The Pain of Leadership

What is the relationship of pain to leadership?  There are many people who want to be able to live the life of and be able do what successful leaders do.  But most of us don't want to go through what they went through to get there. 

Now there are a few people who got to ride an easy wave to success.  But that is the exception, not the rule.

Recently, I listened to Craig Groeschel talk about the pain of leadership.  Here is some of what he said:

"The difference between where you are and where God wants you to be may be the difficult decisions you are unwilling to make."

Then he listed three areas where we must raise the pain threshold if we want to grow as a leader.

1.  Raise the pain threshold of unjustified rejection and criticism.

• The higher you rise, the more difficult the criticism
• Don't fall for people-pleasing:  The quickest way to forget what God thinks about you is to become obsessed with what people think about you.
• Don't worry when you are being criticized--worry when you are not.
• If you are not being called a cult every now and then, you are not doing squat.

2.  Raise the pain threshold of making difficult decisions.

• It could be that God is waiting to see if we will be faithful in this decision.
• The classic parent discipline statement is also true when a leader has to make a difficult decision:  "This is going to hurt me more than it will hurt you."

3.  Raise the pain threshold of pruning us.

• Everyone wants to do what I do, but no one wants to do what I did to get to be able to do what I do.

This reminds me of James 3:1  "Dear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly."