The Toughest Person to Lead is Always Yourself

If we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that the toughest person to lead is ourselves. Most people don’t need to worry about the competition. Other people aren’t the reason they lose. If they don’t win, it’s because they disqualify themselves.

That’s as true for leaders as it is for anyone else. They are often their own worst enemies. Why is that?

We Don’t See Ourselves as We See Others

People sel­dom see themselves realistically. Human nature seems to endow us with the ability to size up everybody in the world except ourselves. I'll start with the Mirror Principle, which advises, “The First Person We Must Examine Is Ourselves.” If you don’t look at your­self realistically, you will never understand where your personal difficulties lie. And if you can’t see them, you won’t be able to lead yourself effectively.

We Are Harder on Others Than We Are on Ourselves

Most people use two totally different sets of criteria for judging them­selves versus others. We tend to judge others according to their actions. It’s very cut-and-dried. However, we judge ourselves by our intentions. Even if we do the wrong thing, if we believe our motives were good, we let our­selves off the hook. And we are often willing to do that over and over before requiring ourselves to change.

Keys to Leading Yourself

The truth is that to be successful in any endeavor, we need to learn how to get out of our own way. That’s as true for leaders as it is for anyone else. Because I have known for many years that the toughest person to lead is me, I have taken step help me do that. By practicing the following four thing, I have tried to lead myself well as a prerequisite to leading others:

1. Learn Followership

Civilization is always in danger when those who have never learned to obey are given the right to com­mand. Only a leader who has followed well knows how to lead others well. Good leadership requires an understanding of the world that followers live in. Connecting with your people becomes possible because you have walked in their shoes. You know what it means to be under authority and thus have a better sense of how authority should be exercised.

In contrast, leader who have never followed well or submitted to authority tend to be prideful, unrealistic, rigid, and autocratic. If those words describe your leadership, you need to do some soul searching. Arrogant leaders are rarely effective in the long run. They alienate their followers, their colleagues, and their leaders. Learn to submit to another person’s leadership and to follow well, and you will become a more humble and effective leader.

2. Develop Self-Discipline

Each of us is “monarch” of our own lives. We are responsible for ruling our actions and decisions. To make consistently good decisions, to take the right action when needed, and to refrain from the wrong actions requires character and self-discipline. To do otherwise is to lose control of ourselves to do or say things we regret, to miss opportunities we are given, to spend ourselves into debt.

As King Solomon remarked, “‘The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.”

A man without decision of character can never be said to belong to himself. He belongs to whatever can make a captive of him. When we are foolish, we want to conquer the world. When we are wise, we want to conquer ourselves. That begins when we do what we should no matter how we feel about it.

3. Practice Patience

The leaders I know tend to be impatient. They look ahead, think ahead, and want to move ahead And that can be good. Being one step ahead makes you a leader. However, that can also be bad. Being fifty steps ahead could make you a martyr.

Few worthwhile things in life come quickly. There is no such thing as instant greatness or instant maturity. We are used to instant oatmeal, instant coffee, and microwave popcorn. But becoming a leader doesn’t happen overnight. Microwave leaders don’t have any staying power. Leadership is more of a Crock-Pot proposition. It takes time but the end product is worth the wait.

Leaders need to remember that the point of leading is not to cross the finish line first. It’s to take people across the finish line with you. For that reason, leaders most deliberately slow their pace, stay connected to their people, enlist others to help fulfill the vision, and keep people going. You can’t do that if you re running too far ahead of your people.

4. Seek Accountability

People who lead themselves well know a secret, they can’t trust themselves. Good leaders know that power can be seductive, and they under­stand their own fallibility. To be a leader and deny this is to put yourself in danger.

Over the years, I’ve read about many leaders who failed ethically in their leadership. Can you guess what they had in common? They all thought it could never happen them. There was a false sense of security. They thought they were incapable of ruining their lives and the lives of others.

Learning that was very sobering to me, because I shared the same atti­tude. I thought I was above such possibilities, and that scared me. At that moment, I made two decisions: First, I will not trust myself. Second, I will become accountable to someone other than myself. I believe those deci­sions have helped to keep me on track and able to lead myself and others.

