13 Jun 5 Deadly Leadership Sins – Part 3
THE FIVE DEADLIEST SINS OF A LEADER.
So we are on Day Three of a series that we’re doing this week titled The Five Deadliest Sins of a Leader. If you have not watched the first two, I highly recommend you do, you can check them out in our video section here on Facebook, obviously they’ll be posted on our Youtube channel, you can check them out there or you can go to our website on our blog page at www.transforminglivescoaching.com, we’ll go ahead and post that in the comments section so you click right on it and go directly there.
So when we talk about the deadliest of sins for leaders, what we’re talking about is not physical death but actually leadership death because what we defined in the very first video was what leadership is, it’s about helping others, it’s about attracting others to your vision, to your mission, to goals that you’re looking to establish for your organization, family, whatever, and that it becomes a vehicle for other people to succeed in their goals. Well if you participate in these leadership sins per se we believe that you’re going to massively increase your ability to break rapport, you’re actually going to create an environment where people are not going to want to participate under your leadership.
So the first one we talked about which was the deadliest of all the sins is the perfectionism.
There’s no such thing as perfectionism, it only existed in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So we’re born into sin, we talked about that we’re born into sin, that we can’t measure up to perfection. We look at progress, we look at being measured against results and expectations and the expectation is not perfection because you yourself can’t live up to it and you can’t hold someone accountable for something you yourself can’t live up to. So go back and watch that video, really great content there.
The second one was pride, and we talked about how nobody wants to follow a leader who thinks they’re better than everyone.
So we look at it and we understand that leadership is about being humble, it’s about servant leadership, serving other people; and pride is about putting yourself in front of other people and having this arrogance of your own accomplishments and you’ve done it on the backs of other people. So that’s a great video as well,
Today we’re going to talk about the third deadliest sin.
which has pretty much equal importance because what we understand about this one is this one is about what you embody, and what that is is insecurity. The third deadliest sin is insecurity, and like everything we do, we look to define exactly what we’re dealing with, like what’s does the word mean before we jump into it. So when we talk about insecurity, insecurity is defined as uncertainty or anxiety about oneself, lack of confidence. So let’s chunk that down a little bit.
Uncertainty, lack of confidence, like what do we believe leadership to be? We believe that you don’t have to be certain, you don’t have to know it all in leadership, but I believe your people want to know that you’re certain about what you’re doing. Why? Because if you’re uncomfortable with who you are, others will be too. If you’re uncomfortable about making decisions, your people will be uncomfortable about your decision-making process. If you are uncertain about what you’re supposed to be doing because you have fear, you’re a fear-based leader, people are going to be fearful of you. And we believe, what we start to understand about insecurity is this is going to break relationship, this is going to break confidence. We believe that leaders should be confident. Why? Because they have to lead the way. You don’t have to know it all, you don’t have to do everything right, AKA perfectionism, what you have to be is courageous, and courageous is about understanding and recognizing fear exists.
What I’ve talked about in previous videos that I’ve done about fear is what we know about human psychology is you’re only born into two fears, the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises, everything else is programmed in. And what I’ve learned about the study of fear and psychology is that typically fears come with living for other people’s opinion, that insecurity is a fear that establishes itself because you’re more worried about other people’s opinion than what you know needs to happen. You’re worried about failure, you’re worried about being in significant, and sometimes …the third biggest fear so we have the fear of failure, the fear of insignificance, and the fear of success; and quite frankly all three of those are foundational about other people’s opinion.
I did a video about leading for other people’s opinion, you will fail if all your decisions are made more about living for other people and their acceptance and their opinion, you’re going to die to their rejection. Leadership needs to be about leading for your vision, your mission, your goals, your intentions, serving your people and their goals. If you show up as insecure, if you show up as a fear-based leader what’s going to wind up happening is your people are not going to follow you, they are not going to trust you. Trust is probably one of the biggest ingredients for successful leadership. People need to trust their leader and their leader needs to trust the people.
And so let me share some notes I wrote down yesterday when I was kind of just journaling about this. You know we talk about if you’re uncomfortable with who you are others will be too, but if you’re fearful others will be fearful of you. If you’re uncertain, people will be uncertain about you. We know that we live in a world of energy and the law of conservation tells us energy can neither be created nor destroyed just transferred, so as human beings we’re always transferring an energy, and if you transfer an energy of uncertainty that’s what people are going to feel. If you transfer an energy of fear that’s what people are going to feel.
