{"id":31811,"date":"2023-03-13T17:50:11","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T00:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=31811"},"modified":"2023-03-13T17:50:11","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T00:50:11","slug":"in-defense-of-a-public-persona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/in-defense-of-a-public-persona\/","title":{"rendered":"In defense of a public persona"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cThe showman gives you front row to his heart. The showman prays his heartache will chart. Making a spectacle of falling apart is just the start of the show…\u201d <\/em>(from the song \u201cThe Showman\u201d by U2).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The congregation I serve includes actors, musicians, athletes, and other \u201cknown\u201d people. Over the years that I\u2019ve pastored here, I\u2019ve grown increasingly aware of how some of these folks manage and present their public personas.<\/p>\n

Some have a frontstage life that\u2019s close to their backstage one; others are different from private to public. At first, I thought this separation represented a de-facto integrity gap. More recently, I\u2019ve come to embrace it as a coping mechanism.<\/p>\n

Simon P. Walker seems to think it may be some of both.<\/p>\n

In his book Leading Out of Who You Are: Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership<\/em>, Walker looks at what it takes to be a leader who displays \u201cdeliberate acts of weakness and courageous self-sacrifice\u201d[1]<\/a>; he champions leaders who are the same on the outside as they are on the inside.<\/p>\n

When you picture Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Bishop Desmond Tutu, or Mother Theresa\u2014all people with moral authority and courage in abundance\u2014you are thinking about an undefended leader.<\/p>\n

But what about the rest of us mere mortals?<\/p>\n

We compensate with coping mechanisms.<\/p>\n

Leaders (and I would argue all public figures) live in a world that is hostile to us. In the book A\u00a0Failure of Nerv<\/em>e Edwin Friedman says that strong healthy leaders are not just subject to sabotage but that they should expect<\/em> it[2]<\/a>. In Leading Out of Who You Are<\/em> Walker suggests that leaders face a unique hostility \u201cthat other people experience only to a lesser degree: idealization, idealism and unmet emotional needs[3]<\/a>” among other challenges.<\/p>\n

In simple terms, a lot of people have unreasonable personal expectations for those of us in the public eye\u2014leaders can\u2019t NOT disappoint others, even if we do everything right.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been leading in any environment over the last three years you may have found that this reality has become so acute that you\u2019ve had to develop ways to cope with it. Walker points to three defensive strategies that leaders cultivate to deal with our challenges, including clinging to power, and demanding control, but where I have found the bulk of my coping mechanisms lately is in \u201cseparating [my] backstage life with [my] frontstage life[4]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Walker writes, \u201cWhat lies behind the creation of a front and a backstage is the sense that we can’t entirely trust our audience, and so we need to manage what they see of us.\u201d[5]<\/a> Unfortunately, I identify with that and recognize that has been part of my new reality.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m aware that I may be reacting out of a lack of trust, or a need for defensive protection, and I want to be open to correction and repentance as necessary. But I\u2019ve also started wondering if living with a public and private persona isn\u2019t just a mechanism to manage trust and perception, but a leadership skill that does not necessarily reflect a lack of integrity or trust.<\/p>\n

Case in point: Many of the public figures I interact with at church have a deep reservoir of character, integrity, and godliness, but they also<\/em> have a private life that doesn\u2019t often show up \u201constage\u201d in their public persona.<\/p>\n

Everybody in the world doesn\u2019t need to know everything about them. They keep their kids, their schedules, and their friends largely out of the limelight not to hide a mess or to impress people[6]<\/a>, but because it helps them stay differentiated from those who might \u2018claim\u2019 them as their own. They aren\u2019t trying to act like they are everyone\u2019s best friend, or trying to encourage a false intimacy, and they understand who is most important in their lives\u2014their close friends, their family, and their God.<\/p>\n

A showman, or show-woman, is different: He or she works to carefully display broken parts of their interior life in ways that feign authenticity for the purpose of false-connection that increases entertainment value, or better yet (in their minds) an audience\u2019s empathetic response.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a fan of authenticity in leadership and believe that sharing personal failure in the pulpit helps others find a redemptive story with which to identify. However, sometimes I wonder whether leaders and pastors are being truly authentic with their authenticity, or whether they are doing it to put on a show and elicit a response.<\/p>\n

In other words, I\u2019ve seen celebrities with healthy public personas and a differentiated life, and pastors who use \u201cauthenticity\u201d as a manipulative tool; the difference was the differentiated actor with a persona had people they\u2019d let into every area of their backstage life, and the non-differentiated “authentic” pastor didn\u2019t let anybody in.<\/p>\n

Walker writes, the \u201conly proper goal of leadership is to enable people to take responsibility…helping [them] to move towards fully mature, responsible personhood…this is the target. Everything else is secondary.\u201d[7]<\/a> So I\u2019m wondering if leading in a way that is self-differentiated and that focuses on helping others move toward responsibility might also necessarily keep some things \u201coff the stage\u201d for the sake of both the followers and the leader.<\/p>\n

Pastor Craig Groeschel ends his monthly leadership podcast with the following statement: \u201cLeaders, be real. People would rather follow a leader who is always real than one who is always right.\u201d So, here\u2019s my question: Is it possible to be real, humble, transparent, and full of integrity without exposing every bit of yourself \u201constage\u201d?<\/p>\n

Is some backstage life necessarily a leadership defense, or is it necessary for differentiation?<\/p>\n

What do you think?<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Simon P. Walker, Leading Out of Who You Are: Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership, <\/em>(Carlisle: UK, Piquant Editions Ltd, 2007), 4.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve<\/em>: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, (New York: Church Publishing), 11 & 147.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Walker, Leading Out of Who You Are, 15.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., 24.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid., 32.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid., 33.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Ibid., 153.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe showman gives you front row to his heart. The showman prays his heartache will chart. Making a spectacle of falling apart is just the start of the show…\u201d (from the song \u201cThe Showman\u201d by U2). The congregation I serve includes actors, musicians, athletes, and other \u201cknown\u201d people. Over the years that I\u2019ve pastored here, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":169,"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":[2489,1718],"class_list":["post-31811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp02","tag-walker","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31811","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\/169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31811"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31816,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31811\/revisions\/31816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}