Lack of accountability in our personal life will certainly lead to problems in our public life. We saw that time and time again with high-profile CEOs a few years ago. A Chinese proverb says, “When you see a good man, think of emu­lating him; when you see a bad man, examine your heart.”

Many people feel that accountability is a willingness to explain your actions. I believe that effective accountability begins way before we take action. It starts with getting advice from others.

The willingness to seek and accept advice is a great indicator of accountability. If you seek it early before you take action you will be less likely to get off track. Most wrong actions come about because people are not being held accountable early enough.

Leading yourself well means that you hold yourself to a higher stan­dard of accountability than others do. Why? Because you are held respon­sible not only for your own actions, but also for those of the people you lead.

Leadership is a trust, not a right. For that reason, we must “fix” our­selves earlier than others may be required to. We must always seek to do what’s right, no matter how high we rise or how powerful we become. It’s a struggle we never outgrow.

Keep Your Heart of Compassion Open

One definition of compassion is simply “feeling what other people feel, being concerned, showing that you care.” In other words, when you see somebody in need, you feel their pain. You take time to com­fort them. When somebody is discouraged, you feel that discourage­ment. You take it to heart and you do your best to cheer them up. If you see somebody struggling financially, you don’t just pat them on the back and give them a quick verse. No, you take time for them, and you do what you can to help. You have a genuine concern. You show them that you really care.

Everywhere you go these days people are hurting. People are dis­couraged; many have broken dreams. They’ve made mistakes, and now their lives are in a mess. They need to feel compassion and unconditional love. They don’t need somebody to judge and criticize them, or to tell them what they’re doing wrong. (In most cases, they already know that!) They need somebody to bring hope, somebody to bring healing, somebody to show mercy. Really, they’re looking for a friend, somebody who will be there to encourage them, who will take the time to listen to their story and genuinely care.

We’re all so busy. We have our own priorities and important plans and agendas. Often, our attitude is: I don’t want to be inconvenienced. Don’t bother me with your problems. I’ve got enough problems of my own. How can you tell if your heart is open or closed? Easy. Are you con­cerned about other people, or are you concerned about only yourself? Do you take time to make a difference, to encourage others, to lift their spirits, to make people feel better about themselves? Or are you too busy with your own plans?

If you want to live your best life now, you must make sure that you keep your heart of compassion open. We need to be on the lookout for people we can bless. We need to be willing to be interrupted and in­convenienced every once in a while if it means we can help to meet somebody else’s need.

Many people are unhappy and are not experiencing life to its fullest because they’ve closed their hearts to compassion. They are motivated by only what they want and what they think they need. They rarely do anything for anybody else unless they have an ulterior goal in mind. They are self-involved and self-centered.

Where do we go from here? What’s happening to us? Are we deviating from the original plan?

Think about it…

Bringing up a child ?

The family is the social unit invented to fill up the world with representatives of loving characters. It’s a place for nurturing and developing babies until they’re mature enough to go out of the family as adults and to multiply its image in other surroundings.

Boundaries and Responsibility

The good parent, wants to help his children, grow up. He wants to see us “become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness". Part of this maturing process is helping us know how to take responsibility for our lives. It is second only to learning how to bond, to form strong attachments, the most important thing parents can give children is a sense of responsibility knowing what they are responsible for and knowing what they aren’t responsible for, knowing how to say no and knowing how to accept no. Responsibility is a gift of enormous value.

We’ve all been around middle-aged people who have the boundaries of an eighteen-month-old. They have tantrums or sulk when others set limits on them, or they simply fold and comply with others just to keep the peace. Remember that these adult people started off as little people. They learned long, long ago to either fear or hate boundaries. The relearning process for adults is laborious.

Instilling vs. Repairing Boundaries

A wise mother of adult children once watched her younger friend struggle with her youngster. The child was refusing to behave, and the young mother was quickly losing her mind. Affirming the mother’s decision to make the child sit on a chair by himself, the older woman said, "Developing boundaries in young children is that proverbial ounce of prevention." If we teach responsibility, limit setting, and delay of gratification early on, the smoother our children’s later years of life will be. The later we start, the harder we and they have to work.

