Succeeding Through Failure
I remember the time when I was a young man in my mid-twenties, and I experienced an epiphany. This was a significant moment for me because it was when I came to the conclusion that not all failure was bad. I discovered that the worst leaders I knew, in Walker’s words, had substantial frontstage presence but terrible backstage content. I decided then that I would not be that kind of leader. It drove me to be a different kind of leader. Scott Walker’s book is a breath of fresh air as it gives me a language to think more clearly about how I grew as a leader, even though I didn’t even know I was growing. It never even dawned on me that growth was happening.
My epiphany came at about the same time as I came to place my faith in Christ. The weight of so many past failures was pulling me down. God revealed to me through His Word that this was not how he intended for life to be. Shortly after, I was commissioned into the United States Cavalry. The weight of leadership took on a life of its own, but now it flowed from a very young 21-year-old with a college degree, a young wife, and a colossal naiveté about what was ahead.
As I read Scott Walker’s book, I felt as if I was a poster child for the Undefended Leader. I think I would be most remiss if I did not lay much of the credit for my leadership journey at the feet of my wife and life partner of 45 years. Quoting Walker, “Freedom to lead an undefended life comes from finding a relationship in which we are safe and secured by unconditional attachment.”[] She has always made me know that my leadership was not secured by my skills and resources but by our attachment to one another and that God was big enough not to be overwhelmed by my failures and weaknesses.[] I absolutely love his notion that our freedom to fail flows from the source of our approval, namely God Himself and the host of people he has put around me who love and approve of me because of who they are and who I am.
I was struck by his discussion on Strategies of Defense and our experience of trust as it develops through each of our lives. I had a humorous time trying to nail down my Ego shapes and how they shaped my personal leadership ego. In many ways, it felt like a futile exercise as none of us have as accurate a view of ourselves as perhaps we ought to have. I suppose I have always felt stronger than I really was, taller than I really was, more brilliant than I really am. If it wasn’t for the pervasive presence of a mirror, I could imagine myself thinking I was actually better looking than I am. The mirror has dispelled all delusions for me, even though my wife for these almost five decades together assures me I am as handsome as I ever was.
His analysis of the development of leadership styles and our response to trust through childhood and young adulthood is fascinating. His expansion on his four significant categories was quite exhilarating and exhausting at the same time. The Shaping Leadership Ego as a trust response intrigued me as an outflow of a high level of trust in themselves and others. The words he uses to describe the Shaper leader are a bit ambiguous to me. He uses words like optimism, paternalism, and self-defined reality to describe the Shaper’s leadership propensities, but when you look harder at his lists, you realize that he sometimes uses words in the broadest sense possible. I will just list the several other leadership egos that Walker posits, such as The Defining Leadership Ego. Next, he describes the Adapting Leadership Ego. From personal experience, I found this leadership ego most difficult to work with. Last, and the Leadership ego I most identified with is the Defending Leadership Ego. I am not sure why this seems to resonate with me, perhaps because my childhood days were very uncertain, and I sometimes feel that I almost raised myself. I have always been drawn to unsafe places and was quite determined to see the people there feel safe.
My takeaway from Walker’s significant Leadership Egos is that all of them can be redeemed. As I pondered each of these character qualities of leaders by Walker, I was reminded of 2 Thessalonians 1:11b May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do. Simon Walker begins his book by stating that “Leadership is about trust and power.” Paul writes the church at Thessonliki and prays for them that God would give them the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do. As we look around us and see specifically Christian leaders grow, we must do so with the understanding that God is above all. God rises way above all the bad things that happened to me as a boy. He rises above all the mental and emotional limitations that I think I may have if I will seek him first. God will envision who he wishes, create movements through the most unlikely, and he will unite our hearts together with His through the glue of trust.
[1] Walker, Simon P. Leading out of Who You Are: Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership (The Undefeated Leader Trilogy, bk 1). Carlisle: Piquant Editions Limited, 2007.
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David Weston
7 responses to “Succeeding Through Failure”
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David,
It is interesting to read your thoughts on the Defending Leadership Ego and how that has influenced your career choice to engage in unsafe places to help people feel safe. You also mentioned that it was a humorous process to self-evaluate. If you were to divide your ego and assign different parts of it into a Walker’s framework, what percentage would you assign to Defending and how much to the others?
