Dear Leader,
How are you? Has anyone asked lately?
I?m asking because I really want to know.
Are you tired?
Are the demands of leadership wearing you down?
Do you feel as though everyone needs something from you?
I know I?ve felt that way before. I go to the office where I am expected to lead, day in and day out, whether or not I feel like it. My team ? I love them! ? has needs. There are marital needs, health needs, job training needs, not-enough-time-in-the-day needs and interpersonal team conflicts that are in need of being solved.
Needs, needs, needs and more needs.
As leaders we know what to do right?
Yup, we fly into action. We help others find their strengths so they can be plugged into the work that resonates with their souls. We read books on effective leadership that help us to create vibrant teams operating like a family. We have learned, in our modern corporate culture, how to empower instead of dictate, how to free for success instead of scripting success. And yes, we have focused on ourselves as leaders, attending conferences that help us to lead more effectively, delegate more trustingly and provide vision more inspiringly.
And yet, we leaders can feel like we are not really any sort of personal beneficiary of this empowering movement. We are on the outside looking in at this modern empowerment movement.
There?s my team and then there?s me.
Right?
It?s paradoxical for sure?here we are looking intently at ourselves, improving every day of our lives to become more effective leaders and yet we still feel so alone and as if our heart is not really part of this process.
When was the last time you thought about your heart?
Unless we spend as much time looking at God as we spend looking at our self, our knowing of our self will simply draw us further and further into an abyss of self-fixation. -- Dr. David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery
Here?s what I?ve found to be true: We become what we look at. If we gaze at God, we become like Him. If we look at ourselves, we become more like the cartoon character we are drawing for the world to see.
Is the version of yourself you are drawing for the world that of an effective leader?
When was the last time you thought about your heart?
Speaking of cartoon characters, did you ever play with silly putty as a kid?
I don?t know why, but silly putty was one of my favorite childhood toys. I loved pressing it flat into a cartoon and seeing Dagwood and one of his giant sandwiches magically appear.
I especially loved creating the various shapes when I pressed the silly putty into forms, or other toys.
The fun of it was in the transformation of something from its original form into something new. This wasn?t like drawing a picture on a blank page; it was about transforming a malleable lump of nothingness into coolness.
I realize that this may be, ahem, a silly illustration, but I can think of nothing better to describe a glimpse of how I believe God made us.
We often try to press our life into forms. We press and press and press ourselves into the ?effective leader? mold, for instance. And, if we see someone in the world we want to be like, we try to press ourselves up against them (or their image) in the hopes that we will start to look more like them. But nothing ever really transfers because they are just silly putty like us.
What do you get when God combines His breath with dirt? It certainly isn?t silly putty. It is human, and it is irreducible and indestructible when we find ourselves in Him.
Are you tired of attempting to fit into your own or someone else's mold?
And we all, with unveiled face,?beholding?the glory of the Lord,?are being transformed into the same image?from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. ? 2 Corinthians 3:18 (ESV)
Like silly putty, as we press into God?s presence, we find His image starting to show up in us. We find, like the cartoon character ink, that the ink molecules of our Lord start to show up in us, mixing in, forming us. And once the ink gets in the silly putty, can you get it out?
As we gaze at God we begin to feel our heartbeat again and see ourselves more clearly.
Once we begin to see ourselves, we can see others more clearly, and lead them better.
When is the last time you heard your own heartbeat?
And?he took them in his arms and blessed them,?laying his hands on them. ? Mark 10:16
Might I suggest getting away from the demands of leadership to reflect on your own heart? You have spent so much time investing in your team, it?s probably long overdue for you to spend some time for yourself.
Take an hour for yourself (or three) and?
Imagine yourself, like the children referenced in Mark 10:16, crawling into Jesus? lap, feeling the embrace of His warm hug, and then looking into His eyes as He places His hand on your forehead and blesses you. Imagine what that may feel like. Imagine yourself then placing your head on His chest as He continues to hold you and listening for His heartbeat. Linger until you hear it.
Can you hear your heartbeat??
I hope all is well with you.
Blessings,
Troy
