{"id":36630,"date":"2024-03-13T20:25:26","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T03:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=36630"},"modified":"2024-03-14T10:10:52","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T17:10:52","slug":"the-inner-life-of-a-leader-and-my-npo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-inner-life-of-a-leader-and-my-npo\/","title":{"rendered":"The Inner Life Of A Leader And My NPO"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Leading Out of Who You Are<\/em>, Simon Walker locates the development and response of the ego in how we experience trust in our most formative years.[1]<\/a> Our experience of trust manifests in one of four ego types, all of which are unhealthy and require defending.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Thus the defended leader is always working out of an unhealthy ego. Walker has written a book that falls into the category of the inner life of a leader. It seems that he has been reading the journals of pastoral leaders. All this makes sense, as Walker is a former member of the clergy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

As I reflect on my own leadership experience, I can relate to the need to defend the self. I drank from the \u201cHero-Leader\u201d stream for 17 years until I decided I could not do it anymore. I watched some of my friends burn out in ministry, and then one day I decided that I needed to resign. Rather than take my resignation, my board chair spoke wise and kind words to me. He said, \u201cGraham, rather than resigning in tiredness and frustration, why don\u2019t you take some time to get healthy? If you are going to resign, do it from a healthy place.\u201d That night he went to bat for me in a board meeting and by the end of that night the board approved a 4-month sabbatical.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On my sabbatical, I retreated, shed the \u201chero cape\u201d, and journeyed inward with Jesus. The Holy Spirit revealed my idols. He also revealed the roots of my unhealthy behavioural patterns of overworking, perfectionism and overperforming. I repented a lot. I walked a lot. I prayed a lot. I cried a lot. Wendy, my wife, and I had long talks about whether we wanted to go back to ministry, but we couldn\u2019t shake the call that Jesus had put on our lives, so we stayed. Simon Walker would say, I went to the \u201cbackstage\u201d of my life for nearly four months. I felt healthier. Afterwards, I returned to the same church, but I was different. Since that time, practices like sabbath, solitude, silence and listening to prayer have become crucial. These are hard for a person with an action bias who wants to live most of their life on the \u201cfront stage\u201d. Walker says that managing the \u201cfront stage\u201d and the \u201cbackstage\u201d is one of the strategies of defence that leaders employ to defend the ego. The other two strategies, also highly relatable and applicable to me, are managing power and control to defend the self.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

His solution, however, is not more ego management but ego transformation. He does not use that term, but I will. This person lives vulnerably and transparently. They do not need to defend themselves because they have found a relationship with Another whom they can trust explicitly and whom they can trust to defend them powerfully. Walker explains, \u201cThe idea of undefended leadership is that we are secured not by our skills and resources but by our attachment to another \u2013 one who is big enough not to be overwhelmed by our failures and weaknesses.\u201d[3]<\/a> The ability to locate my identity in Christ and live for one set of eyes has been transforming for me. It has been quite a journey but I think I have something to share, both from my experience and my research.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now, as I have responsibility for leader development, I might have the opportunity to help younger leaders develop an undefended self. As I read Leading Out of Who You Are<\/em>, I processed how it might inform the development of my NPO in these early stages. The problem I\u2019ve identified and refined through a collaborative design process is, \u201cThe lack of collaborative practices by church leaders in my denomination diminishes both vision ownership and the participation of God\u2019s people in his mission.\u201d However, there are deeper roots in the lives of leaders that need to be addressed if we hope to see more leaders engaging in collaborative leadership.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

First, through the Discovery Workshop, I found out that leaders did not collaborate because they did not want to appear weak. Collaborating on vision formation and direction would be perceived as a weakness or even a failure to deliver. The Discovery Workshop also revealed that most boards wanted a strong, charismatic leader who formed a vision, developed a strategy, and communicated it persuasively. One of my experts noted that most elder boards are made up of older men, many of whom are in the corporate world, and that they desire leaders to be more decisive and expert-like than collaborative. People are still drawn to leaders who appear to have it all together. Pastoral leaders and elder boards seem to desire those who perform on the front stage with either a \u201cShaping Leadership Ego\u201d or a \u201cDefining Leadership Ego\u201d. These factors make it particularly difficult for a leader to appear weak through a more collaborative form of leadership.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Secondly, the Discovery Workshop also exposed that pastoral leaders felt that they might be threatened and even displaced if they collaborated with others. One expert also noted that pastors do not understand how much power they have and that they often want to locate power solely in one leader or a small leadership team. Walker notes, \u201c\u2026power becomes a liability unless it is handled carefully and knowingly and certain safety procedures are observed.\u201d[4]<\/a> For the leader to truly be undefended, Walker writes, \u201cLeadership becomes a matter of energetically joining in a movement of life and love around us that is already in full flow. A matter of finding ways to encourage and cultivate the gifts of others.\u201d[5]<\/a> Leaders need to disperse power by empowering others, rather than centralizing power in a few decision makers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Finally, the Discovery Workshop revealed that leaders didn\u2019t want to collaborate because they wanted to control the direction of the organization and did not trust those who were not leaders to give input. Walker forthrightly says, \u201cControl is one of the least acknowledged defences of the leader, and it is what often prevents them from working collaboratively with others. Collaboration always involves creating space for other people genuinely to express themselves.\u201d[6]<\/a> Undefended leaders are those who will give up control even though it\u2019s not an easy thing to do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Walker\u2019s work dovetails nicely into the NPO that I\u2019m working on. He reveals pastors lead \u201cheroically\u201d and non-collaboratively, in part, due to a defended ego. As I develop my NPO I need to make sure to pay attention to this dynamic in the lives of our leaders. Skill development is not enough. Leaders need a healthy ego if they are going to collaborate with, and empower, those they lead.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Simon P. Walker, Leading Out Of Who You Are: Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership<\/em>, The Undefended Leader, Piquant Publishing. 2007.Kindle. Chapter 6.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Walker. Kindle. Chapters 7-10<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Walker. Kindle. Chapter 11<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Walker. Kindle. Chapter 4<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Walker. Kindle. Chapter 12<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Walker. Kindle. Chapter 5<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Leading Out of Who You Are, Simon Walker locates the development and response of the ego in how we experience trust in our most formative years.[1] Our experience of trust manifests in one of four ego types, all of which are unhealthy and require defending.[2]\u00a0 Thus the defended leader is always working out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"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":[2967,1718],"class_list":["post-36630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp03","tag-walker","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36630","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\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36630"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36643,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36630\/revisions\/36643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}