Who does God want us to be?

God wants us to be the person he designed and made us to be. He wants you to be the person he designed and made you to be. Paul says in Ephesians 2:10 that “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” The word “workmanship” literally means “a unique work of art” indicating that each of us is a uniquely designed work of art by God of which there are no others like us. God designed a unique me, never to be repeated, and a unique you never to be repeated. We are one of a kind!



And in his creativity he wired and gifted us for a unique purpose that only we can fulfill, for we were “created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” God created me to lead the organization I lead. He created me to write books. He created me to be a husband of a wonderful woman and two wonderful boys. And he created me for a unique work in his kingdom that I am uniquely wired to fulfill and the same is true for every one of us no matter what our occupation or circumstance.


Finally you and I were created for relationship with Christ and in Christ we have the two desires of every heart: the desire for relationship (I experience that in Christ and His people); and a desire for significance (the unique work God created just for me for).


When I come to Christ and invite him into my life, the unique me that God created me to be does not change. I was hard wired with gifts of vision, strategy and communication. Everything else I was not hardwired for! In coming to Christ, he takes His creation and infuses it with His Holy Spirit empowering the wiring he gave me at birth, forgiving my sin and launches me on a journey that the New Testament calls sanctification – the life long journey of my lower and sinful nature being taken off piece by piece and His holy nature being put on, piece by piece. That journey of sanctification or spiritual transformation is not complete until we meet him face to face in heaven but it is an amazing and wonderful journey to be on.


Many people have the thinking that God wants to change our lives 180 degrees when we come to Him. That is a misunderstanding of God’s intentions. Many of our behaviors will change and need to change 180 degrees but God wants to take His unique creation and complete that creation which was marred by sin entering our world so many eons ago by helping us become the us He made us to be. The process of us realizing the full potential for which we were created is the process of spiritual transformation.


Many people fear the process of spiritual transformation and never embrace it, believing erroneously that it will cost them too much. This fear is the essence of our old sinful nature that craved autonomy. The prophet Isaiah put that autonomy from God this way: “We all like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6). Autonomy from God leads away from God and toward our shadow side. Engaging with God in ongoing life transformation leads us toward His life and character – and His impact on others.


Many others simply do not pay enough attention to this aspect of their lives and end up living at a shallow spiritual level (even many in ministry) substituting activity for true life change. It is a trap that prevents many from realizing their full potential or having the kind of deep influence God designed them for. Shallow spiritual lives lead to shallow influence even if masked by impressive achievements. There simply is no substitute for going deep with Christ!


Christ’s vision for our life is very simple: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2). There is a direct connection here between the transforming of our lives, the renewing of our minds and our ability to understand “God’s good, pleasing and perfect will!” The ongoing transformation of our lives as a life priority is directly connected with the influence we have and is a prerequisite for being a person of deep influence.


One of the temptations for ministry leaders who live and work in full time vocational ministry is to substitute work for God (our ministry) for the work of God in our hearts and lives. Not only does this substitution hurt the individual involved as they do not become all that God designed them to be but it hurts those that they influence as their model is one of doing rather than one of becoming. This has led to countless Christ followers who have spent their lives focusing on either doing or modifying behaviors to meet the standards of their church or leader without significant transformation of the deepest core of their lives.


It is a matter of priority. If my priority is that of seeing authentic spiritual transformation take place in my life, I will bring all of life under His lordship and will engage in His business and will modify my life in many areas to bring it into alignment with His. But if I focus instead on doing things for Him and modifying my behaviors rather than that of spiritual transformation I will end up frustrated and with a substitute transformation that is more about me than about Him. Too many Christ followers have settled for the latter rather than committing to the former. The first brings real life change while the latter is often little more than legalism. One ministry I work with actually has a guiding principle called “Intimacy before Impact” to remind themselves of the proper priority!

