Acrid Agreements

I agreed to do what?

When I commit to talk to anyone about leadership, I always start with a discussion about leadership philosophy. This is a critical preparation before the onset of the leadership journey because in many ways it sets the tone and the expectations for the destination; however, I have learned that it’s one thing to have a leadership philosophy, or a philosophy about life. But it is another thing altogether to actually implement and follow what you claim to believe.

Being the natural teacher that some leaders are, we will have a normal flow of people coming into our lives asking for clarity and direction. And being a “wise and mature” leader, we always have some sage advice that helps move everyone along in the right direction. What I have found, is that often we believe our ideas about life and leadership are good for others, but we have a hard time turning them on ourselves. We say, “you should do this” or “it’s clear to me what should happen here,” but we have no intention of dealing with our own life issues in the same way. It’s too hard right?

There is the story in the Bible of king David who has an affair and afterward has the lady’s husband murdered. At first, he seems to get by relatively unscathed. Many months pass and eventually one of the prophets comes to him with a story:

“There were two men in the same city—one rich, the other poor. The rich man had huge flocks of sheep and herds of cattle. The poor man had nothing but one little female lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up with him and his children as a member of the family. It ate off his plate and drank from his cup and slept on his bed. It was like a daughter to him. One day a traveler dropped in on the rich man. He was too stingy to take an animal from his own herds or flocks to make a meal for his visitor, so he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared a meal to set before his guest. David exploded in anger. “As surely as God lives,” he said to the prophet, “the man who did this must die! He must repay for the lamb four times over for his crime and his stinginess!” The prophet then said to David, “You yourself are the man!” 

Oh, I bet that hit hard! Let’s get to the crux of this. There are very likely some obvious glaring issues you are facing right now that you are continuing to ignore. What you have actually done is made some acrid agreements with yourself. You have decided that what is good and right for others does not apply to you, and you have learned to cope and hide your own issues while still counseling others on how they should “break free” and “change their situation.”

Take five minutes and consider what acrid agreements you have made with yourself. What deep rooted agreements are holding you back? What agreements are you afraid to reveal to yourself? Some common agreements: “It’ll always be this way”, “I can’t change it”, “success is for everyone else, not me”, or “this is just my lot in life.” Hear me on this: These things are holding you back, and they will keep coming up over and over until you finally decide to deal with them. They are, in no small way self-made prisons for your soul and your future.

A big step forward for the leader is when they submit to the process of aligning the most difficult parts of their life with the reality of their beliefs. This is the process of becoming authentic. This is the process of leadership…

Now Go Lead