Called with a Question (Philippians 2:12 is something that keeps coming up)
Spiritually and emotionally healthy leaders lead from a place of personal security.
When leaders operate from insecurirty, challenges arise that risk personal and corporate success.
Insecure leaders are dangerous to themselves, their followers and the organization they lead.
Public leadership amplifies our flaws, under pressure.
Joseph Nowinsky — Wrote the first book about insecurity and it’s consequences.
- Insecurity refers to a profound sense of self-doubt, a deep feeling of uncertainty about our basic worth and our place in the world. associated with chronic self-consciousness, a chronic lack of selfconfidence and anxiety about ourselves and relationships. Doubt whether our own feelings are legitimate. fear of rejection.
- our sinful nature makes us ego-centric, the new man that God wants us to be is others focues.
- we are taught that we shoudl doubt our own strength and let the Lord’s strength build us. But that doesn’t mean that we should look at ourselves from an insecure perspective.
- Insecure people are self-concious always seeing themselves with a critical eye, easily wounded, and once wounded have a hard time healing.
- Insecure have expectations of themselves and others that are often unspoken.
Biblical Examples
- Moses — Exodus 4:10$14
- Gideon — Judges 6:13
- Paul — 2 Corinthians 3:16
- Saul — 1 Samuel various portions.
Dysfunctional Insecurity
If insecurity is to some extent unavoidable, then the key quesiton becomes this; at what point does insecurity become dysfunctional? I believe that when insecurity is so intense and lasting that it seriously underminse our self-esteem and interferes with our ability to enjoy life, tobuild and to keep satisfying relationships, and toacheive our career potential, it is dysfuntional.
Dysfunctionally Insecure people generally do not see it themselves.
Emotional Intelligence
Academic intelligence has little to do with emotional life. The Brightest among us can founder ont the shoals of unbridled passions and unruly impulses; people with high IQs can be stunningly poor pilots of their private lives.
Leadership Implications
- John Maxwell — the 17 indisputable laws of team work — Insecure people attract weak people.
- Patrick Lencioni — The Five Dysfunctions of a Team — all of the dysfunctions can be linked to insecurity
- Erwin Hargrove — Presiden as Leader — Nixon’s insecurities manifested themselves with a vengeance.
Pride is the root of insecurity.
Vulnerability is a key to success for working with people who are different than us.
the person who is not prideful will empower those around them to be the success. The first prayer for someone dealing with insecurity is to ask for help with our pride.
The Vulnerability of Being Sensitive in Ministry
Sensitivity is part of our temperment. People are born with a degree of sensiitivity that they carry with them throughout their lives. Insecurity is the result of subjecting an innately sensitive person to abuse, rejection, ortraumatic loss. the age at which these things happen, as well as how wever they are and how long they go on, is what determines how insecure a sensitive person will become.
Self-esteem and insecurity is different because you can have high self-esteem and still be very insecure, but you won’t be secure and not have self-esteem.
Are we in ministry to try to earn God’s favor?
Insecurity is rooted in the tenderness of our hearts. There is a vulnerability.
Moving From Insecurity Toward Security
Although the temperaments we are born with, including how interpersonally sensitive we are, are probably no very changeable, insecurity is something that a person can work to overcome. That’s because while sensitivity is something we are born with and will have forever, insecurity is learned. And what can be learned can be unlearned.
- Change expectations for ourselves and others
- work our salvation with fear and trembling
- Dangers of tying strings to each other. Every time we tie an expectation to someone it complicates our lives. We need to determine which ones need to be clipped.
- Learn to unlock emotions
- We cannot hear from God if we don’t speak the same language.
- You need to talk to somebody.
- Refurbish our approach to interpersonal conflict and differences
- Listen, Learn and Compromise
JasonDeuman.com 