My father passed away in 1969 when I was three years old, leaving behind me and my younger brother. In 1999, I reflected back on my childhood and discovered something I had never noticed before. For 18 years my mom cooked dinner for me and my brother Troy and we would sit at the dining room table, talk, and have fun. But during those 18 years my mom never sat at the dining room table with us. She would take her food and sit in the bedroom or living room and watch TV. In 1999 I wanted to know why my mom never sat with us, so in a roundabout way, I visited my mom and asked, \u201cHey mom, tell me about how life was growing up with Pop Pop?\u201d (my grandfather and her dad). <\/p>\n
She revealed to me he was a mean man with anger issues, and he never built a relationship with any of his 5 children. He emotionally neglected his children and wife. Now of course none of his 12 grandchildren ever saw this side of him.
\nAs my mom told me more stories, I began to realize why she never sat down at the dinner table. My mom is not good at emotionally connecting with people and when you sit at the table with your boys, a normal question is \u201cHow was your day?\u201d To avoid hearing any emotional distress, my mom just avoided \u201creal\u201d conversation.<\/p>\n
After understanding my mom, I was able to understand why it was so hard for me to emotionally connect with people. I had to learn how to open myself up to people in order to connect with them. I had to learn how to be vulnerable about my past and present. Now I understood why I was so quiet, soft spoken, and really enjoyed listening. My calling as a psychotherapist came out of who I am. Being introspective and not opening up, eventually became being introspective and opening up to nearly everyone. <\/p>\n
Walker\u2019s book, \u201cLeading out of Who You Are,\u201d is basically about \u2018self-aware leadership\u2019, in that it encourages the leader to be deeply aware of himself, his background and his relationships with others. Typical leaders are \u2018defended\u2019 in the sense that they try to preserve their power and influence, especially by controlling what they allow others to see of themselves. Their defensiveness is entrenched through the idealization of followers; their own idealistic vision; and their unmet emotional needs. For Walker, deeper, \u2018truer\u2019 leadership must be \u2018undefended\u2019 by not grasping for power or seeking colleagues\u2019 approval. Instead, freedom to lead comes from \u201cour attachment to another\u201d [1] who offers \u201cunconditional regard\u201d [2]. Walker\u2019s thesis is echoed by Peter Scazzero, when he writes, \u201cpretending is safer than honesty and vulnerability.\u201d [3].
\nThere was a time when I was not honest and vulnerable. According to Walker I was actually living in my backstage, \u201cWe hold back…we protect ourselves and secure a deeper attachment from those we allow backstage.\u201d [4]. When this happens, \u2018we ensure that we present and promote the right signs, props, evidence and script to win approval or success.\u201d [5]. With this in mind, Walker contends that, rather than situations or even behavior, leadership is fundamentally \u201cabout who you are, not what you know or what skills you have\u201d [6]. Camacho heartily agrees with this, \u201cThe Holy Spirit does the work of refining. He brings forth the gold.\u201d [7]. I had blocked the Spirit of God from refining me and I wasn\u2019t even aware of it. I hid my true self and thought I was actually leading just fine. But way down deep I knew I wasn\u2019t just fine. In fact, I even had a little shame. I had learned in my childhood, the very act of having a feeling felt shameful and wrong. Negative feelings were a burden and my mom had inadvertently given me the message that feelings are not be expressed. Negative emotions need to stay in the backstage. I will have more power and control in life if I don\u2019t allow others to see me. \u201cWouldn\u2019t it be more comfortable to simply put it out of your mind and not worry about taking on those battles?\u201d [8]. It\u2019s always more comfortable not dealing with the issues and staying backstage.
\nAfter years of hard work, intense counseling, excellent intimate friendships, and the working of the Holy Spirit I am more of an authentic leader. \u201cThe secret of effective leadership is the freedom to live an undefended life.\u201d [9]. An undefended leader according to Walker is someone who has the freedom to fail and the freedom to give away. Give away trust, be vulnerable, take risks, being free to receive or not receive. So many times, I have sat at my desk, preached a sermon, taught a workshop, counseled a client and said, \u201cIt sure feels good to be free.\u201d Now I can humbly say, \u201cIt sure feels good to be an undefended leader.\u201d<\/p>\n
[1] Simon P. Walker, Leading Out Of Who You Are: Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership (Carlisle, UK: Piquant Editions Ltd., 2007). 3.
\n[2] Ibid, 5.
\n[3] Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. (Grand Rapids, MI: Harper Collins Publishers, 2017). 12.
\n[4] Simon P. Walker, Leading Out Of Who You Are: Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership (Carlisle, UK: Piquant Editions Ltd., 2007). 25
\n[5] Ibid, 25.
\n[6] Ibid, 5.
\n[7] Tom Camacho, Mining for Gold: Developing Kingdom Leaders through Coaching. (London, England: Intervarsity Press, 2019). 93.
\n[8] Jonice Webb, Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect. (New York, Morgan James, 2014). 119.
\n[9] Simon P. Walker, Leading Out Of Who You Are: Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership (Carlisle, UK: Piquant Editions Ltd., 2007). 103.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My father passed away in 1969 when I was three years old, leaving behind me and my younger brother. In 1999, I reflected back on my childhood and discovered something I had never noticed before. For 18 years my mom cooked dinner for me and my brother Troy and we would sit at the dining […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"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":[2310],"tags":[2489,2706,1718],"class_list":["post-31881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-dlgp02","tag-dlgp02-walker","tag-walker","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31881","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\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31881"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31882,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31881\/revisions\/31882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}