I had an episode last week that reminded me how deep the hold of pride is in my life, and how much work God has left to do in me on this issue. Sometimes little things reveal big things.

The episode happened the same day I posted about making it to three months in my personal spending fast. I was about an hour from home heading to an appointment when the hot drink I had been sipping slipped. I spilled it all over my shorts. It wasn’t a little spill. It’s as though a divine hand reached over and poured it all over my clothes.  The stain (tea) looked like someone had poured paint all over me.

I immediately thought “I need to go buy a new pair of shorts. This definitely qualifies as an exception to my spending fast. I can’t wear pants that wet or that stained. ”

I actually happened to be driving past a Walmart when it happened so I pulled in.

As I pulled up to the store, I started debating with myself. It went like this:

“You could wear those shorts you know. They’re just stained.”

“No, that would be embarrassing. I would never dress like that.”

“But they are, after all, really stained. If you bought the shorts at Walmart, that doesn’t even qualify as breaking a spending fast, right? And besides, you never buy clothes at Walmart.  It would just be a temporary pair.”

“So basically I would simply be interested in protecting my image right? I’m too embarrassed to be the guy with the big stain. And now I’m super elitist about Walmart.”

“Shut up.”

I walked into Walmart conflicted and increasingly convicted.

I relented. Instead of going to the men’s section I went to the rest room. Fortunately, they had one of those turbo dryers. I used my hands to scoop some serious water onto the affected pant leg. When I was done, it looked like I was into partial immersion baptism or like I had just wet my pants. Brilliant.

I spent about ten minutes at the automatic hand dryer, twisting and turning to get my pant leg dry. To make matters more interesting, the dryer was positioned slightly outside of the door, giving customers at several cash lines a front row view. Awesome.

The stain mostly disappeared and I left the story mostly dry.

But I realized how proud I am. I just didn’t want to be seen with dirty clothes. Mostly because would judge me or think less of me. I didn’t have the humility to be misunderstood, judged or seen as uncool, not even until I was home later that day.

Pride runs so deep. It’s our cardinal sin against God. Pride is what makes us think:

We don’t need God.

What other people think matters more than what God thinks.

His love for me is not enough.

His approval of me is inadequate unless I have the approval of others.

Appearances count for something.

I am what others think I am.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for wearing clean clothes and I’m a bit obsessed with clean cars, cut grass and uncluttered, attractive work space. Some of that is healthy. Some of it isn’t healthy at all.

But there it was, my pride, still rampant.  Left unchecked, it will destroy the very fabric of who God created me (and you) to be.

How does pride drive you? What are you learning about it these days?

In yesterday’s blog post, we looked at the difference between leaders who accept responsibility and leaders who instead blame other people and things for their mistakes.

Today I want to focus on a critical mistake many leaders make: in the journey from blaming others to accepting full responsibility, it’s easier for a leader to get stuck blaming themselves.  Because we feel like blame needs to go somewhere, and because we no longer blame others, we simply blame ourselves. That’s a significant mistake.  (I know I tend to do this.  Sometimes I am obsessed with fault, and in a sincere desire to not blame others (I’m working really hard on this), I will sometimes blame myself.)  It arises innocently enough because you’ve probably had numerous people tell you “don’t blame yourself”.  But because you won’t blame others and because you shouldn’t blame yourself, responsibility somehow gets lost in the shuffle.  And that’s a problem.

Even though blaming yourself might be a step up from blaming others, it will stunt your growth as a person and as a leader.  And having no one take responsibility is a big mistake.

So how do you work through this?  Change the way you think:

Think of leadership as acceptance of responsibility rather than assignment of blame.

Responsibility is almost always healthy.  Conversely, I have yet to find a context in which blame really helps the situation other than in a momentary attempt to save the team.  Long term, it’s benefits are questionable.

Here are some key differences between blame and responsibility:

Blame looks to the past. Responsibility looks to the future.

Blame looks outside.  Responsibility looks inside.

Blame focuses on things beyond your control.  Responsibility focuses on things within your control.

Blame is destructive.  Responsibility is constructive.

Blame hurts.  Responsibility helps.

As a leader, then, one of the best things you can do is accept responsibility.  If you blame yourself, you will get caught up in a self defeating cycle of negativism.  If you accept responsibility, you will grow.

To some extent, I think this is related to confession.  Confession without repentance and forgiveness can lead to self-pity.  Confession accompanied by repentance and forgiveness leads to transformation.

In the same way, acceptance of responsibility in leadership leads to transformation.

What are you blaming yourself for?  How can you accept responsibility instead?

Despite our faith, church leaders don’t always have the healthiest practices.  One of the practices I’ve been thinking about lately is our tendency to give a reason for every bad thing that happens in ministry.  It’s as though we need to defend ourselves or try to paint ourselves in a positive light.  It’s as though we come pre-programmed with a need to avoid blame.  I know this, of course, because I wrestle with the desire to escape blame.

Sometimes this tendency expresses itself when we throw someone under the bus; other times it’s far more subtle. In every case, it’s just not a healthy thing to constantly want to escape blame.

Our desire to avoid blame expresses itself in a variety of ways:

Someone leaves your church, and you say “Well, they never fit into the culture here anyway” or “I think we were his third church in the last five years.”  Translation:  It’s not my fault.

An event comes off poorly and you say “If we just had more help, it would have run smoothly.” Translation: It’s not my fault.

You’re scrambling to get a project done at the last minute and you say “Well, if I had the source material on time and if the printer hadn’t been down on ink I would have been done earlier.”  Translation: It’s not my fault.

Your church hasn’t grown in three years, and you say “If only we were in the Bible belt” or “If that big church hadn’t opened its new building, I’m sure we’d be growing.”  Translation: It’s not my fault.

Whether or not something is your fault is kind of beside the point: if you’re the leader, you’re actually responsible.  And while it’s not your fault every time, sometimes it is your fault, whether you admit it or not. When you fail to admit to yourself that it’s your fault, you will never grow.  As long as someone else was to blame, you don’t need to do anything about it.

Even when it is a series of outside circumstances or a pattern beyond your control that influences the negative event, as a leader, you’re still responsible.  And beside, none of this is healthy if you want to  create a great culture.  Who wants to work in a culture of ‘blamers’, even when the blame is subtle?

So how do you tackle those issues differently?  I mean there’s something inside you and something inside me that always

Healthy leaders:

Assume responsibility

Empathize appropriately with the disappointment someone is expressing

Don’t blame events or people for the misfortune

So let’s re-imagine all four conversations:

Someone leaves your church.  You say, “I agree, it really is a shame that they left.”  Then, even if they had ‘issues’, you walk away and try to figure out what your piece of the responsibility pie is in this situation and grow from it.

An event comes off poorly.  You say “Our team worked really hard, but I think we all agree it wasn’t our finest moment.  Thanks for that feedback.”  You get back to work…affirm what went right, and problem solve around how to do it differently next time.

You’re scrambling to get a project done at the last minute.  You say “I should have left more time for this.  Sorry to have let you down with a late delivery.”  You figure out how to manage your time better, allowing for unforseen delays.

Your church hasn’t grown in three years.  You say “I agree that I’d love our church to be growing again.”  Then you sit down with your best leaders and figure out what you need to do to better realize your mission and refocus your strategy.

Question for you:  which of the two organizations described do you want to be a part of?  Exactly.  When you become a leader who accepts responsibility, your chances of being an organization that acts responsibly (and stops blaming) goes up significantly.

Accepting responsibility is a major step toward transformation.

What are you learning these days about accepting responsibility?  What are some of the effects of living in a culture that accepts responsibility versus one that shuns it?