Like many, I\u2019ve read dozens of leadership and ministry books. Most are written by high achieving leaders who are successful and renowned. That is partly what has enabled them to write (or ghost write) a book on this topic. And according to Mcintosh, its possible that these leaders were driven to reach such high points of their success because of a hidden dark side. Perhaps a dark-side that they themselves are not aware of. So these respectable leaders, driven by an unending need for achievement, admiration and recognition are the ones willing to pay the price to rise to the top of the leadership conference circuits and deliver the top selling leadership books. Then it follows that these leaders give birth to more dark side throughout the young pastors sitting under them to learn. And as flesh gives birth to flesh, so spirit gives birth to spirit and this unhealthy \u201cwatch me burn out for Jesus\u201d that somehow carries a misplaced badge of honor is transmitted to the admiring onlookers.<\/p>\n
Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership by David Mcintosh was a paradigm shifting book for me and a must-read for all ministers. This is because so many of our disorders seep into our lives imperceptibly because they began under the guise of a virtue. The intentions to help and serve becomes an insecure people pleasing instinct. The intentions to be thorough and punctual becomes a paranoid restlessness. The intentions to make an impact for a kingdom of God becomes a narcissism and admiration addiction.<\/p>\n
Take for example my dark side.<\/p>\n
I picked up my dream because my youth pastors and college professors and chapel speakers and leaders told me \u201cdream a God sized dream for God\u201d and so with my ambition to make an impact for the Kingdom of God I began to become excited to be the one that God used to bring the change. I truly do want to do great things for him. I know this achiever drive in me can be used for God\u2019s glory. But I also recognize that I do these things so people say \u201cwow Kyle does great things for God!\u201d And all the sudden I am more concerned about me, than about God and his glory What excites me more I wonde\u2026 1,000 people lead to Christ? Or that I was a pastor who led a 1,000 people to Christ?<\/p>\n
If I don\u2019t perceive that I am perceived as accomplished or extraordinary to people, I become very self-conscious with myself. I remember stepping down off a sermon I gave Sunday morning and feeling insecure about the message I had just preached. I immediately began looking busy to avoid talking with the congregation and walked back stage. I was hiding. I couldn\u2019t face the people, because I didn\u2019t think what I gave was good enough, and I didn\u2019t think they thought I was awesome enough. I was embarrassed.\u00a0Of course this is what Mcintosh identifies as a class sign of narcissism. Ouch.<\/p>\n
The good side of this is that it pushes me to be excellent, spending extra time in preparation, and to stay busy. Unfortunately I sense the enemy working this gift against me. I can see how God created this drive in me and intended it for my good, but I feel the enemy trying to pervert this gift in my life and use it against me. When I am not viewed as great, as I felt like I wasn\u2019t that Sunday morning I break down. Its hard for me to function. I get depressed.<\/p>\n
This ambition is hijacked and quickly becomes perverted into selfish ambition. The dramatic breath taking moment for me while I read this book is seeing that my personality type, was illustrated best by King Solomon. Are you kidding me? I\u2019ve preached so many negative messages about King Solomon. Sermons like, \u201cHow to Destroy your Calling<\/em>\u201d and \u201cHow not to finish well.<\/em>\u201d And all the sudden the warning light is flashing that I have King Solomon tendencies.<\/p>\n In reaction to this I attempted the swing the pendulum back to the other side, but I honestly probably swung back to far to the other side. I actually began curbing my ambition out of fear that all my ambition was selfish. I significantly cut back ministry events and I became suspicious whenever our church did big outreaches or events.<\/p>\n I wrestled with this tension for years and carried it with me in isolation. I had a breakthrough at a conference I attended as I listened to our National Youth Director of the AG Heath Adamson who is one the smartest and sharpest leaders I\u2019ve ever seen. And in a brief moment I got to visit with him about my tension between wanting to honor God and be humble and the need for ambition in the Kingdom of God. I shared with him my Solomon illustration, and of course he was familiar with this book The<\/em> Dark Side of Leadership (<\/em>He has read 2-3 books a week for the last twenty years). His words were simple and true, \u201cIt was ambitious of Jesus to switch our world from the old covenant to the new covenant. It was ambitious of Paul to plant church after church. Don\u2019t ditch your ambition. Keep your ambition Holy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Another example would maybe be the illustration of Billy Graham. Few challenge his ministry and the works he did. His ministry schedule and ministry assignments was ambitious. And the face and attitude of all Christianity in America was changed because of it, as the Bad Religion, one of our future books I\u2019ve been slowly consuming on audio, is beginning to explain.<\/p>\n McIntosh ended with an excellent recipe for a Christian leader to redirect their dark side, and I don\u2019t feel I have anything to add to that. So simply I would say, from my journey, it took me to submit and surrender my dreams and accept a call even if it were to lead to obscurity. Should God call me to be a senior pastor of a church of 20 in rural farm town USA for the rest of my life, ok I accept that. And with that posture of heart, I think I position myself to actually be used by God wherever he intends me to be.<\/p>\n To conclude, here is a poem I wrote as I was in the midst of discovering my dark side.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ~<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n When I was 15 <\/em><\/p>\n I surrendered to God <\/em><\/p>\n to do great things. <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n When I was 25 <\/em><\/p>\n I surrendered to God <\/em><\/p>\n great things.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n He called and I followed <\/em><\/p>\n deep into obscurity. <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Inside my obscurity <\/em><\/p>\n I found sincerity<\/em><\/p>\n in true surrender.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n ~<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Like many, I\u2019ve read dozens of leadership and ministry books. Most are written by high achieving leaders who are successful and renowned. That is partly what has enabled them to write (or ghost write) a book on this topic. And according to Mcintosh, its possible that these leaders were driven to reach such high points […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1017,1166,1181],"class_list":["post-16887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lgp8","tag-mcintosh","tag-overcoming-the-dark-side-of-leadership","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16887"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16889,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16887\/revisions\/16889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}