In defense of a public persona
“The showman gives you front row to his heart. The showman prays his heartache will chart. Making a spectacle of falling apart is just the start of the show…” (from the song “The Showman” by U2).
The congregation I serve includes actors, musicians, athletes, and other “known” people. Over the years that I’ve pastored here, I’ve grown increasingly aware of how some of these folks manage and present their public personas.
Some have a frontstage life that’s close to their backstage one; others are different from private to public. At first, I thought this separation represented a de-facto integrity gap. More recently, I’ve come to embrace it as a coping mechanism.
Simon P. Walker seems to think it may be some of both.
In his book Leading Out of Who You Are: Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership, Walker looks at what it takes to be a leader who displays “deliberate acts of weakness and courageous self-sacrifice”[1]; he champions leaders who are the same on the outside as they are on the inside.
When you picture Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Bishop Desmond Tutu, or Mother Theresa—all people with moral authority and courage in abundance—you are thinking about an undefended leader.
But what about the rest of us mere mortals?
We compensate with coping mechanisms.
Leaders (and I would argue all public figures) live in a world that is hostile to us. In the book A Failure of Nerve Edwin Friedman says that strong healthy leaders are not just subject to sabotage but that they should expect it[2]. In Leading Out of Who You Are Walker suggests that leaders face a unique hostility “that other people experience only to a lesser degree: idealization, idealism and unmet emotional needs[3]” among other challenges.
In simple terms, a lot of people have unreasonable personal expectations for those of us in the public eye—leaders can’t NOT disappoint others, even if we do everything right.
If you’ve been leading in any environment over the last three years you may have found that this reality has become so acute that you’ve had to develop ways to cope with it. Walker points to three defensive strategies that leaders cultivate to deal with our challenges, including clinging to power, and demanding control, but where I have found the bulk of my coping mechanisms lately is in “separating [my] backstage life with [my] frontstage life[4].
Walker writes, “What lies behind the creation of a front and a backstage is the sense that we can’t entirely trust our audience, and so we need to manage what they see of us.”[5] Unfortunately, I identify with that and recognize that has been part of my new reality.
I’m aware that I may be reacting out of a lack of trust, or a need for defensive protection, and I want to be open to correction and repentance as necessary. But I’ve also started wondering if living with a public and private persona isn’t just a mechanism to manage trust and perception, but a leadership skill that does not necessarily reflect a lack of integrity or trust.
Case in point: Many of the public figures I interact with at church have a deep reservoir of character, integrity, and godliness, but they also have a private life that doesn’t often show up “onstage” in their public persona.
Everybody in the world doesn’t need to know everything about them. They keep their kids, their schedules, and their friends largely out of the limelight not to hide a mess or to impress people[6], but because it helps them stay differentiated from those who might ‘claim’ them as their own. They aren’t trying to act like they are everyone’s best friend, or trying to encourage a false intimacy, and they understand who is most important in their lives—their close friends, their family, and their God.
A showman, or show-woman, is different: He or she works to carefully display broken parts of their interior life in ways that feign authenticity for the purpose of false-connection that increases entertainment value, or better yet (in their minds) an audience’s empathetic response.
I’m a fan of authenticity in leadership and believe that sharing personal failure in the pulpit helps others find a redemptive story with which to identify. However, sometimes I wonder whether leaders and pastors are being truly authentic with their authenticity, or whether they are doing it to put on a show and elicit a response.
In other words, I’ve seen celebrities with healthy public personas and a differentiated life, and pastors who use “authenticity” as a manipulative tool; the difference was the differentiated actor with a persona had people they’d let into every area of their backstage life, and the non-differentiated “authentic” pastor didn’t let anybody in.
Walker writes, the “only proper goal of leadership is to enable people to take responsibility…helping [them] to move towards fully mature, responsible personhood…this is the target. Everything else is secondary.”[7] So I’m wondering if leading in a way that is self-differentiated and that focuses on helping others move toward responsibility might also necessarily keep some things “off the stage” for the sake of both the followers and the leader.
Pastor Craig Groeschel ends his monthly leadership podcast with the following statement: “Leaders, be real. People would rather follow a leader who is always real than one who is always right.” So, here’s my question: Is it possible to be real, humble, transparent, and full of integrity without exposing every bit of yourself “onstage”?
Is some backstage life necessarily a leadership defense, or is it necessary for differentiation?
What do you think?
[1] Simon P. Walker, Leading Out of Who You Are: Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership, (Carlisle: UK, Piquant Editions Ltd, 2007), 4.
[2] Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, (New York: Church Publishing), 11 & 147.
