Why You Need to Deal with Your Fears
Leadership requires a certain amount of courage. Actually a ton of courage.
A leader has to get people to go where they wouldn’t go if it wasn’t for the leader. Did you catch that? Great leadership calls people to do what they otherwise wouldn’t do. That’s why it’s so hard. How many of us really like to do things we wouldn’t normally do?
Which is why a major battle every leader faces is fear. I’m increasing convinced that what’s capping the potential of so much in the church and in life these days is just plain fear.
We’re afraid of:
- People who will leave
- The unknown
- Not being up to the task
- Blowing the success we’ve already experienced
- People who will stop giving
- Losing our popularity
- Having to suffer
You and I need to deal with our fears. Because something happens to fear when you let it incubate.
When fear becomes a habit, it becomes really difficult to tell the difference between fear and laziness. The writer of Proverbs 26:13 understood that:
The lazy person claims, “There’s a lion on the road!
Yes, I’m sure there’s a lion out there!”
I hear people say it all the time, there are more than a few lazy leaders out there. Some may always have been lazy. But I wonder if the rest just let fear become a habit. And after awhile, there’s very little difference between the fearful leader and the lazy leader.
They get the same results in the end. And it really no longer matters how they started out; the end is the same.
How many dreams have died in your heart because you were afraid? How many dreams died in the hearts of others because you were afraid? Have you been afraid long enough that people on the outside looking in can’t tell the difference between you and a lazy leader?
Don’t get me wrong, you never set out to lead something because you were lazy. But eventually, people can’t tell the difference.
Maybe it’s time to start dealing with your fears. Maybe it’s time to find some courage. Because nobody likes to be called lazy, even if, in the end, it’s hard to remember how you got there.
Maybe one of the very best things you can do today is to do something to confront your fears.
