Why leaders stay active – but stop growing

Many leaders don’t burn out because they are bad, lazy or incompetent.
They mess up because they are busy hacking away – in the wrong jungle.

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Leadership, Life Stages & Spiritual Depth – Part 3

Part 1 – The Questions Leaders Must Ask In Each Decade Of Life
Part 2 – How To Play The Second Half Of Life Well

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I’ve undergone various trainings via the Franklin Covey organisation, but the leadership illustration from Stephen Covey I use more than any other is this:

Imagine a team hacking their way through a dense jungle.

The managers are on the ground and everyone’s very busy. They make sure the team are all singing the same song with a sharpened machete and bottles of water as they are effectively cutting vines and clearing the branches in front of them, making good progress.

They are efficient.
Organised.
Productive.

Meanwhile the leaders climb up into the trees, and look around – after a while one of them shouts down:

“Wrong jungle!”

The response from below comes quickly: “Be quiet! We’re making great progress!”

Everyone knows how true this is. That you can be working very hard and still be heading in the wrong direction. Efficient but not effective – that is exactly the danger busyness creates.

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Where We’ve Been In This Series

In this short series we’ve explored the deeper questions leaders face over the course of a lifetime.

In the first article we looked at how and why leadership questions change as life unfolds.

Your twenties wrestle with identity.
Your thirties with priorities.
Your forties with reflection.
Later decades with legacy and reproduction.

👉 You can read that article here:
The Questions Leaders Must Ask In Each Decade Of Life

In the second article we explored How To Play The Second Half Of Life Well.

Many leaders assume their most fruitful years are behind them. But often the opposite is true. The second half of life is where wisdom deepens and influence multiplies.

👉 You can read that article here:
How To Play The Second Half Of Life Well

But I can’t wrap this up without examining one thing that can sabotage every stage of life and leadership.

Busyness.

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When Activity Replaces Formation

If you are going to be a leader today you won’t get there by laziness. That’s not usually the problem – it’s overload.

Leaders are surrounded by demands dressed up as:

• opportunities
• responsibilities and
• expectations

Which is how so many of us become very active without progressing in what really matters.

Busyness leads to:

• Relationships without reciprocity
• Tasks without purpose
• Plans without progress
• Calendars without Sabbaths
• Words without action
• Leadership without depth
• Natural giftedness without spiritual power
• Theological knowledge without true spirituality

All show, no substance.

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The Pyramid Scheme

I have been reading again in my devotionals about those years when after being rescued from Egypt, the Israelites repeatedly wanted to go back. Why would that be? Egypt was slavery.

But it was also – predictable. Brick on brick. Make a pyramid. At least you knew what you were doing. And they had cucumbers! Wow did those ex-slaves miss the cucumbers.

The wilderness was freedom, but it was also uncertain – and people often prefer predictable bondage over uncertain freedom. Leaders are not immune to this, which is why busyness can become a kind of Egypt.

If we let it, busyness keeps us moving fast enough that we never stop long enough to face the deeper questions.

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The Danger Of Giftedness

Another challenge for leaders is something that starts of feeling like a blessing.

Giftedness.

People start to tell you that you can preach well.
Nobody else steps up so you have a go and find – you lead well.
People follow. You get a title or maybe make one up – I called myself Ivy’s ‘Strategic Leader’ as a title back in the day. Bozo.

You can quickly think strategically, even as you slowly drift spiritually.

I wrote about this in another post:

👉 When Leaders Start Living Off Giftedness Instead Of Character

Giftedness can keep producing visible results (mostly leaves rather than fruit) long after the roots have begun to dry out. Which is why leaders who want to stay the course must continually return to spiritual formation rather than striving performance.

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Why Reflection Matters

One of the most powerful practices a leader can develop is simply this:

Reflect on your story.

When we form habits to regularly stop, be still, and know that HE is God: in that daily deep breath pause, if we examine our lives, patterns begin to emerge.

Who influences us.
What’s shaping us.
Where is God was at work.

Join the dots – it’s a path leading somewhere forward.

Also look back – as the wise man said the unexamined life is not worth living, so:

A helpful exercise is to break your life into five-year blocks and ask:

• Who were the key people influencing me then?
• What ideas shaped my thinking in that season?
• What events changed the direction of my life?
• Where was God at work during those years?

In the spiritual life nothing just happens. Reflection is the only way experience turns into wisdom. Without reflection we simply repeat the same patterns – just faster, and as my friend Michael Orokpo says, “If you are going the wrong way, increased speed is no advantage!’

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A Quick Leadership Check-In

Before reading further, pause for a moment.

Ask yourself honestly:

• Am I busy… or am I growing?
• When was the last time I stopped long enough to reflect on my life?
• Is my calendar shaping my soul, or is my soul shaping my calendar?
• Am I climbing the right ladder – or just reaching for the next rung?

Covey’s jungle illustration reminds us that progress and direction are not the same thing. Success that is significant does not come by working harder every year but drifting slowly away from the life God is inviting us to live, to show others the way. As John Ortberg once asked me, ‘Is the life you’re inviting others to live, the life you yourself are living?’

Sometimes the most spiritual thing a leader can do is stop.

Look up, and ask:

“Am I still in the right jungle?”

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Face The Truth

Reflecting on reality is something most people shy away from – we get distracted any way we can rather than face the brutal facts of their lives, past and present. But those who desire a better future look at:

Their mistakes.
Their experiences.
Their sins.
Their blessings.

And they learn from them all.

But by paying attention to what did happen – why it happened, what it revealed, and what God may be teaching through it.

All things are not good, and God doesn’t make all things happen – but as Paul wrote:

“We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.” (Romans 8:28)

Even the difficult chapters of our lives can become purposeful when God uses them to form wisdom in us as part of the bigger story.

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The Real Leadership Question

Across this short series we’ve been exploring the deeper questions leaders face over a lifetime.

In the first article we looked at the questions each decade brings.

In the second we explored how the second half of life can become our most fruitful season.

But I repeat – none of that happens automatically, and the answer is not constant activity either.

You can hack away at the vines in front of you all day long.

You can sweat away, working harder every year and it can look really impressive.

But doing the right things doesn’t matter if you’ve been working hard in the wrong jungle.

Which is why every leader needs moments where they stop.

Climb a little higher.

Look again.

And ask:

• What season of life am I in?
• What kind of person am I becoming?
• Where is God inviting me to walk with him next?

Because leadership is not just about the things we build, it’s about the life we are building while we lead.

And sometimes before we take another step forward, we need to stop.

Stop long enough – to look up.

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Read The Whole Series

This article is part of a short series on leadership and spiritual formation.

You may also enjoy:

• The Questions Leaders Must Ask In Each Decade Of Life
• How To Play The Second Half Of Life Well

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A Final Thought

Writing this series has reminded me how easy it is for leaders to keep moving without ever stopping to think.

Which is why I’ve stepped away from most social media recently.

I realised the noise wasn’t doing my soul much good. That move also gave me some clear head space to do some more quality reflection personally – so I’m ‘smoking what I’m selling.’

So if you’d like to keep receiving reflections like this – thoughtful, slower, and hopefully helpful for the long journey of leadership – the best thing to do is simply subscribe.

New posts will come straight to your inbox.

👉 Subscribe today and I’ll send them directly to you.

Leadership is a long journey. I’d love to travel with you as my companion.

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