[3] Walker, Leading Out of Who You Are, 15.
[4] Ibid., 24.
[5] Ibid., 32.
[6] Ibid., 33.
[7] Ibid., 153.
About the Author
Tim Clark
I'm on a lifelong journey of discovering the person God has created me to be and aligning that with the purpose God has created me for. I've been pressing hard after Jesus for 40 years, and I currently serve Him as the lead pastor of vision and voice at The Church On The Way in Los Angeles. I live with my wife and 3 kids in Burbank California.16 responses to “In defense of a public persona”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Tim, I so strongly agree with you that I stood up at my desk cheering you on!
You write, “I’m a fan of authenticity in leadership and believe that sharing personal failure in the pulpit helps others find a redemptive story with which to identify. However, sometimes I wonder whether leaders and pastors are being truly authentic with their authenticity, or whether they are doing it to put on a show and elicit a response.”
You make an astute observation, especially in light of social media influencers “baring it all” for attention. but I might also ask if authenticity in all shapes for a leader is the way of wisdom? How many times have you sat in a conference room or meeting when suddenly the leader reveals an intimate part of their life you really didn’t need to know? There is a place and time for everything but not on the stage.
The one caveat I would make (and to answer your question) is that every Christian leader who is led to share about their breakdown, failures, missteps, weaknesses, abusive pasts, or addictions must do so with prayer and accountability. A well-told story is like a fire. I read how the producers of The Jesus Revolution chose to not disclose Lonnie Frisbee’s struggle with his sexuality in the movie intentionally. That seemed wise to me. Thanks for your post!
Interestingly Pam, I thought just the opposite in regards to the producers decision in The Jesus Revolution. I knew of Lonnie Frisbee’s struggle via a previous documentary, and immediately wondered how they could avoid that glaring reality in the new film?
My question in that regard is “why?” Did they not deem it to be primary to the story, or was it too controversial, or would it stir up too much in the general Christian market and hurt sales?
Hmm. Just some questions. However, this post from Tim is compelling, and I will be chewing on it for some time.
John, Good questions. The reasons I thought the decision was wise at the time was because the story would have been created for different reasons, if that makes sense? To be honest, I Googled Lonnie Frisbee’s story and I was haunted all week by the turn of events in his life. Would love to discuss sometime as I don’t know as much as you do!
Thank you for your robust encouragement, Pam!
This is still a subject I’m wrestling with… in fact, the post itself was a working-out of my unfinished thoughts.
I agree that radical transparency of brokenness should be submitted to prayer and accountability. But I wonder if the corollary is true: If we decide not to share some things transparently that it needs to be submitted to prayer and accountability. Maybe this way whether things are shared on the platform or not, there is no room for something broken or toxic to grow in the dark?
One of the things I love about reading my cohort’s posts is that you all help me make so many more connections. I didn’t think of it when I read Walker’s book, but your post connected the dots for me. I could have written my whole blog post in response to your question: “Is it possible to be real, humble, transparent, and full of integrity without exposing every bit of yourself “onstage”?”
I desperately hope the answer is yes. We live this reality as missionaries, mostly in relationship to our supporters and supporting churches. Don’t get me started on the very private questions we get asked regularly!
In regards to authenticity, like most missionaries, we experienced the temptation to embellish and exaggerate in our monthly newsletters. By God’s grace he revealed this people-pleasing tendency early on and we made a commitment to fairly and honestly present our work. More than ten years later, that’s something that I intentionally check in every newsletter before I send it out. That does not mean, to your question, that we share every struggle or doubt. The hard stuff is reserved for friends and those supporters with whom we have a deeper relationship.
I know this is getting long, but there’s one more area where we’re careful to avoid performing or manipulating and it involves our kids. When we visit supporting churches we avoid taking our kids with us or at least we generally don’t bring them up on stage with us. Our kids are not on parade. They stay “backstage” so to speak. I don’t think these examples represent a “de facto integrity gap” but rather a protecting what is personal and private in our lives. I’ll get down off my soapbox now.
Kim, your kids are blessed. I know so many ministry leaders who use their kids as props because it gets them a lot of “props”. I also know so many pastor’s or missionaries kids who aren’t following Jesus anymore. (I wonder if there is any connection?).
The new thing that occurred to me when reading your response was if undefended leadership isn’t about exposing everything front-stage, but being able to share anything as it serves those you are leading. In other words, we don’t not share the hard stuff because we are afraid to do so (and we regularly DO share that stuff with those close to us) but because it doesn’t serve us or the people we’re leading to share it.
Mabye that’s the balance? Thanks for encouraging me to take this a step deeper.
