Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” I feel like I could end this blog post there and solicit feedback. But I’ll go on…
I’m reading a book by Wayde Goodall called Success Kills. Catchy title, huh? The book asks questions about why leaders fail once they achieve a level of success. And this book follows Goodall’s earlier work titled Why Great Men Fall. Of course, women in leadership (or anywhere, for that matter) are also not immune to the challenges faced when one acquires power and authority.
In his newer book, Goodall focuses on leaders in the church and in ministry who have lost it all when they experienced significant failures. The content reminds me of another book I read several years ago as part of a men’s group: Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership by Gary McIntosh and Samuel Rima. I see at Amazon that there’s a new, improved edition of this book out, published in 2007, and I think I would recommend it over the Goodall book for reasons I won’t go into here.
Many years ago—probably 25+ years—a friend offended me by saying, “Any one of us is capable of any kind of sin; it doesn’t matter how dark or twisted it may seem.” I said, “No way. I don’t buy that. I’m capable of a lot of things, but there are certain things I know I’m not at risk of, things I just won’t do.” He responded, “Then that’s precisely where you’re at risk because you won’t build defenses in those areas.”
My hope in bringing up this topic is that we would be more aware of the potential we each possess for massive moral failure—whether we are corporate CEOs or camp directors or conference staff members. Whatever our level of power or responsibility, it can go to our head, cloud our thinking and cause us to lose our focus if we let it.
Wow that is soooo true, I know that I have to guard my wild heart! Thanks for the great message and all the encouragement you send out to us!
Greg,
Larry Osborne has some interesting thoughts on the subject of defenses in his book The Contrarian’s Guide to Knowing God. Larry poses the idea that when we create unnecessary boundaries or fences we become desensitized to them. We begin to automatically jump our “over protective” fences because we know they are overkill. The problem is that by doing so, we begin a habit of jumping those fences… which leads us to callously jumping over the fences that God has given us.
It is a good look at the other side of the coin… in an effort to be balanced as we create defenses for sin.
Wow. Great quote from Lincoln. I added it to my files immediately.
I don’t think we have to look much farther than notes on Phil Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment to see that given even just a little bit of “fake” power, people can get out of control.
There is another simple experiment where someone is appointed the “group leader” in a discussion and a little later facilitators bring out cookies or some sort of a snack for the group, bringing enough so there is maybe one or two extra of the snack. The group leader is more likely to selfishly take the extra snacks and chew with their mouth open or exhibit other rude eating habits.
These are practical (and perhaps silly) examples of what power can do.
It is ESSENTIAL that Christian leaders stay grounded and eat their fair share of “humble pie” regularly. We need to avoid complacency and entitlement like the plague. That’s my two-cents. 🙂