Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs

Anxiety shrinks the power of the gospel because it presents a false gospel—one of self-reliance rather than reliance on God.

This is why I think the gospel of Jesus is such incredibly good news, because what you may not have gotten as a child, Jesus freely offers without condition: identity, acceptance, love.

The goal of managing anxiety is not simply for relief, it is to connect more fully with God and to raise awareness of what God is doing. Anxiety blocks our awareness of God because it takes our subconscious attention. This means that anxiety can be an early detection system that we’re depending on something other than God for our

Differentiation is the courage to lead people to a difficult place while still being deeply connected. Connected to yourself and your conviction, connected to the people you are leading, and remaining nonanxious in the face of anxious responses. It is the ability to walk into an anxious situation and lead people into a new reality while maintaining caring connection to them even when they are sabotaging your efforts. Jesus, not surprisingly, is a model of differentiated leadership.

I believe leadership anxiety is generated when we think we need something in any particular moment that we don’t actually need.

We all know the importance of observing some kind of Sabbath rhythm. After all, you can’t fill a moving cup.

One simple exercise for those brave enough to try it is to ask people you trust, “Why do people follow me?” If you gather several friends and ask one another, you will discover a variety of differences.

Anxiety blocks our awareness of God because it takes our subconscious attention. This means that anxiety can be an early detection system that we’re depending on something other than God for our well-being.

Here is what I did and I regret how I did it. Here is where I was coming from. I am not saying that to excuse it. I know it caused damage, and I am sorry for the hurt that it caused. I would like to hear how it affected you.” Repair work takes humility and courage, but also builds significant trust and relational equity. The simplest repair is when you acknowledge what you did, apologize for it, and acknowledge the impact it had on the other. An apology without an acknowledgment of impact isn’t enough. But most people will give each other grace for these situations if repair is handled well. Recognize

By paying attention to what was bubbling underneath and managing it, I discovered new levels of freedom and a profound encounter with God’s grace. I experienced genuine spiritual breakthroughs of patterns that had previously kept me stuck.

Burnout has less to do with workload and more to do with internal and external leadership anxiety.

Jesus forever changed the perception of infection and sin transfer. When Jesus, the healthy and holy man, touched the sick and when he lived in close proximity to “sinners,” he infected them. Instead of Jesus becoming sick or sinful, the people became clean.

In contrast, a differentiated leader is fully present, but fully intact, with space between where he or she ends and the other begins.

Jeanie Duck said that in the absence of information, “people will connect the dots in the most pathological way possible.”1 Often the stories we tell ourselves are full of all manner of pathology and half-truths. The good news of Jesus is the story no longer gets the final word.

God has forged a new path in Jesus that leads to life and freedom. Walking by faith, then, is the lifelong habit of trusting God’s story over the story we tell ourselves. Contemplate this modified phrase: Jesus died to free me from needing anymore.

Paul was saying that now that we are in Christ, the jig is up with sin; it no longer has power over us because Christ has pulled back the curtain and shown its false allure.

The greater truth was that God was present in those situations; God was in the room before I walked in, and God would guide me. I did not, in fact, need to know what to say. The more I depended on needing to say the right thing, the less effective I was as a chaplain. I was managing my own anxiety rather than paying attention to God.

you find yourself in the anxiety of interpreting mixed messages, simply choose the message you want to receive, ignore the other, and see what happens.

In our effort to become like him, we actually fall in to a sophisticated form of idolatry-we tend to make Jesus into a perfected version of our image and then strive to become like that. Nope. We will never be like Christ. Let's deny false self, worship him, and be free.

When Jesus was on earth, following him was certainly not easy, but it was straightforward. No doubt, Jesus said things and went places that kept the disciples scratching their collective heads and saying among themselves, “It’s your turn to ask. I asked him last time and I still feel like an idiot.” As far as I can tell, Peter was the appointed, or perhaps self-appointed, disciple to take a deep breath and say to Jesus, “I don’t get it.

symptoms. The primary symptom is when you keep seeking new answers to old questions rather than reframing the questions.

We needed them as kids and they fit well, but as we grew into adulthood, they became constricting and began to strangle us. A vow suffocates your future and increases your anxiety, because you are living out of that vow rather than by faith in God.

All people should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why. —JAMES

When we are under pressure, feeling threatened or anxious, we depend on this false self rather than depending on God. If we can learn to notice when it is at play, name what we think we need that we do not actually need, and then die to it, we can be freed from its grip and opened to a deeper experience of grace. I am not talking about heaven and hell and the forgiveness of sins or a transaction with God in the past. I am talking about freedom and transformation moment by moment. I think this is one reason Jesus calls us to deny it daily. Sometimes we need to deny it hourly or moment by moment to encounter God’s freedom. In this approach, anxiety becomes a gift rather than a curse because it serves as an early detection device that your false self is at work.

you become not only self-aware but also group-aware and lead beyond awareness, you can create a healthy culture for people to thrive.

wish I could laugh at the carpenter along with Isaiah, but this hits too close to home. God gave me gifts to use for God’s glory, but I turn them into idols and quickly forget the source, choosing instead to seek comfort and security from the gifts rather than the God who gave them.

Another way to notice the story is to pay attention to “same species syndrome.” A couple of church pastors in your past used power to cause you pain. This is a singular truth, but your internal filter makes it universally true: now all pastors are suspect. This universal truth is reinforced by same species syndrome. The previous pain came at the hand of some church leaders; therefore all church leaders are highly suspicious.

This is how denying self actually works. We notice our anxiety, we prayerfully name its source to God, and we rest free in our identity in Christ and his work instead of what we think we need. We

Once I was able to name and manage the internal and external pressure to “do something,” I could enter a room and pay attention to what that family actually needed.

If you want to explore identifying and shedding a childhood vow, you will begin by identifying as concretely and specifically as you’re able the vow or vows you believe and sift them against the good news of Jesus.