“In Let Your Life Speak (Jossey-Bass, 1999), Parker J. Palmer writes of five “shadows” in leaders’ lives. These deep, unconscious beliefs cause harm to the leader and harm to other people. I retitle the shadows this way:
1. I am what I do.
2. This is a war — I must fight and win.
3. It all depends on me.
4. If we manage everything perfectly, we won’t have to deal with chaos and pain.
5. Nothing can fail or die on my watch.
I know that we all read e-mail quickly, but in these final few days of spiritual preparation before Easter, I encourage you to pause for a moment. Before you read on, ask yourself, and answer honestly, “Which of these shadows, if any, have I lived and believed?”
A few months ago I asked myself that question. I soon saw that without realizing it, at work I often act as if Shadow Number 3 were true: “It all depends on me.” This comically irrational, but somehow compelling, belief causes me to give unsolicited advice to others. As I confessed to a friend over lunch, “I have enough energy and opinions for my job and for everyone else’s.” I sometimes feel like the guy who had a near-death experience — and somebody else’s life passed before his eyes.
Obviously, this is not helpful to others (who needs my unasked-for advice?) and is not healthy for me (I feel stress worrying about work that isn’t even mine).
So I’m trying to put off this lie so I can put on the truth: It does not all depend on me. I’m trying to slow down, catch my breath, listen more than talk.
As I look at the list of Leadership Shadows, I think they all come from fear, and deeper still, from what the Bible would describe with a single word: pride. The only way to deal with pride is to humble yourself before God.
Are you living and leading as if a Shadow were substantial? Then join me in praying the words of Thomas Merton: “Give me humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride which is the heaviest of burdens.”
—Kevin Miller is Editor-at-Large of Leadership journal. To comment on this devotional, e-mail Kevin at Newsletter@LeadershipJournal.net
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