People want their leaders to be secure, people want their leaders to be certain, people want their leaders to be confident. It doesn’t mean that they don’t want their leaders to fail. I believe a leader who’s vulnerable to failure and transparent in their failures for learning sake is a very powerful leader, you can do a lot with other people when you are able to be in touch with your vulnerability to failure because your people are going to fail, your people want to know it’s okay to fail. And if you’re insecure about failure, if you lack confidence because your failure is about the fear of failure and what other people are going to think or the fear of not being good enough in your people’s eyes I promise you they’ll look less about you because of that than they would if you actually fail. Why? Because what leaders are supposed to do is in the presence of failure, the whole leadership journey is failing forward.
And so if you’re running from failure for other people’s opinions or for the fear of feeling less in their eyes you’re truly failing. That’s not even a failure that’s a fail forward, that’s a failure going backwards because you’re not going to progress. Because the whole leadership journey …look I’ve got some of my leadership clients on this video, guys thank you for joining me, I’d love to hear from you guys…these guys are riding on the backs of failure and they’re massively increasing their leadership capacity because they’re willing to embrace failure because in the eye of failure comes the ability to learn and grow, and that’s what leadership is all about.
If you’re insecure with yourself whether it’s due to lack of skills or confidence or anything of that nature people are not going to want to get into business with you, they’re not going to want to join your office, they’re not going to want to join your mission, they’re not going to believe in your vision. And if they have done so and then they see you show up as this insecure leader they’re going to question. They’re going to question you, they’re going to question “Are you really the vehicle to my success? Are you really the person that can take me to where I want to go because I’m not certain. And I’m not certain because you’re not certain.”
My beautiful wife Rebecca says “I want to follow someone who believes they will win.” Heck yeah. Heck yeah. And in that …you know Rebecca I think there’s more to that someone who believes that they will win, people who believe they will win it’s because they’ve won before; people who believe they will win it’s because they hate to lose. I’m one of those people. I hate losing more than I like winning. Winning to me is a byproduct of the total distain to losing.
So what do we look at here? People want to trust their leader that their leader can take them where they want to go with very little shadow of a doubt. With very little shadow of a doubt, And when I say very little shadow of a doubt because I think it’s natural to have some doubt because I think people just naturally doubt everything, it’s part of our stimuli brain processing where the brain is always looking at “Could this really be true? Is there a different way to look at this?” Why? Because it’s self protection mechanism. In the eye of an unknown the brain is going to protect you, it’s what it’s designed to do. It’s not designed to make you successful, it’s not designed to make you happy, that’s why there’s so many people that are status quo at best and on anti-depressant medications.
So understand something, leaders we need to rewire our brain. Elements of your insecurity I believe are part of your natural psychology so much so that the Bible speaks on fear. Because we talked about insecurity is a byproduct of fear, the Bible speaks on fear, it’s mentioned 365 times…365 times. Now what’s coincidental about that number? Well there’s 365 days in the year. And I believe the Bible wasn’t written on accident, I believe certain things about the Bible just didn’t happen to be a coincidence. It’s no coincidence that the Bible speaks 365 times on fear when there’s 365 days in a year. I think what the Bible is telling us is that we naturally have fears. Every day you wake up leaders you’re going to have fear, and that’s why leadership is about being courageous.
Courageous is understanding and recognizing fear exists, and you say “Screw that. I’m going to do it anyway. I’m not going to let fear control me. Why? Because I want to win, and I understand that if I fall short,” and you can call that failure if you would put that label on it, “…but if I fall short then that’s an opportunity for growth. I’m so confident in my abilities that even if I fall short of the expectation, goal or result, I’m going to learn from it and improve myself and in turn it’s going to raise my leadership capacity.”
So leaders here’s what I want you to understand about this third deadliest sin. If you live in insecurity, if you live in this fear-based psychology about whether you have the skills to lead other people, these are some common things that I hear from people that I coach and consult with, “Well I don’t have the skills yet to be a leader. Why would anybody want to join my organization? Why would anybody join what I’m doing when they can go join a bigger organization or greater leaders?”
They question themselves and all that is they’re revealing…remember I said in yesterday’s video that people’s words reveal their psychology, their thoughts; and what that leader that says those things whether out loud or to themselves what you’re revealing are your insecurities that are driven by fears. Leaders you must be courageous, you must recognize what fears exist within you and challenge them, fight them. There’s only two driving forces you’re going to move towards, the emotion of movement towards pleasure or away from pain. It’s the fight or flight mechanisms within you.
Are you a leader that’s going to fight for your vision, for yourself, for your family, for the people that believe in you? Because if you’re leading them they believe in you, there’s some element of belief that you are the vehicle to their success. My question is are you going to fight for them? Are you going to be courageous or are you going to flight? You’re just going to retreat? You’re going to play status quo? You’re going to tell yourself… and I hear this and this drives me crazy, clients if you’re out there and you say this to me I promise as a coach I’m going to challenge you on this, “Well maybe I should just go back to being a solo agent or a solo business owner with an assistant or two. It was easier.”
