The Emotionally Healthy Leader

1. Embrace Your Shadow: Confront Hidden Aspects of Your Leadership

Your shadow is the accumulation of untamed emotions, less-than-pure motives and thoughts that, while largely unconscious, strongly influence and shape your behaviors. It is the damaged but mostly hidden version of who you are.

Recognize your shadow. The shadow represents the aspects of ourselves we try to hide or deny, including our wounds, weaknesses, and negative tendencies. As a leader, failing to confront your shadow can lead to:

• Unresolved emotional issues affecting decision-making
• Inconsistency between public persona and private behavior
• Difficulty in authentic relationships with team members

Confront and integrate. To address your shadow:

• Engage in self-reflection and journaling
• Seek feedback from trusted mentors or counselors
• Create a genogram to explore family-of-origin influences
• Practice vulnerability by sharing struggles with appropriate others

By embracing your shadow, you can lead with greater integrity, self-awareness, and empathy for others.

2. Lead from Your Relationship Status: Marriage or Singleness as Your Loudest Gospel Message

We are first of all human beings. But when things get switched around and our role or title becomes the foundation of our identity, we are reduced to human doings.

Reframe your primary vocation. Whether married or single, your relationship status should be viewed as a powerful way to demonstrate God's love to the world. This involves:

• For married leaders:

  • Making your marriage, not leadership, your first ambition
  • Cultivating passion and intimacy in your relationship
  • Allowing your marriage to overflow into your ministry

• For single leaders:

  • Embracing singleness as a unique opportunity for devoted service
  • Investing in deep friendships and community
  • Demonstrating contentment and purpose in your single state

By leading from your relationship status, you model a holistic, Christ-centered approach to life and leadership.

3. Slow Down for Loving Union: Prioritize Your Connection with God

Loving union is to lovingly allow God to have full access to your life.

Cultivate intimacy with God. Many leaders fall into the trap of doing more for God at the expense of being with God. To counteract this tendency:

• Create regular space for solitude and silence
• Practice contemplative prayer and Scripture meditation
• Develop a personalized Rule of Life to structure spiritual practices

Allow transformation. As you prioritize loving union with God:

• Your leadership flows from a place of rest and centeredness
• You become more attuned to God's voice and leading
• Your own transformation impacts those you lead

Remember, who you are becoming in Christ is more important than what you accomplish for Him.

4. Practice Sabbath Delight: Embrace Rest as a Core Spiritual Discipline

Biblical Sabbath is a twenty-four-hour block of time in which we stop work, enjoy rest, practice delight, and contemplate God.

Redefine Sabbath. Move beyond seeing Sabbath as merely a day off to embracing it as:

• A prophetic act of resistance against a culture of busyness
• An opportunity to realign your identity in God's love
• A weekly taste of eternity and God's coming kingdom

Implement Sabbath practices:

• Stop: Cease all work-related activities
• Rest: Engage in activities that restore and replenish
• Delight: Intentionally enjoy God's good gifts
• Contemplate: Focus on God's love and presence

By consistently practicing Sabbath, you model a counter-cultural rhythm of work and rest that can transform your leadership and organization.

5. Redefine Success: Radically Doing God's Will, Not Just Growing Numbers

Success is first and foremost doing what God has asked us to do, doing it his way, and in his timing.

Shift your metrics. Move beyond defining success solely by external markers like attendance, finances, or program participation. Instead, focus on:

• Discerning and faithfully carrying out God's specific will for your context
• Measuring spiritual transformation in individuals and the community
• Valuing qualitative growth alongside quantitative growth

Embrace a broader perspective. Recognize that:

• God's definition of success may look different than worldly standards
• Seasons of pruning or apparent setbacks can be part of God's plan
• Faithfulness to God's calling is more important than visible results

By redefining success, you free yourself and your organization to pursue God's unique vision, even when it doesn't align with conventional expectations.

6. Build a Healthy Culture: Integrate Work Performance and Spiritual Formation

Minimally transformed leaders will always result in minimally transformed teams doing minimally transforming ministry.

Holistic development. Create a culture where work performance and personal spiritual growth are inseparable:

• Make spiritual formation a key part of job descriptions and evaluations
• Invest time in addressing character issues alongside skill development
• Model vulnerability by sharing your own growth journey

Address elephants in the room. Cultivate an environment where:

• Inappropriate behaviors are lovingly confronted
• Difficult conversations are seen as opportunities for growth
• Team members feel safe to express concerns and work through conflicts

By intentionally building this kind of culture, you create an environment where both individuals and the organization can flourish.

7. Steward Power Wisely: Acknowledge Your Influence and Set Clear Boundaries

The degree to which we ignore or minimize our power is the degree to which we are at risk of ethical misconduct.

Recognize your power sources:

• Positional: Authority from your role or title
• Personal: Influence from your gifts, skills, and experiences
• Spiritual: Weight carried as a representative of God
• Relational: Trust built through shared experiences
• Cultural: Influence based on age, gender, ethnicity, etc.

Exercise power responsibly:

• Come under others to serve, following Jesus' example
• Be aware of power imbalances in relationships
• Set clear boundaries, especially in dual relationships (e.g., boss/friend)
• Seek accountability and outside perspective

By stewarding power wisely, you protect both yourself and those you lead from potential harm or ethical missteps.

8. Navigate Endings and New Beginnings: Embrace Change as a Path to Growth

Death is a necessary prelude to resurrection. To bear long-term fruit for Christ, we need to recognize that some things must die so something new can grow.

Reframe endings. Instead of viewing endings as failures, see them as:

• Necessary for new growth and development
• Opportunities for deeper spiritual formation
• Gateways to God's new beginnings

Navigate transitions well:

1. Accept that endings are a death and allow yourself to grieve
2. Recognize that the "in-between" waiting period may be longer than expected
3. Use the waiting time to deepen your relationship with God
4. Look expectantly for signs of new life and resurrection

By embracing this biblical pattern of death and resurrection in your leadership, you position yourself and your organization to experience ongoing renewal and fruitfulness.

Last updated: January 24, 2025