The Steadfast Heart

The first time I was called a quitter was by my brother in elementary school. We were playing the board game Sequence, and I had played enough to know I was dead in the water. So I quit. I got up from lying on my stomach, hands holding up my face. I threw my cards down where my elbows had indented the carpet, swiped at the game pieces, and started the short walk to my room. I was invigorated by the feeling of control I had. My brother couldn’t tell me I lost if I never finished.

“You can’t quit! Quitter!” he called after me. Something jolted inside of me. I thought quitting would be fulfilling. Instead, being labeled a quitter affected me. It wasn’t the last time I left him hanging in the middle of a game. It wasn’t the last time I gave up on something. After that day, it actually became easier to throw in the towel. I quit piano lessons, Girl Scouts, and using manners in my tomboy phase, to name a few. But it did leave a core memory. I never wanted to be called a quitter. It upheaved something in me I did not like and had to face. So I started to learn how to be someone who sees things through.

In the twenty-five years since that day in the family room, I’ve kept learning about life and leadership. I’ve become a mother and am still figuring out how to raise strong-willed miniature versions of myself while keeping multiple plates spinning. Over seventeen years, I’ve held two jobs in two states and have worked with a variety of people. In the last ten years, especially, I have had opportunities to lead both in operations and remotely. I’ve followed several leaders, and I’ve been in positions to coach younger leaders. Each has come with changes and challenges.

There is not anything new about leadership I’ve learned; it’s just been new to me. There is nothing I could offer that hasn’t been shared before by stronger leaders, said in a nuanced way or from a different perspective. Leadership can be both relationally complex and strategically simple. Every experience has taught me something valuable, and if I were to write each one down, I believe I could fill a small library of my own fascinations, lessons, and takeaways.

But collectively, three things have been surfacing for me about being a leader. Each idea has formed longitudinally over time. Because the truth is, there have been a lot of times over the last decade I’ve wanted to quit. I’ve wanted to quit my job. Quit relationships. Quit the field I’m in. Quit trying so hard. Quit leadership. Every time I’ve resolved to abandon the situation I find myself in, I can hear the 9-year-old version of my brother say, “But you can’t quit!”

And it stops me in the hallway of my heart again. So I keep learning.

1) A leader’s first job is to know themselves.

My favorite people to work with are the people who say that they are not self-aware, but would like to get better at knowing who they really are. Those people are unicorns and also, ironically, the most self-aware. It’s not as common to meet someone who can be that honest with themselves. I like that they know where their starting point is. I’ve been the person who has prided myself on how well I know who I am, but then am the first person to be blindsided by peer reviews and feedback.

Knowing yourself matters if you’re going to lead. From leading adults to toddlers, this has a tremendous impact. The key to business or building stability within a home is consistency. Whether it’s consistent sales growth or consistent bedtimes, stability stems from cohesive decision-making. A person who does not know themselves inevitably wrestles with inconsistency in their life. They are the first people to pick pleasing others over sharing their honest thoughts. They actually don’t have a choice in the matter. Because sharing honest thoughts requires them to know exactly what they think and why. Merging with what someone else thinks takes no effort and never has to answer the “why” question.

The “why” question helps inform what a leader’s motivation is. Any mom can answer her child with, “Because I said so. That’s why!” And no kid has ever been satisfied with that. Because it’s passive. It’s the same in leadership. A leader who can make a decision and give solid reasoning for it wins with people far more than those who can’t explain themselves clearly. People can at least disagree and live with grounded rationale more than they can accept a vague cop-out.

Knowing yourself requires that you spend time with yourself. It takes intentional energy in a world of autopilot, automatic, and AI-generated responses. Many people aren’t comfortable being alone with their own thoughts and slowly drift from becoming who they could be.

Leaders can absorb a lot of information about their industry or even about leadership, and still miss finding out what they were created for and who they were designed to be. To know yourself is to know the creativity and immeasurable love of God. It’s not pointless; it’s the entire purpose of life. Knowing yourself and knowing things about yourself doesn’t mean agreeing with yourself. I know I interrupt people when they’re speaking regularly. Not okay. I know I am insecure when people do not accept my ideas. And I desperately want to get better at that, too.

Knowing yourself helps you see areas for refinement so that you can ask for help. Asking yourself questions about what you think, what you feel, and what you believe shows you a realistic map of your growth. It helps you see the good work God is doing in your life. It can also reveal how much you’re operating out of your own pride and human limitations. It shows how much or how little you rely on the Lord for insight in your daily interactions.

It also positions you in a greater place to understand the people you lead. None of us has arrived. We all need help. Where would I be if I didn’t learn from leaders who went before me? Who learned the hard way? Who paved a path for people like me to take what they learned and keep going?

I worked for a leader for five years who put in great effort to know himself well. He was sincere, clear, quick to catch and apologize for his shortcomings, interested in others, and curious about what he did not yet know. I haven’t worked for him in several years, but I’ve never forgotten how valuable he made me feel to his organization. I still recall hanging up the phone countless times and feeling lifted by our conversation and the questions he asked me. He has produced more leaders from his company than corporate knows what to do with, and it’s no coincidence.

I had so many spiritual leaders early on who taught me that self-awareness is actually the gift of the Holy Spirit. When we accept Jesus as Lord and Savior of our lives, he gives us a helper. The Holy Spirit. Who guides us, who talks to us across the ticker of our minds, as my dad says, and shows us a better way to live. I watched them model humility to me when they didn’t get things right. They could name why they did what they did. They could admit the self-serving motivation, the why. They could ask for forgiveness without shame because their ultimate source of supply came from the finished work of the cross. They won me over to Jesus Christ with how they led themselves. And it was rooted in knowing their God-designed, purpose-intended selves first.

People can always tell if a person knows themselves or not. Leaders, especially parents, who try to hide their shortcomings, erode their credibility without realizing it. It costs them their influence. But a leader who is in the process of finding out who they are is much more compelling. Their story is relatable because that’s what we all want. To be secure, consistent, confident leaders who can face our imperfections and keep learning.

I’ve been trying to ask myself more often why I do the things I do. I’ve been driving in silence more often, forcing myself to reflect on how I treated people or the reactionary things I said that day. I’ve been asking the Lord to refine the things in me that aren’t helpful to the people I lead, especially my kids. I’m still in process, and I’m not always consistent. But being in process means I at least have momentum.

The leader who knows themself first can model what a self-aware life looks like for others. Consistency can then compound. Self-aware leaders build trust, provide stability, increase creativity, and build a healthy infrastructure that can sustain uncertainty, say “yes!” to opportunity, and encourage human flourishing.

What have you been learning about yourself?
What has God been showing you about yourself lately?