Hi Tim (and Kim),
I am sitting in a small town in Texas, called Kennedale. We moved here from Hungary were we led a group from GoodSports International. http://www.goodsportsinternational.org.
In our move to Texas, our kids were entering the “teens” and we knew a youth group would be essential in this new phase of their lives. All of them were the same age (we adopted two and our third all happened to be the same age).
We told them, because youth group was so important, that THEY could decide on the church we attended. I did not think they all could agree (it had not happened in the years in Hungary) but in true God miracle fashion they all selected the little church in Kennedale. Primarily, because of the “authenticity” of Pastor Bryan.
Born in Louisiana with a thick drawl, my Hungarian children were rivetted to his preaching. His life was an open book, and while I am sure his children cringed at times, he and his wife Pam, lived out transparency. They are well loved.
I gather, my vote is for authenticity. I don’t want to be manipulated by designed glimpses into my pastors life. With that being said, I also appreciate their need for “personal space.”
Their lives are an example of life with Christ (warts and all). Pray that our lives are too…Shalom…Russ
Russ, I LOVE that you let your kids pick the Church. My parents sacrificially did that when I was 11 (even moved to a different town so my brother and I could be closer the church we’d chosen) and it literally changed the course of my life.
I’m a big authenticity fan. Others have said it is my superpower. 🙂 I’m just trying to work out the balance between authenticity onstage and differentiation and boundaries. These responses are helping me do that!
I agree with all I’ve read in this thread so far in answer to your question: “Is it possible to be real, humble, transparent, and full of integrity without exposing every bit of yourself ‘onstage’?” and I would add:
In reading Walker, I was struck by the reality that NONE of us will skate an entirely clean program. I would even venture to guess that we won’t even mostly do so. Instead, it seems like he was giving us mitigating strategies for whichever tendency we lean towards…because all of them are fraught. We can “over do” any of these patterns. This just pushes us to more reliance on the One Leader who will always provide balance.
Ohhhh, I like this so much, Because we DO have tendencies we need to correct. It’s so helpful to think of this as a helpful balancing tool than a call to “get it perfect”. Thanks for the insight.
I am enjoying all the responses to your poignent questions and am gleaning much. My take on the backstage is that we need balance and wisdom in navigating its use. Are we meant to be completely vulnerable to all? Even Jesus withdrew from the crowds. I come back to Henri Nouwen’s quote “Trust that hiddenness will give you new eyes to see yourself, your world, and your God. People cannot give you new eyes – only the one who loves you without limits.” (Discernement – p. 74) People can only handle so much. I guess my question is: How can we balance both stages to better serve us and others?
It’s a great question Esther.
For years I was a “wear it on my sleeve say it all” kind of leader. It frustrated me when people didn’t respond well to that as I thought authenticity and transparency was so important. But when I started to realize that ‘authenticity’ was my persona I had to start reassessing if I was really doing it for those I served or for myself.
Since then I’ve learned to “get away” and have a private life before the Lord and trust close friends and family with parts of me that I don’t necessarily share with all. But I don’t ever want to do that as a defense and I want to be ready to share and trust people with anything necessary that will lead to their growth.
Tim, as one that has been very vulnerable privately as well as publicly (from the pulpit and other stages), and am reading your post with great interest.
As you know (being my best friend), there are a few times in which I overshared and wallowed in regret having done so. Other times it was so freeing and I would do it the same all over again.
Perhaps discernment is key. I would also add accountability, in that, having other trusted people to bounce off of before moving into broader levels of exposure and vulnerability would be helpful.
John, we’ve walked this path together for decades. I love that we’re still trying to get it right and both recognizing that we haven’t quite gotten there yet. I do think accountability is key. I wonder if it’s just as important to be accountable for the things we are going to ‘expose’ on our front-stage as it is to be accountable for those things we are going to keep ‘backstage’? That way we don’t have anything ‘under-the-stage’ that can grow to become a monster. I think this is where so many leaders end up falling.
Interesting dialogue on this Tim…thanks for the question! Like others, I would certainly answer in the affirmative. We are always having to determine what I would call ‘appropriate disclosure’ throughout our days. Whether we share something or not could be shaped by the age of the other, the group size, the relational trust, the place where someone else is in their journey, their gender and probably a few other factors. Surely motivation and intent have to be brought into the conversation, as does wisdom and discernment.
What I love about your response Scott is how well it lines up with what Walker says about undefended leadership. It’s to help others get free and to help others mature.
If it’s not about us, but others, the decisions with what gets shared is not about defending ourselves but about helping others.