If you’re a parent of older children, don’t lose heart. It just means boundary development will be met with more resistance. In their minds, they do not have a lot to gain by learning boundaries. You’ll need to spend more time work­ing on it, getting more support from friends and praying harder!

Respecting the Limits of Others

From an early age, children need to be able to accept the limits of parents, siblings, and friends. They need to know that others don’t always want to play with them, that others may not want to watch the same TV shows they want, and that others may want to eat dinner at a different restaurant than they do. They need to know that the world doesn’t revolve around them.

This is important for a couple of reasons. First, the ability to learn to accept limits teaches us to take responsibility for ourselves. Knowing that others are not always available for us, at our beck and call, helps us too become inwardly directed instead of externally driven. It helps us carry our own knapsack.

Have you ever been around a child who can’t hear no, who keeps whining, cajoling, throwing a tantrum, or pouting till he or she gets his or her way? The problem is, the longer we hate and resist the limits of others, the more dependent we will be on others. We expect others to take care of us, rather than simply taking care of ourselves.

At any rate, God has constructed life itself to teach us this law. It’s the only way we can live on this planet together. Sooner on later, someone will say a no to us that we can’t ignore. It’s built into the fabric of life.

Parents have a sober responsibility of teaching their chil­dren to have an internal sense of boundaries and to respect the boundaries of others. However not many of you should presume to be teachers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

There are certainly no guarantees that our training will be heeded. Children have the responsibility to listen and learn. The older they are, the more responsibility they have. Yet as we learn about our town boundary issues, take responsibility for them, and grow up ourselves, we increase our kids’ chances to learn boundaries in an adult world in which these abilities will be sorely needed every day of their lives.

"God gave us a choice, however never the one to choose our parents"

Marriage and Boundaries

If there were ever a relationship where boundaries could get confused, it is marriage, where by design husband and wife become one flesh”. Bound­aries foster separateness. Marriage has as one of its goals the giving up of separateness and becoming, instead of two, one. What a potential state of confusion, especially for someone who does not have clear boundaries to begin with! More marriages fail because of poor boundaries than for any other reason.

Is This Yours, Mine, or Ours?

No one would have a problem deciding who wears the dress and who wears the tie. It’s a little trickier to decide who balances the checkbook and who mows the lawn. But these duties can be worked out according to the spouses’ individual abilities and interests. Where boundaries can get confusing is in the elements of personhood—the elements of the soul that each person processes and can choose to share with someone else.

The problem arises when one trespasses on the other’s personhood, when one crosses a line and tries to control the feelings, attitudes, behaviors, choices, and values of the other. These things only each individual can control. To try to control these things is to violate someone’s boundaries, and ultimately, it will fail.

Feelings

One of the most important elements that promotes intimacy between two people is the ability of each to take responsibility for his or her own feelings. We do not communicate our feelings by saving, “I feel that you…” We communicate our feelings by saying, I feel sad, or hurt, or lonely, or scared, or…” Such vulnerability is the beginning of intimacy and caring
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Feelings are also a warning signal telling us that we need to do something. For example, if you are angry at someone for something she did, it is your responsibility to go to her and tell her you are angry and why. If you think that your anger is her problem and that he or she needs to fix it, you may wait years. And your anger may turn to bitterness. If you are angry, even if someone else has sinned against you, it is your responsibility to do something about it. Not dealing with hurt or anger can kill a relationship

Desires

Desires are another element of personhood that each spouse needs to take responsibility for. Your disappointed desire is what hurts you. The problem lies in who is responsible for the want. It is your want, not his or hers. You are responsible for getting it fulfilled. That is a rule of life. We do not get everything we want, and we all must grieve over our disappointments instead of punish others for them”


Limits on What I Can Give

We are finite creatures and must give as we “decide in [our] heart to give” being aware of when we are giving past the love point to the resentment point. Problems arise when we blame someone else for our own lack of limits. Often spouses will do more than they really want to and then resent the other for not stopping them from over giving.