Look, success is simple not easy, and when you choose easy what you’re choosing is status quo. When you choose the difficult, when you choose courageous, when you choose the fight you are moving in the direction of success. Leaders I promise you one thing, if you allow your insecurities to manifest in leading yourself and other people in your families and in your organizations you’re going to lose with them, you will break rapport, you’ll break relationship and they’re going to break contact, they’re going to get out of dot. They’re going to go find the next leader that is secure, that is confident, that is courageous, that understands and recognizes that a loss is just another opportunity to go become better and kick the next opponents butt.
Stop living in insecurity, it’s a deadly sin to your leadership. The Bible gives us a verse every single day, look it up, Google it. You want to challenge your insecurities go find the 365 Bible verses that allow you to challenge your fears based on truths. The Bible is a book of truths and if you want the truth go seek the truths related to your insecurities and fears. Read a new one, study it, absorb it, make it become you and I promise you one thing your insecurities will become courage, they will become confidence. You’re going to create a greater strength to lead others at a much higher capacity. Your leadership will be stronger I promise you. It’s the truth.
So leaders I have a question for you, what’s the one insecurity that’s controlling you right now?
What’s the one insecurity that’s controlling you right now that if you can overcome that you’re going to massively increase your leadership capacity and grow your leadership lid? It’s going to allow you to maybe attract more talented people or attract the people that you really need and want in your organization. It’s going to allow you to be that leader for the people that you’re already leading whether it’s leading yourself, leading your spouse, your children, cause those are the first places we start to hone our leadership. What is the one insecurity that’s controlling you right now? Leaders I’d like to hear it in the comments section.
I believe that your first step to transformation from an insecure leader, a fear-based leader to a courageous leader is being vulnerable to understanding what that is and putting it in the comment section and saying “Here I am coach, here I am Lord, fix this within me because I know if I fix this, boom! My leadership capacity is going to massively increase.”
Brian says his insecurity is fear of failure. Brian here’s what I’ll tell you because I’m going to speak to a lot of people here, your fear is not failure, what your fear is “What are other people going to think if I fail? What does it mean to me when I fail?” And that usually comes from some other elements of our life where failure has showed up and other people’s opinion shaped your programming around failure. It’s like I said, you’re not born with the fear of failure, throw a baby up in the air and watch him flail, he’s scared. Bang some cymbals in their face, they’re scared. You’re born with that, that lives with you the most of your life. I don’t care how many times you jump out of an airplane you’re going to be scared falling out of that airplane until your parachute opens up, I promise you. So Brian understand you’re not fear of failure, your fear is around what other people are going to think about you if you fail, and what does it mean to you based off of previous experiences.
People, leaders I will tell you this, if you live in the past based off of how other people showed up in your life and defined events that control you today you’ll never be able to reach peak performance because those people have said “Hey Brian… Hey Chris here’s your leader… here’s your lid for success in the future. I defined your failure and I gave it this negative meaning; you put a lot of value in our relationship, so because I’m giving this negative emotion to you, I’m giving it to you as a gift, this negative emotion. Boom! There’s your ceiling of achievement. I love you so much that there’s your ceiling of achievement.”
If you or anybody else wants to break through that reach out to me, chris@transforminglivescoaching.com. Private message me, text me, I don’t care because if you can break through that ceiling, understand my insecurity is the meaning associated with the event of falling short of a goal; my insecurity is what other people have defined and the emotion that’s been created around my inability to achieve a desired goal or result. And you’re not the only one, there’s many of them out there, and I promise you one thing guys, it’s your ceiling of achievement to living out the greatness that God created you to be.
So guys thank you for joining me today. I’d love to hear more about how as a leader you want to challenge your insecurities, you want to challenge your fears, you want to challenge the meanings associated to those events in your life. I’d be glad to continue the coaching process. Like this video, subscribe to our YouTube channel, click on the little bell that notifies you when we go live because I promise you if you just take a little bit more each and every day in your leadership journey you’re going to lead stronger, you’re going to have more influence and you’ll have greater impact on yourself, those you love and the world around you and you’ll have a legacy that will last forever. And what better way to live a life than one of a influential, impactful leader that leaves a legacy? Guys thank you for joining me today, I hope you have a blessed day, I hope you have an awesome rest of your day. Remember one thing, God loves you, so do I.
Lead strong. Have a powerful day. Take care.
About the author:
Over the course of 8 years, Christopher Hart went from an enlisted Private First Class to a Commissioned Officer-Captain. In 2005, Christopher chose to move on from his military career to focus on starting a family and embarking in the world of entrepreneurship. Christopher’s passion is now working to help others be the BEST version of themselves and helping them Lead others to the same!
To learn more about Christopher Hart or to get in touch with him regarding a coaching program you can email him at Chris@TransformingLivesCoaching.com
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