Leadership and Spiritual Transformation

Our influence as leaders is not so much about how we lead but from what source we choose to lead. The source of our leadership is the key to deep influence and at its core is our desire to embrace the spiritual transformation Christ wants to bring to our lives as we live in relationship with him.



Spiritual transformation leads to changes in our character, lifestyle, habits and practices. All too, often, however we have reversed the order thinking that if we live or act a certain way that we will be pleasing God. Just watch new believers as they are coached by other believers in what lifestyle choices they should embrace and what they should avoid. Quickly they are enculturated into a lifestyle that looks like those around them. What looks a certain way on the outside often has nothing to do with true spiritual transformation. Furthermore, real transformation is a work of the Holy Spirit, not other people as He convicts us of sin and brings us to repentance and new practices that are consistent with the character of God.


Transformation is not about the adoption of a new set of rules and regulations (now that I am a Christ follower) rather than the old set of rules and regulations that I lived by previously. Such an understanding of transformation is as skewed and twisted as that of the Pharisees in the New Testament who substituted outward regulations for inner transformation.


Spiritual transformation is the process by which God, through his Holy Spirit and with our active cooperation, on an ongoing basis brings change to our lives as we allow Him to realign our lives with His. It is a deeply personal process that impacts our hearts, our minds, priorities, relationships and experiences. There is no part of our lives that God does not want to infuse his life into and to bring transformation to.


This transformation is at the core of Influence because the deepest influence we will ever have does not come out of our wisdom or leadership but from a wisdom, character, heart, and mind that have been so transformed by the Holy Spirit that they more and more reflect the wisdom, character, heart and mind of God! This is not primarily about knowing about God (although that is important) but knowing God and choosing a life that is always open to His reformation and actively cooperating with His transformation.

Antidotes to the Shadow Side

All of us have unique vulnerabilities – places or times or situations where a shadow side can show up if we are not aware, careful and have a plan to compensate for them. Vulnerabilities are not something to be ashamed of – we are human – but to be aware of and to manage so that the vulnerability does not turn into something worse.


I know that I am vulnerable when I am overly tired. So does my family who can be the brunt of my cranky attitude. I also know that I am prone to periods of depression if I do not get enough rest. At the same time I tend to say “yes” to too many things and it takes people around me to help me moderate my schedule and think realistically about what my body can take especially after two severe bouts in the ICU that I am still recovering from.


The evil one is described as a prowling lion waiting to devour. Lions love the tall grass where they can hide, watching for just the right moment to attack. They watch for the laggard of the herd, the vulnerable animal and then at the right moment they launch an often fatal blow. That is an accurate description of the evil one who loves to discourage, hurt or take down God’s people. It is also why we must be even more aware in our times of vulnerability than we are in our times of strength. Satan is most likely to attack when we are weak, not strong.


This again takes us back to the importance of self knowledge and acute awareness of our strengths and weaknesses. Satan wants us to live unaware and unexamined lives while the Father wants us to be acutely aware and wise in how we live. After all, every day, there is a lion on the prowl waiting for a moment when he can launch an attack.


Because I am by nature an introvert (in an extrovert’s job), my tendency would be to be by myself when tired and worn out. But that is when I am personally most vulnerable so I compensate by spending time with family or friends rather than by myself. Knowing my vulnerable moments I seek to take offensive moves in order to stay healthy.


I don’t need to repeat the list of temptations common to man that assail us in our weak moments. The list is long and apart from the empowerment of the Holy Spirit we are weak. You know what your vulnerabilities are and I know what mine are. The real question is whether we are intentional in our awareness and have a plan to offset those temptations so that vulnerabilities do not become casualties. All of us are vulnerable, none of us need be casualties to those vulnerabilities.


There is no escaping our shadow side but there are ways to minimize its damage in our lives and in the lives of others. I believe that there are six major antidotes to our shadow sides: none of them are enough in themselves but practice together they are powerful tools toward deep influence. They really involve choices so I am going to posit them as choices we make – and each of us makes them regularly.