Other people are not extensions of his or her wants and desires. Other people have wants and needs of their own, and we must negotiate a fair and loving relationship and respect each other’s limits. The key here is that the other person is not responsible for our limits; we are. Only we know what we can and want to give, and only we can be responsible for drawing that line. If we cannot draw it, we can quickly become resentful

Money & Time

Money

A now-famous bumper sticker reads, “I can’t be overdrawn—I still have checks left!” People have tremendous problems in many different areas dealing with money, including the following:

• impulse spending
• careless budgeting
• living beyond one’s means
• credit problems
• chronically borrowing from friends
• ineffectual savings plans
• working more to pay all the bills
• enabling others

God intended for money to be a blessing to us and others: “Give, and it will be given to you” (Luke 6:38).

Most of us would certainly agree that we need to be in control of our finances. Saving money, keeping costs down, and shopping for discounts are all good things. It’s tempting to see money problems as simply a need for more income; however, the problem often isn’t the high cost of living—it’s the cost of high living.

The problem of our financial outgo exceeding our input is a self-boundary issue. When we have difficulty saying no to spending more than we should, we run the risk of becoming someone else’s servant:

“The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender” (Prov. 22:7).

Time

Many people feel that their time is out of control. They are “eleventh-hour people,” constantly on the edge of deadlines. Try as they might, they find the day—every day— getting away from them. There just aren’t enough hours to accomplish their tasks. The word early doesn’t seem to be part of their personal experience. Some of the time binds these strugglers deal with are these:

• business meetings
• luncheon appointments
• project deadlines
• social and school activities
• holiday mailings

These people breeze into meetings fifteen minutes late and breathlessly apologize, talking about traffic, overwhelming job responsibilities, or kid emergencies. People whose time is out of control inconvenience others whether they mean to or not. The problem often stems from one or more of the following causes:

1. Omnipotence. These people have unrealistic, somewhat grandiose expectations of what they can accomplish in a given amount of time. “No problem—I’ll do it” is their motto.

2. Over-responsibility for the feelings of others. They think that leaving a party too early will cause the host to feel abandoned.

3. Lack of realistic anxiety. They live so much in the present that they neglect to plan ahead for traffic, parking the car, or dressing for an outing.

4. Rationalization. They minimize the distress and inconvenience that others must put up with because of their lateness. They think, “They’re my friends—they’ll understand.”

The person with undeveloped time sell-boundaries ends up frustrating not only others, but himself. He ends the day without the sense that a “desire realized is sweet to the soul" instead, he is left with unrealized desires, half-baked projects, and the realization that tomorrow will begin with him running behind schedule.

Self Limits & Boundaries

One of the definitions of a myth is a fiction that looks like a truth. Sometimes it sounds so true that we believe it automatically. Some of these myths come from our family backgrounds. Some come from our theological foundations. And some come from our own misunderstandings. Whatever the source, we should mindfully inves­tigate anything that “sounds-like-truths.”

Many of us fear that setting and keeping limits signals rebellion, or disobedience. In religious and social circles you’ll often hear statements such as, “Your unwillingness to go along with our program shows an unresponsive heart.” Because of this myth, countless individuals remain trapped in endless activities of no genuine spiritual and emotional value.

The truth is life-changing where a lack of boundaries is often a sign of disobedience. People who have shaky limits are often compliant on the outside, but rebellious and resentful on the Inside. They would like to be able to say no, but are afraid. So they cover their fear with a half-hearted yes.

"It’s important to understand that your no is always subject to you. You own your boundaries. They don’t own you. If you set limits with someone, and he or she responds maturely and lovingly, you can renegotiate the boundary."

In addition, you can change the boundary if you are in a safer place. As we’ve probably noticed, some of these myths are genuine misconceptions we may have learned from distort­ed teachings. Yet others simply result from the fear of standing up and saving "NO" to irrational responsibility.

Perhaps we should mindfully review which myths have entangled and ensnared us. And ask God to give us a sense of confidence that he believes in good boundaries more than we do.