Where Do I Go From Here?
For years, I questioned whether I wanted to lead again. Honestly, I was burned out from my experience leading a team in Kenya. My team went through some significant challenges, including two different families making emergency returns to the United States for different reasons. Both families were dealing with serious issues, and I wasn’t being supported up the management chain. Even a few years after leaving that role, I continued to refuse other leadership positions that were offered to me. So, I found myself asking why I was in this Doctor of Leadership program if I didn’t even want to lead anymore.
In this week’s reading of Healing Leadership Trauma, authors Rowe and Rowe state, “Leadership trauma is when leaders experience fear and panic about their work as it relates to the past, present and future. It can take a toll on the nervous system, mind, body and spirit.”[1] I knew I had gone through a traumatic leadership experience, but I hadn’t really thought about how it might have affected my own nervous system. Over the last few years, I have been slowly regaining the willingness to lead as I’ve wrestled with and healed from past trauma. Rowe and Rowe remind us, “True healing must address the root causes of the wounds that we try to avoid in the first place so that the Spirit can reveal them—and they can be healed.”[2] Now, as this program winds down and I am closer to earning a doctorate in leadership, I feel ready to step into leadership roles again.
Another husband-and-wife team recently wrote about trauma, attachment and hurt as well. In Landscapes of the Soul, the authors discuss attachment theories and apply them to our spiritual maturity and relationship with God. They write, “How we were raised, the specific survival skills we’ve learned, and the attachment strategies we’ve developed all impact how we respond to the common storms of life.”[3] They describe four different landscapes in which we may have grown up or currently find ourselves. Without condemning those who are in the landscapes of the jungle, desert, or war zone, they encourage Christians to seek the landscape of the pasture—where God leads us and where we can find true rest.
I have found myself in the three other landscapes at different times, but I am working toward leading others into the landscape of the pasture—a place of peace and rest, where I can humbly point them toward God’s care and encourage them to rest there themselves. Holsclaw and Holsclaw write, “Jesus moves us beyond the easier encounters where he first meets us into territory that challenges us to release our insecure attachments and become stronger in our attachment with him.”[4] Somewhere along the way, through these last few years in this leadership program, I have been learning to release those insecure attachments and to find peace in the pasture. Though we have engaged in a variety of readings, one overall lesson that I have learned and applied is to lead from within. By this I mean, I need to lead from a place of security and humility myself. Different books have called this same concept different things but the overall concept is simply leading out of a healthy attachment to God.
Where do we go from here? This week, I accepted a role overseeing our workers throughout the United States—a role I had previously refused. I am again willing to step into positions I once turned down. But I am a different leader now. I would still respond to challenges with my team in much the same way, but I would do so from a healthier place of attachment and security. I could lead from the pasture. Rowe and Rowe encourage us, “Dear leader, here is the bottom line: wherever God places you in leadership and service, your life’s purpose is an extension of your love and delight in him and a reflection of his heart to establish in and through you his kingdom of peace.”[5]
Practically speaking, I am embracing the idea of humble leadership as highlighted by Schein and Schein. The father-son duo write, “Humble Leadership must also paint the picture of something new and better with a keen focus on what is coming, what is about to happen, and not only on what is happening now. The Humble Leadership shift happens with both presence and anticipation.”[6] Leading from humility, rooted in the security of the pasture, I can reengage with the challenges of leadership. I know that overseeing teams throughout the United States is not my final role as a leader, and I am eager to see how this program has prepared me to lead beyond it.
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[1] Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe, Healing Leadership Trauma: Finding Emotional Health and Helping Others Flourish, 1st ed (InterVarsity Press, 2024), 2.
[2] Rowe and Wise Rowe, Healing Leadership Trauma, 73.
[3] Geoff Holsclaw (PhD) and Cyd Holsclaw, Landscapes of the Soul: How the Science and Spirituality of Attachment Can Move You into Confident Faith, Courage, and Connection (Tyndale Refresh, 2025), 10.
[4] Holsclaw (PhD) and Holsclaw, Landscapes of the Soul: How the Science and Spirituality of Attachment Can Move You into Confident Faith, Courage, and Connection, 129.
[5] Rowe and Wise Rowe, Healing Leadership Trauma, 163.
[6] Edgar H. Schein and Peter A. Schein, Humble Leadership, Second Edition: The Power of Relationships, Openness, and Trust, Second Edition (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2023), 124.
About the Author
Adam Cheney
I grew up in California, spent five years living along the beautiful coast of Kenya and now find myself working with refugees in the snow crusted tundra of Minnesota. My wife and I have seven children, four of whom have been adopted. I spend my time drinking lots of coffee, working in my garden, and baking sourdough bread.One response to “Where Do I Go From Here?”
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Congratulations on the new opportunity, Adam! The visual image of leading from the pasture is a nice symbol of peace and stability. How do your trauma and leadership skills match up with the people you served in Kenya, who have a very different lived experience, but are also survivors of trauma? What have you learned from them, and in return, what would you offer from your lessons?