Living in isolation or living in relationship


We live in a highly individualistic culture at least in the west. It is easy for us to live in isolation rather than in relationship. Yet it is in authentic relationships with others that life rubs on life, where iron sharpens iron, where we are challenged to be our best and to become all that God intended us to be. Mary Ann and I have made the cultivation of key relationships (we call them friends for life) a high priority in our lives because it is so critical to a “healthy” us.


I am convinced that the healthier our relationships, the healthier we are. The more isolated we live, the greater the opportunity for the shadow side to show itself – and ultimately to hurt our influence.


Living with autonomy or accountability


This follows from the first choice. Choosing to live in authentic relationship is a choice to live with accountability rather than autonomy because with relationship comes healthy accountability. If I were to choose to do something stupid with my life, I know that there are a good number of friends who would show up at my door and call me to reason.


There are also those whom I invite to speak into my life if they sense the shadow side is showing up. They are people I trust, whose feedback I value and who I know have my best interests in mind. Choosing to live with accountability is a major hedge against our shadow sides becoming liabilities. Those who live without accountability and whose relationships are only with those who affirm them rather than who can be honest with them almost always end up on the shoals!


Living with self knowledge rather than an unexamined life


There are things I don’t like about me! But knowing those things is far better than ignoring them and pretending they don’t exist. The better I know me, the better the chance I have that I can cooperate with God so that I become the me I want to be and the me He made me to be. That means knowing how God wired me, where my shadow side is, what my unique vulnerabilities are and where and how I can hurt others because of my makeup.


People of deep influence are always people who are deeply self aware, appropriately introspective so that they understand their motivations, tendencies, areas where they are vulnerable to temptation and how they deal with those vulnerabilities. Their self knowledge includes an understanding of God’s amazing grace in their lives and they are not overwhelmed by their sin but by God’s grace. They are not seeking to prove themselves to God but to simply live in His presence, forgiveness and grace on a daily basis.


Living with humility rather than pride


If we are living with self knowledge it is very hard to be prideful. We know that we are justified by Christ (made clean and whole) and that he is sanctifying us as we walk with him (becoming more and more like him) but we also know that we live with brokenness and sin and shadow sides that we wish were not there. Humility is recognizing that life is about Him, not us and that everything we are is because of Him and His work in our lives.


Pride is a rejection of God’s place in our lives and an elevation of us! A rather presumptuous attitude! Pride does not want to know the truth about ourselves and actually promotes an alternate truth about who I really am. Humility has a nothing to prove/nothing to lose attitude that is not afraid of who the true me is, does not need to wear a façade to pretend there is an alternate me and realizes that I am completely indebted to God for all that I am and have.


Living intentionally or accidently


We are most vulnerable to shadow sides when living without a plan, without the discipline of knowing what our priorities are and living them out in a purposeful fashion. Careless living leads to careless lives and careless lives allow shadow sides to show up without our even being aware of it.


I have never met an individual of deep influence who lived carelessly. The very framework that helps them prevent the impact of their shadow side from becoming a liability is one of careful thought and intentional practice. Managing our shadow side in itself requires a plan that comes out of deep self knowledge.


Living with intimacy or distance with Christ


Our connection to Christ, when we allow the Holy Spirit to reveal Himself to us and to peel back layers of our own lives to reveal sin, disobedience, elements of the lower nature and areas where He wants to work is a critical element in managing our shadow side. Certainly the closer we stay to Christ, the more receptive we are to His nudging in our lives. The further we are from Him the more of us we are relying on for our understanding and wisdom – a dangerous place to be.


As the writer of the book of Hebrews put it, “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:2-13). To the extent that we allow the Scriptures to be a mirror against which we see our lives and the Holy Spirit to speak to us about our lives we will become sensitized to our shadow side and allow God to bring His character even to those difficult areas.

