{"id":2990,"date":"2014-10-29T18:24:26","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T18:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=2990"},"modified":"2014-10-29T18:24:26","modified_gmt":"2014-10-29T18:24:26","slug":"the-failure-factor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-failure-factor\/","title":{"rendered":"The Failure Factor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-2991 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/box-12.1-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"box 12.1\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/box-12.1-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/box-12.1-1024x767.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/box-12.1-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/box-12.1.jpg 1199w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>When picking a leader God says to Samuel, \u201cyou know what Samuel, people look at the outward appearance, but I look at the heart.\u201d I wonder if at the end of the day, the heart matters more than we would realize. It\u2019s the heart that gives birth to motives, ideas, understanding, and ultimately, it\u2019s the heart that directs our steps. Doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n<p>The heart\u2019s allegiance determines the path of any leader. Most leaders don\u2019t plan to fail, but failure happens when the leaders heart doesn\u2019t fit with those that she might be leading.<\/p>\n<p>I wonder if we also need to define failure. What is failure? What is failure in an organization or in a church? How do we\u00a0know if a leader is failing? I think it depends on your perception. Difficulty is not failure. Change is not failure. Moving on is not failure. Disagreements are not failure. Arguments are not failure. Anger is not failure. What\u2019s failure? Is it when feelings get hurt? I don\u2019t know, in a hypersensitive culture like ours, feelings get hurt with the blink of an eye.<\/p>\n<p>In his book, <em>The Leadership Mystique, <\/em>Kets de Vries says that \u201cthe acid test of effective leadership is the extent to which people in the organization trust their leadership.\u201d (p72) He goes on to say that two things contribute to failed leadership: mistrust and malaise. I wonder if in our culture we run away at the first sign of discomfort and we fail not because trust has been broken, but because we don\u2019t like discomfort. I love pills. I take a pill at the first sign of a headache. I rarely think, \u201coh, I should drink some water\u201d I just want to pain to be gone as soon as possible. Drinking water doesn\u2019t take my headache away as quickly as a Tylenol does\u2026 so I take a pill to escape the pain. I walk away to escape the discomfort of leadership. Right or wrong is what we do.<\/p>\n<p>The thing I appreciated the most about Kets de Vries\u2019 book is that it focuses on the internal condition of the leader more than the outward actions. It causes you to reflect and think through who you are and what you&#8217;re putting out there for the world to see. Sooner or later your actions will give away your heart and that\u2019s what will cause you to fail or succeed as a leader. The internal package will determine outward success. You can only fool people for a few seasons\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When picking a leader God says to Samuel, \u201cyou know what Samuel, people look at the outward appearance, but I look at the heart.\u201d I wonder if at the end of the day, the heart matters more than we would realize. It\u2019s the heart that gives birth to motives, ideas, understanding, and ultimately, it\u2019s the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"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":[246],"class_list":["post-2990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ketsdevries","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2990","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\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2990"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2993,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2990\/revisions\/2993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}