{"id":36659,"date":"2024-03-14T14:55:05","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T21:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=36659"},"modified":"2024-03-14T15:01:43","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T22:01:43","slug":"36659-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/36659-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Stages of a Good Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leaders are formed and not appointed. Simon Walker\u2019s Undefended Leader <\/em>addresses in detail how to rediscover leadership formation from the inside out. Using research and history as a backdrop, he highlights how a leader overcomes the battles within as the blueprint for success.<\/p>\n

Using a front stage\/backstage analogy, Walker highlights how superior leaders are by gaining victory within themselves. As the front stage is the place of performance, he unpacks the back stage as a messy place, however to my appreciation, he also weaves together the positive benefits of being backstage. “it is also the place where the script is written, learnt, and rehearsed. Here new ideas are generated and tried out.”[1]<\/a>\u00a0 The front stage\/backstage conflict is real, and using performance as an example, I am reminiscent of my own personal experience.<\/p>\n

It was a sold-out performance. A gospel concert with thousands of people in attendance. Set to perform a major female gospel artist. This evening, I was called upon to be the lead in her security detail, which included seeing her on and off stage. Like the movie The Bodyguard, I had a Kevin Costner-like assignment.<\/span>\u00a0Weaving through from the back area, escorting her through people and then on and off the stage. <\/span><\/p>\n

For one hour, I watched firsthand this woman pour her all on stage, singing, worshipping, exhorting, and glorifying God. The Holy Spirit used her to minister to this audience in a profound way as souls were saved and lives impacted. As she was finishing her set and coming down the steps off the stage, she grabbed my hand. As we were walking hand in hand through the backstage crowd and hallways and back to her dressing room she was breathing heavy, gasping all the while. When we returned to the dressing room backstage, she was frantically asking for water. Finally composing herself after drinking the water, she said I could not take the lights. The reason she could not take the lights was due to a preexisting health condition. <\/span><\/p>\n

She was performing and hiding at the same time. When I meet leaders, I am not always sold on the front side; rather, my internal curiosity meter sometimes peaks to ask, with all of the good that we see of a person, place, or thing, what are they hiding backstage? We all are accustomed to seeing the good but sometimes not the challenges, which can help give us a total appreciation of the full picture.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a former clergyman, I am sure these experiences are nothing new to Simon Walker, whose insights bring this to the forefront, adding much-needed heft to address the personal and hidden side of leadership. In helping us understand the concept of a Defended Self<\/em>, Walker touches upon the trust factor and how it impacts our leadership Ego and outlines four types of Ego responses in locating its roots they are:<\/span><\/p>\n