Unique Vulnerabilities

Some vulnerabilities are not as obvious as others. In fact, sometimes the very things we yearn for can become our greatest vulnerability! Think about success. All of us want our ministries to be successful and to impact as many as possible. But with success comes a major liability: pride, self-confidence that can push out our need for God or others and a feeling that somehow we are immune from the temptations of others. After all, have we not successfully negotiated life and ministry to get to where we are?



Ministry success has been the vulnerable spot for many. It is not that we should not seek ministry success but we must recognize that the greater our success, the more vulnerable we are to the dark side of success – and its ugly consequences.


One of the classic signs of the dark side of ministry success is unaccountability. In its twisted logic, many successful individuals can come to the conclusion that they do not need the council and accountability of others (usually what got them to where they are) and as they move away from accountability and toward dangerous autonomy there are fewer and fewer people who they listen to and often there is a marginalization of those who give them “bad news” rather than what they want to hear. Pride is one of the most insidious of dark sides for it elevates us above others and sometimes above God. Pride, autonomy, lack of accountability, and eventually twisted thinking come in a package often fueled by success.


With success comes the tendency of others to curry favor rather than to speak honestly. It isolates because of the increased demands that success brings. Those increased demands lesson the time for thinking, self reflection and close relationships which are so foundational for spiritual transformation, self-knowledge and intimacy with Christ. With the accolades of success comes the temptation to actually believe all those things people say about us when in reality if we were honest with ourselves we know that the true us does not match the us that others project upon us.


The more successful we are the more cautious, humble and accountable we must be to avoid the consequences of the shadow side. Successful men and women go in one of two directions – toward humility and accountability or toward pride and autonomy. The former deepens influence while the latter will eventually cause influence to dissipate.


We are also vulnerable in times of failure. This is particularly true for individuals in ministry whose identity is often wrapped up with what they do – confusing their identity in Christ for their ministry identity. Failure calls into question our calling, our competency, God’s intervention (or lack of it) and sometimes our very faith.


In times of failure we have two options and I have watched both play out with friends and acquaintances. Either we press into God in a new way, choosing faith and optimism or we settle for bitterness and a diminished life, often holding God responsible for our situation. Which direction we choose is just that – a choice we make. Life comes undone for all of us at one time or another. It is either an opportunity to move forward and build character and experience or it becomes a pit that we sink into and wallow there.


In no way do I want to minimize the pain of failure. I felt that my whole world had come apart when I left my church at the age of 28, clinically depressed, tired, broke and deeply wounded. It took me some ten years to fully heal from that traumatic experience: I know failure well, and its wounds. But, as hard as it was, we faced a choice during those years: to live in faith and hope or to settle for bitterness and diminishment. We chose the former and God has used what I felt as a failure as a major part of my spiritual construction, personal development and ministry impact. I could never have known how my failure would be used by God in my life and ministry. In fact, “failure” is one of the most powerful tools God has to mold us.


Ironically, what is failure to us is often a win for God and for our character and future influence. Moses’ early failure became his training ground for success. Joseph probably felt like a failure when he ended up in jail prior to becoming the second in command in Egypt.


Suffering is a prerequisite to deep influence. Failure is just one of the ways that suffering manifests itself. How we respond will determine its positive or negative impact on our life. I came close to throwing in the towel on ministry after my difficult pastorate. How grateful I am today that I walked away from that brink! Today I see that failure as one of the greatest gifts of my life and I will wear its divine scars proudly into eternity.


Between success and failure are periods of life that just are. And sometimes, like David sitting in his palace while his troops were out at war, boredom sets in and our restlessness makes us vulnerable – to temptation, to laziness, to moving away from our intimacy with God. Periods of restlessness, when boredom sets in are actually wonderful opportunities for growth because it usually means that we have more time on our hands. Either we find something productive to do that will build into our future influence or we move into that intellectual and vision decline that so often afflicts individuals in their forties and fifties.


