anyone, but in particular leaders. Nouwen spoke from a long personal journey into the messy world of loving those that our culture overlooks. Control and ownership are wrong methodologies arising from wrong motivations from a wronged heart. Nouwen continues,

One thing is clear to me: the temptation of power is greatest when intimacy is a threat. Much Christian leadership is exercised by people who do not know how to develop healthy, intimate relationships and have opted for power and control instead. Many Christian empire-builders have been people unable to give and receive love.

I remember when I worked in youth ministry that I lost count of the people who got into that field because of their own pain growing up. Few came from a healthy place and wanted others to share in that health; many more were on a personal journey to redemption and sought to help others avoid what they had experienced. But if you haven’t experienced real healing, how do you avoid temptations like power? I think Dan Allender has a lot of solutions in his book, Leading with a Limp. He suggests we confront our brokenness and allow God’s grace to redeem it. Failure and brokenness are not necessarily obstacles to leadership; they can be incredible motivators and a foundation for the right kind of servantly leadership. But those core needs must be addressed and the failures brought into the open.

Nouwen based much of his message on Peter’s example of being restored after abandoning and denying his friend and Rabbi Jesus. The lessons he learned on that beach in John 21 were to love deeply, receive love and give love to others. That was the basis for Peter’s leadership of the Church. It’s a lesson that many of his successors failed to get.

My boys were surprised when I told them I think of Lord of the Rings as a Christian story. I’m still teaching them the idea that a Christian story doesn’t mean that Jesus is a character, or that God is explicitly mentioned. Failure, redemption, fear, ambition, love, evil and desires are deeply woven into the story. And I think I can learn from the characters who suspected themselves and wouldn’t allow themselves to get near to raw, unbridled power.