Latent Leadership Lessons: Risk Management for the Inevitable (Part 2)

You would think I’d learn. Especially after the painful events of the late 90s that I detailed in my previous post. But from where I sit now I can tell you that some lessons are learned definitively and others progressively. Some temptations are stronger than others, and the ones that no one sees—especially those related to one’s identity—seem the most fraught and stubborn of them all.

 

Through a series of bewildering yet providential events, I found myself leading a marriage retreat for John Piper’s church on February 3-5, 2006. It was high and heady business for me to be flown up to Minnesota from my little perch down in South Carolina. I was going to go run with the Big Boys for a few days, not only to do what I could to help, but to also find out if I had the goods to do the job. It was a test, of sorts.

 

Many of the details are now fuzzy to me, but a week or two after I returned from Minnesota I was contacted by reps from Piper’s church. They not only said I did a good job leading the marriage conference, they also thought it was good enough that they wanted to know if I would come back the following year and do it again. This was indeed a confirmation that I could run with the Big Boys. I had passed the test! It was also, potentially it seemed, an invitation to become a Big Boy.

 

Before I could respond to the invitation, I needed to run the decision by my board of directors. I convened a board meeting and told the members about the conference outcome and the re-invitation. After a bit of discussion, one of the board members said something along these lines: “I’m happy for you, Jon. Great job and a great opportunity. But before I can say yes to this invitation, I’d like to ask that you go home to Tamarah (my wife) and ask her if she’s impressed.”

 

Poker face fully engaged, I was stunned. What sort of test was this? Others seemed to be impressed with me. I certainly was impressed with me. Why then wouldn’t my wife be impressed with me? I returned home after the board meeting and greeted my wife. She knew about the meeting and asked how it went. I said, “Get this: one of the board members said he couldn’t give an answer until I first asked you if you’re impressed with this opportunity.” To which Tamarah replied, literally and verbatim, “Not really.”

 

I had taken and passed the Public Performance Test. With a bit of skill, talent, and training, it’s really not that hard to impress hundreds of people in Minnesota when you live your life in South Carolina. Truth be told, it’s not even that difficult to impress clients sitting six feet away in the counseling office who live in the same town you do. All they see and know is the public you, when you’re “on” and putting your best foot forward.

 

Fast forward a number of years to my office. I was in a counseling session with a client who was struggling with a significant injustice in her life. In an effort to engage and identify with her, I shared a story of a relationship with someone in my life at the time who was causing a great deal of emotional distress to my family. At the end of my story, I told my client that I was so troubled by and frustrated with that person that I felt like I could punch him in the face.

 

The client was taken back. “I can’t believe you said that! You went to seminary!” My immediate, unspoken thought was, “Dear Lord, does she really think that just because I went to seminary I’m somehow what—more righteous or less prone to sinful impulses than anyone else?”

 

Prior to that exchange, in previous sessions, this lady and her husband had been very generous in their commending of my work. Like, “We’ve been to other counselors, but you’re the best.” And who doesn’t like to hear something like that? But leader beware: if your heart is needy or hungry—a condition that can happen to any leader in any season of life, then the undiscerning affirmations of the acolyte are the Siren’s Song seducing you to jump into the waters of self-deception. Your risk factors for leadership missteps and failure go up if that’s the path you take to becoming a Big Boy.

 

I’ve wondered, both before my client’s comments and since, what happens when you mix an internally needy leader with followers or subordinates who think too highly of that leader? (A variation of this that I see and hear of quite regularly is the leader who holds such leverage or power in the organization that the followers or employees or family members are not free to share the trouble spots they see without fear of negative consequences.)

 

While not infallible, a more accurate assessment of the leader’s life and character is the Private Character Test (1 Timothy 3:5). The one that the leader’s spouse and children have. If they’re secure enough, or courageous enough to speak truth to power, and the leader invites such feedback without fear of reprisal, then we’re going somewhere God-honoring and healthy. Going down that pathway might still lead the leader to greater circles of influence, but he or she will both internally and externally disavow any Big Boy status.

 

After Tamarah said, “Not really,” my glasses fell off. The lenses that filtered out the negative and let through only what I wanted to hear and believe that made me think I was somebody. I let the leadership at Piper’s church know that I was honored by the re-invitation to speak a second time. However, I said that I needed to pass and gave them the names of several others I could recommend who would do a great job for them.

 

I had other, more important work to do. Privately. My wife and family know.  

 

Because it’s better to be a doorkeeper in the house of God than to be a Big Boy on the outside looking in (Psalm 84:10).