Intellectual laziness and decline is actually one of the most acute issues faced by those in ministry. The world keeps changing and morphing and unless we continue to grow and lead in our sphere of influence we become superfluous just as so many middle and even senior managers in business have become. Thus the vulnerability that comes with allowing ourselves to slip into comfortable rhythms, content with what we already know is a real one. In many ways, laziness and contentment is a shadow side of earlier success and competency.


The Apostle Paul understood this vulnerability and risk and would have nothing of it in his own life. “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14). Each of us has a prize – it is the fulfilling of God’s call on our lives and to settle for anything but the fullest expression of that call is to settle for less than God intended for us.

One of the reasons I write books and a regular blog is to continue to stretch myself, to force myself to think clearly, to explore new territory and to ward off boredom whether in a lonely hotel room when travelling or simply the dog days of life when it would be easy to settle into intellectual laziness. Each of us must find outlets for intellectual growth and rest (for me fly fishing) where the soul is nurtured, our hearts stay full and our intellect is challenged.

Ways to Minimize our Liabilities

Leaders who build healthy teams of highly competent individuals use those teams to help alleviate their own liabilities. Many of the issues we face have to do with personnel, relationships and complex problems. Even though I have a strong sense of direction and a great deal of experience in dealing with organizational issues, I know that council from a group of wise individuals is far better than dealing with the issue by myself where my own perspective can easily get in the way of the best solution.


I am convinced that the wisdom of others often prevents our liabilities and our limited perspective from compromising our decisions and responses. When faced with a difficult decision or situation, I never respond without significant dialogue with trusted colleagues whose wisdom and perspective I trust and they have prevented me from making stupid calls in any number of instances. There is simply too much at stake for me to make unilateral decisions in tough spots. And, it is often hard to separate out our own emotions and issues from what is best organizationally.


Bringing in trusted colleagues into tough decisions is also a check against any tendency to lead autocratically or to deal with problematic personnel in unfair or harsh ways. Even as the senior leader of the organization I lead, I have accountability in my leadership and decisions through the involvement of other senior leaders. In fact, I never make any major directional decision without the assent and council of my senior team. Again, this becomes a check against human tendencies to lead out of personal preferences, arrogance, pride or the limited perspective any one of us has by ourselves. It literally can save us from ourselves!


Another hedge against our shadow side getting us into trouble in tough decisions is to resist the temptation to respond quickly. Quick decisions often come out of emotion and emotion is often influenced more by our shadow side than wisdom or our strengths. Difficult decisions and difficult people often stir anxiety in us. The anxiety makes us feel as if we need to do something now, when in reality waiting, thinking and getting counsel is often far wiser. In addition, anxiety often causes us to react emotionally when what is needed is a wise, reasoned, non-emotional response. How many of us have sent an emotional email in the heat of the moment that we wish we had been able to recall?


Emotional responses to people and situations can be a significant opportunity for our shadow side to become a liability. In the heat of emotion we do and say things that are not filtered by wisdom and even if we have reason to be angry we contribute to the problem and lose the high ground of leadership.


Time is our ally in most difficult decisions. It gives us time to pray, to evaluate options, seek counsel and think more clearly. The temptation to act quickly is really a temptation to act out of emotion rather than out of wisdom. Emotion and wisdom are not always compatible in leadership. I have a practice that I will not act before I have agreement with a trusted colleague or colleagues that the time is right and the approach is wise. The knottier the problem, the longer I will usually wait unless there is an overwhelming reason to act quickly.

The wisdom of the Holy Spirit is critical to keeping our dark side from compromising our leadership. One of the reasons that time is an ally in hard decisions is that it gives us time to pray, to think, and to allow the Holy Spirit to give us a divine perspective that transcends human understanding. I am constantly amazed at how solutions come to mind as I think, pray, dialogue with colleagues and allow God the time and opportunity to give me perspective that is critical to doing the right thing and avoiding my own liabilities, human perspective or shadow side.


