October 21, 2008
To Thy Own Self Be True
Dan was struggling. His recently planted church was not growing like he had anticipated. I listened to him explain all the reasons he believed things weren’t developing as he had hoped. He was frustrated. Dan mentioned his family was also frustrated as they were seeing less and less of him and when he was home, by his own admission, he was distracted.”Dan, how does your current situation align with your core value of empowering others?” I asked.Silence followed, Dan looked out the window and then quietly said, “Not at all.”"Hmm, how did things end up this way?”Dan told story after story of what had happened. And a theme emerged. It seemed person after person would approach Dan with a great idea or a particular need and he would do everything he could to make that idea come to life or meet that particular need. He did so very, very successfully. But in so doing he had drifted slowly but steadily away from his stated core values.Nearly all of the things that had caused the drift were good…most were very good. And they provided progress, but they were ever so slightly contrary to Dan’s core value of empowering others. Dan and his team were doing ministry rather than empowering others to be minsters.”Let me ask you Dan, did God give you your core values?”"Yes, I believe He did.”"Did he do so before or after all these distractions and frustrations?”"Before.”"What are you going to do about that?”"Well, I’m going to confess my sin of compromise and stop being manipulated by the wants and needs of everyone. I’m going to stay faithful to what God said we should be.”The famous phrase, “To thy own self be true,” from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The line is from the famous scene where a father is preparing a son for a long voyage to a foreign land. It includes other pearls of wisdom including, “neither a borrower nor a lender be.”While these words of wisdom are nearly universal in their application they are particularly salient to this often encountered dynamic in coaching: helping a leader maintain alignment with their values.How do you help those you are coaching remain aligned with their core values?
This is very insightful and I think I would call this post “the power of the inside”. There is so much we have within us but more often than not, we don’t realize it, that is why it becomes easy for us to get distracted. People come to us with good intentions sometimes and we feel that there is no big deal in doing what they want as long as it looks good and looks right.
But the question is; is that what God has called you to do? It kind of reminds me of a man who embarks on a long journey, he is moving on well until he gets to a cross road. One part of it is rough and riddled with pot holes and the other is smooth. He opts to take the latter believing he will get to his destination faster and then what do you know; he hits a dead end.
Its difficult as a coach to help your coachees to stick to the right end of the road, when you haven’t been there yourself. Its difficult for you to empower them to stick to their core values when you just go with the flow.
Coaches need to be continuously coached too and more importantly they need to be in touch with their Shepherd so they can understand how to lead and guide others.
Looking forward to some new posts
Comment by Florence Kayemba — November 2, 2008 @ 6:26 am