{"id":29396,"date":"2022-11-05T13:33:53","date_gmt":"2022-11-05T20:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29396"},"modified":"2022-11-06T07:33:15","modified_gmt":"2022-11-06T15:33:15","slug":"going-going-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/going-going-gone\/","title":{"rendered":"Going, Going, Gone"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the book Leading out of Who You Are author Simon P. Walker addresses our leadership not from a practical nuts and bolts view but from an internal view. Walker encourages us to be deeply aware of ourselves, our background and our relationships with others. Walker says that “Leadership is about who you are, not what you know or what skills you have.[1]<\/a>\u201d The inner life of the leader is of utmost importance because of the burden of leadership. Leaders carry the weight of ministries, families, businesses, schools, hospitals, personal expectations, expectations of those they employ just to name a few. During the process of leading the leaders learn how to defend themselves because of their experiences and Walker believes that leaders defend themselves because \u201cLeaders often experience three things that other people experience only to a lesser degree: idealization, idealism and unmet emotional needs.[2]<\/a>“<\/p>\n

We all love leaders especially those that seem to be able to walk the talk but beneath the surface of every leader is the all important foundation of the inner life. Walker says \u201cThose who have taken up the burden of leadership are often idealized by the rest of us.\u00a0\u00a0We turn them into the ideal heroes we need them to be.\u00a0\u00a0Thus the leader cannot share his internal struggles, because no one will allow him to.[3]<\/a>\u201d \u00a0While reading walker two things came to mind. First, who am I able to share my internal struggles with? This is important if I want to lead for a long time. Secondly, Walkers work has echoes of author Ruth Haley Barton. Barton in her book Strengthening The Soul Of Your Leadership discusses the need for the leader to take care of their inner selves. To drive her point home she quotes author Parker Plamer who says, \u201cA leader is a person who must take special responsibility for what\u2019s going on inside him or herself, inside his or her consciousness, lest the act of leadership create more harm than good.[4]<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

The leaders soul isn\u2019t the only thing at stake when a leader \u201cfalls from grace.\u201d I can remember when a youth pastor that I looked up to had a great \u201cfront stage\u201d presence, but his \u201cbackstage was a wreck. Because of things he allowed to get out of control in the \u201cbackstage\u201d it started to spill over to the front. I was 19 years old when this happened to our youth group leadership team and to this day there are people that were in that circle with me that have walked away from their faith because of what they saw this leader do. From that day forward, I have always wanted to be a leader of integrity and character. Walker says, \u201cLots of things happen backstage, things that can’t appear on front stage.\u00a0\u00a0The leader’s idealized life is front stage; the less-than-ideal is backstage.\u00a0\u00a0It is the repository for the doubts, confusions, ambiguities and defeats.\u00a0\u00a0The front stage shows conviction and confidence.\u00a0\u00a0Struggle and uncertainty are kept backstage.\u201d I wish this youth pastor would have dealt with what was going on backstage because of the damage it caused not only his soul but the soul of those that were following him. If we do not take care of our backstage things, they will always come to the front in one way or another. I\u2019ll end my comments with a thought from Walker, “Very often a leader’s backstage life will leak onto their front stage, and this is particularly so when the front stage requires a high degree of emotional discipline and other-person-centeredness.[5]<\/a> “<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Simon P. Walker,\u00a0The Undefended Leader: Leading out of Who You Are: Leading with Nothing to Lose: Leading with Everything to Give<\/em>\u00a0(Carlisle: Piquant Editions, 2010), 5.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Simon P. Walker,\u00a0The Undefended Leader: Leading out of Who You Are: Leading with Nothing to Lose: Leading with Everything to Give<\/em>\u00a0(Carlisle: Piquant Editions, 2010), 15.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Simon P. Walker,\u00a0The Undefended Leader: Leading out of Who You Are: Leading with Nothing to Lose: Leading with Everything to Give<\/em>\u00a0(Carlisle: Piquant Editions, 2010), 16.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> R. Ruth Barton,\u00a0Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry<\/em>\u00a0(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2018), 38.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Simon P. Walker,\u00a0The Undefended Leader: Leading out of Who You Are: Leading with Nothing to Lose: Leading with Everything to Give<\/em>\u00a0(Carlisle: Piquant Editions, 2010), 28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the book Leading out of Who You Are author Simon P. Walker addresses our leadership not from a practical nuts and bolts view but from an internal view. Walker encourages us to be deeply aware of ourselves, our background and our relationships with others. Walker says that “Leadership is about who you are, not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"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":[2347,1718],"class_list":["post-29396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp01","tag-walker","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29396","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\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29396"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29421,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29396\/revisions\/29421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}