One of the traps that good leaders fall into is to start to believe that because they have had leadership success that they are always capable of making the right decisions. Our very success can lead to decisions that are unwise because we trust our own leadership instincts and choose not to seek council or take the time for prayer and evaluation. In fact, the more success we have as leaders the more cautious we ought to be not to believe our own press, to remain humble leaders who seek wise council and take the time for prayerful consideration. Success can lead either to greater leadership wisdom or to the dark side of hubris. We choose the path by how we lead.

Spirituality does not compensate for our shadow side

All of us have a shadow side. This is not about whether we are spiritual enough! It is about recognizing the shadow side and dealing with it. The Apostle Paul was a hard driving, type A, highly disciplined individual. Yet when John Mark did not live up to the same standards, Paul and Barnabas, two giants of the New Testament came to such disagreement that they had to separate ways. So strong was the disagreement that Paul abandoned not only John Mark but the very individual who had discipled and encouraged him when no one else would – Barnabas. The shadow side of his discipline and high standards alienated him from a friend who had been a friend when no one else would be a friend.



Can you imagine the pain that Barnabas and John Mark felt when Paul took such a hard line? No amount of spirituality on Paul’s part kept him from deeply hurting two individuals who loved him very much. Perhaps words like arrogance and narcissism and impatience found their way into Barnabas’s mind as he processed his friendship and partnership gone wrong.


The fact that Paul changed his mind about John Mark later in his life and requested his presence when he was in prison indicates to me that Paul had become more self aware and was dealing with the downside of his driven personality. Paul was as deeply a spiritual man as any who ever lived and yet he too had a shadow side to his strengths: liabilities that hurt Barnabas and John Mark because they were not managed well or recognized by him at that time of his life.


There are also people who hide behind a gloss of spirituality to ignore or compensate for their shadow side. These are often Christian leaders who spiritualize everything and have a spiritual explanation for even those times when their own issues have caused problems.


Dan is an organizational leader who is black and white, always right, critical of others and impervious to alternate points of view. He attracts followers who are like the stepford wives, blindly following without thinking critically themselves. Those who disagree with him are marginalized and devalued. But it is always done behind a façade of spirituality that makes it impossible to penetrate. When he is in a group and is the only one to take a certain position he sees himself as a prophet speaking truth to those who are blind (never mind that the Old Testament prophets spoke for God directly). No amount of discussion or dialogue will shift him from his right and “prophetic” point of view.


When his stubbornness (arrogance) causes issues in his organization, it is spiritual warfare that he is up against (now those who disagree are unwitting agents of Satan). His vocabulary is filled with spiritual references (How do you argue against God?) so that rational dialogue is hard or impossible to have and disagreements are always couched in spiritual terms.


Dan has caused huge pain for many people. Those who are smart enough to recognize his methodology stay away from him, leaving him with sycophants who become his blind disciples. What Dan has done is to spiritualize both his strengths and his liabilities in order to justify both in ways that allow him to avoid dealing with his shadow side or admitting that his behaviors often hurt others.


In essence his method for dealing with his shadow side is a spiritual narcissism hidden behind spiritual vocabulary that keeps him from accepting accountability for his shadow side. Because of the spiritual façade, many are afraid to name his conduct for what it is – poor EQ, narcissistic, deeply unhealthy, hurtful to others and frankly emotionally sick. But, Dan feels good because he does not need to face the reality of his own dark side – while in the process hurting others.


Spirituality, real like Paul’s or a façade like Dan’s does not compensate for our shadow side with must be managed carefully if we are to be people of deep influence.

Managing the Shadow Side

I remember as a child playing a game of trying to move fast enough to lose my shadow. It never worked. My shadow followed me no matter what I did. I could jump, dodge and weave and the shadow remained.



We all have a shadow side: it is the side of us that we try to ignore and don’t want to acknowledge. As a result, it often gets us into trouble with others and can severely compromise our influence if not destroy it altogether. Deep influence is, after all gained the hard way as we have already seen. Unfortunately it can easily be compromised or destroyed if we don’t practice the discipline of managing our shadow side. The stronger our strengths – the longer our shadow!

