Growing health and effectiveness

A blog centered around The Addington Method, leadership, culture, organizational clarity, faith issues, teams, Emotional Intelligence, personal growth, dysfunctional and healthy leaders, boards and governance, church boards, organizational and congregational cultures, staff alignment, intentional results and missions.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Giving up the need to be right

I like to be right. I'll bet you do to! And that need is the cause of many relational breakdowns, especially when two people both need to be right and neither will back down. If you are or have been married, you know exactly what I'm talking about.


Sometimes being right is important, when the issue at stake is high and will impact organizations and lives. Most of the time (95%?) the only issue at stake is our own ego and personal "needs."

Why do we need to be right? What would change if we didn't care if others acknowledged whether we were right or not? If we gave up that right what would happen? 


Many conflicts would be shorter or even non-existent. We would let go of issues quicker. We would probably be healthier and happier without the baggage of needing to be right. It may have something to do with not letting the sun go down on our wrath and forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave us. If we wait till others acknowledge we are right and in consequence they are wrong it can be a long ugly wait.


I'm just thinking of giving up the need to be right. It would solve a lot of problems. If you don't agree, don't tell me because then I need to decide if I'm serious or not.

1 comment:

Dennis Hesselbarth said...

Tim, this has been perhaps one of the most grievous issues I've had personally, something the Lord has had to take me to the woodshed over. I've damaged many relationships. At root, for me, it's insecurity. It helps me to grab onto the Truth that the Father is well able to take care of defending His Truth. I can be gentle, I can simply share how I see things and let Him take care of sorting it all out. Thanks for the reminder. You are "95% right" here! ;)