Darren, what a great way to think about it, and good questions. It was humorous because after I went back through the process of thinking about my leadership ego. I realized I was all of Walker’s Egos and none of them, at the same. time. This may defy his intent, but context really matters as to which ego I slip on. I am not saying that I don’t have a default, but after a while, as you grow in your faith, you begin to set aside childish ways and hopefully you begin to mature into a person who does not necessarily always do things a particular manner. Our goal as a child of God needs to always be to put on Christ-likeness and to produce fruit that is produced by the Holy Spirit in us, fruit such as love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, patience, and self-control. That said, I would say that I am a bit of a combination of them all, and depending on my context and my season of life, I could exercise in a greater or lesser extent any one of them.
David, I greatly appreciated Walker’s words, “Freedom comes from knowing that you are approved of.”[1] I did not serve in the military, so my viewpoint is courtesy of 20th Century Fox and MGM. How does this work within the military hierarchy of leadership? I can’t get past the day one image of the drill sergeant yelling “You maggot!!!” or worse. Jeremiah’s post introduces a general who moved well beyond that first day.
[1] Walker, 102.
MGM and 20th Century Fox can work for you or against you in seeing how military leaders work. I must confess that even though I was an officer and a combat arms officer, think trigger puller, I decided at a young age to lead men, not formations. I chose to focus my energy on smaller, highly specialized units and not larger ones. This is an unpopular decision in the Army as promotions and opportunities come with leading larger formations such as Battalions, Brigades, and Divisions. It just didn’t interest me. I loved soldiers. I loved leading soldiers in some of the most challenging situations that a man can find himself in, and I excelled at it. To me, one of the keys to living a successful life is being able to do what you love and loving others through what you do. I say this to say that it is not the norm. I made this decision as a new believer in Christ, and it just felt right for me. I did meet Christian officers who led formations and were very successful at it. It just wasn’t my passion. I wanted to be as close to the action as I could be. In the Army, the longer you are in and the higher rank you achieve, the further you get from the trenches. I need to clarify something. I was a highly trained reconnaissance officer. I learned 14 languages, and I spent a lot of time alone and with very small contingents of men whose very lives depended on one another. I tell you this to let you know that my experience is very unique. By the way, the preceding couple of sentences is practically my definition of fun!
I never had to call anyone a Maggot! Drill Sergeants are a completely different story. I have never understood them. They weren’t too fond of my bonding style of leadership. But when you produce, and it works! Nobody questions you. This may be way muchere expecting, b more than you wut it was fun thinking about it.
David, I am curious about your language regarding those who have ‘substantial front stage presence but terrible backstage content’. My lens on that would be that they have not been able to have access to the kind of beautiful attachment relationship you speak of so with your wife, and their childhood experiences have left them feeling vulnerable, terrified, unloved, unknown and utterly alone to defend themselves and therefore they have no ability to face their own pain. It take courage and emotional stability found in relationships on earth or with Jesus to be able to walk the terrifying journey of acknowledging that their childhood experiences, that were unjust and terrifying, have led them to need to survive by hiding all vulnerability and pain to be successful and accepted and prove to themselves and others that they are not a failure. That fills me with compassion and the desire to tread carefully and respectfully around the level of pain they have endured that now leads to their hidden authentic self. What do you think? I know you are a deeply compassionate man who loves to help and support and nurture others so I wondered if that was your view too around hidden pain and vulnerability?
Wow! You got a lot more out of that sentence than I could ever have imagined. Perhaps I was misinterpreting Walker’s understanding of backstage content. You are correct in saying that I have been fortunate to have as a surrounding cast, primarily women, I might add, who have loved me and encouraged me way past any reasonable position of merit. It has created within me a compassion that dictates so much of my behavior and thoughts. I agree with you that perhaps I was less than gracious in that statement, but I did not intend to be egregious toward anybody, and with certainty, I would not disparage anybody to their face this way. Maybe this is my own front stage versus my backstage personality archetype working itself out.
You are correct in saying that this ought to lead us to tread carefully and respectfully around the level of pain that people endure, which leads to their hidden authentic self. It is dawning on me just now that part of my leadership ego is the defending ego trait, and over the years, I have seen many men and women whom I have been given stewardship of as their leader become deeply abused by others and it triggers a rescue response in me that is difficult to explain. They are not violent. I am not a violent man. My responses, however, have been described as actively passionate.
I am grateful for your response. It has made me think a little harder about what Walker was writing about.
The quote reminds us that, “Freedom to lead an undefended life comes from finding a relationship in which we feel safe and nurtured by unconditional attachment.” After all, who would want to follow a leader they don’t trust? I certainly wouldn’t! So, what are some great practices today that can help us all become better leaders?