As Christian leaders we have an ideal us that we want to project to others – and believe about ourselves. We believe in spiritual transformation and desperately desire that transformation for our lives. We are often disciplined to a fault in our effort to become all that God wants us to become. But like my childhood game, we will never lose our shadow side until we finally meet Christ face to face. In the meantime, we need to understand ourselves deeply, know where the shadow side lies, manage it carefully and allow the Holy Spirit to deeply sensitive us to facets of our wiring and areas of personal temptation that make up our shadow side.


It is easy to spot the shadow side in others. They are those behaviors that disempower others, cause us frustration or anger and frankly the very things we wish we could talk to them about. Unfortunately for us they are not alone. Our issues may be different but each of us has a shadow side that regularly threatens to lessen our influence and detract from the impact God desires us to have.


Every strength we possess comes with a requisite downside – a liability. When we exercise our strengths we live in our sweet spot – if we are also managing the downside of those strengths.


One of my five signature strengths on Strengthfinders is that I am a “maximizer.” As a maximizer, I want to always maximize ministry opportunity and leave nothing on the table. This means that I will question why we do things the way we do them and always push for the most effective strategy to maximize results with the people, resources and opportunities we have. As an organizational leader, this is a great strength to have and it has had a positive impact on the methodology of our organization.


But there is a downside as well. As a maximizer I can easily become impatient with strategies that do addition rather than multiplication. It is not the impatience that is a bad thing – it can be a very good thing, but when my impatience causes me to be less diplomatic, respond harshly or in some way devalue others who don’t yet “get it,” the strength has gone to its shadow side. I am sure there are those who have viewed me over the years as insensitive and uncaring in situations where I did not adequately manage the shadow side of this otherwise great strength.

Knowing the shadow side of our strengths allows us to manage or compensate in ways that prevent the strength from becoming a liability. I have learned in the case of my maximizer strength to press more gently and dialogue more than preach to help others understand that we can move toward greater effectiveness if we think multiplication rather than addition. I have learned the hard way over the years that process and time are essential ingredients to moving people and organizations in a more effective direction. And, I have learned the necessity of simply being patient in situations where in the past I would have been far less patient.


I have a pastor friend who is the ultimate relationship guy. If he were to take Strengthsfinders, I am sure his number one strength would be “woo” which means he influences others by bringing them into his orbit with the force of his friendly demeanor. He also has a gift for talking – which most highly relational folks do. Everyone in the church loves him because he is so winsome, so encouraging, and everyone feels connected to him. There is no manipulation involved, it is who he is. Much of what he has accomplished as a leader in his church comes back to his winsome, relational style. It is a huge strength and I have watched it for years.


However, this great strength also has its liabilities – its shadow side. He has found over the years that he could “wing it” on many issues and just get by with his relational skill rather than doing his homework on critical issues. That works for a while but not forever, and staff and church leaders often feel that they have been shortchanged by a lack of discipline in decision making because my friend has learned to do it by the seat of his pants rather than through team. He simply uses the force of his personality to convince others that his way is the right way.


And he is hard to disagree with. He is the ultimate debater who can dominate any conversation and meeting – and usually does, leaving others feeling like they cannot win and their opinion is not important. Because he is so likable, he often gets away with it but it is not without cost. The cost is a feeling of being used, not being heard, and a sense of being devalued in the process. His team meetings are not about mutual dialogue but about him expounding. This has led to tension with his team and his board who feel that it is a one man show. At one point of tension, my friend almost lost his church because of the shadow side of his relational strength.

Every strength brings with it a liability, a shadow side that unless recognized, become sensitized to and managed will either compromise the strength, or can even turn the strength into a greater liability than the strength itself. The latter case is the ultimate irony about our strengths. Unchecked, our strengths can become the very means of our loss of influence and effectiveness. It is on those shoals that many brilliant men and woman have lost their influence!