You Cannot Lead Well If You Need Everyone To Like You

Leadership has a way of bruising you in places no one can see. After nearly five years of podcasting, we slow down to thank everyone who’s been listening around the world and especially those who have been praying, because that support keeps ministry from turning into sheer self-effort. Then we get honest about what many pastors, church leaders, and spiritual leaders learn the hard way: the longer you lead, the more you’ll face moments that sting.

We talk about “sheep bite” the painful reality that hurt can come from the very people you serve. The early honeymoon of leadership can make you feel unstoppable, until criticism, offense, and misunderstanding show up and you realize you were never trained for every relational hit. We share practical leadership advice for handling praise and critique, why you should believe about half of both, and how to stop chasing affirmation from people who can’t reliably carry that weight.

We also dig into emotional health for leaders: why stuffing frustration can turn into depression, how “information creates emotion,” and why venting to the wrong person can feed gossip and chaos. A childhood story about a made-up rumor drives home how fast words can move and how deeply they can affect others. Finally, we look to Jesus under false accusation and what real authority looks like when you refuse to retaliate and choose to endure for the long haul.

If you lead in ministry, serve on a team, or carry responsibility for others, listen and take notes, then subscribe, share this with a leader who needs it, and leave a review that helps more people find the show.

Transcript

Four Years Of Gratitude

SPEAKER_00 0:01

I was just thinking recently that we've been at this podcast, Lights are on the fire, excuse me, for four years, right? Going on five years, and the time has just flown by. And I'm sure it's because I'm 67 years old, and the older we get, it seems like the faster time seems to go. But even so, I mean it, man. The time has flown by, and we've come to realize that people from all over the world have been tuning in and listening to what's going on, and we really appreciate that. But more so, we found out that you've been praying for us. We really appreciate that. And I mean from all over the nations. And so thank you so much for that. That oven by itself, I mean, money can't buy. So a thank you isn't quite enough, but it's what I have right now. I want to say thank you so much. It means the difference between you know something being alive and something being just full of self-effort. And God, by his spirit, through the faith that people have been placing in him, he's been providing some inspiration to us and through us. That, like I said, man, it's been going all over the place. And in so doing, some of you are leaders and you've been listening and you've been benefiting from what God has been sharing with you, sometimes prophetically. Not so much the foretelling or broadcasting things that are going to be taking place, but the forthelling, the declaration of God's oracles, his word, encouragement, exhortation, things that come to

When Leadership Turns Painful

SPEAKER_00 2:10

you and they come in the form of oftentimes encouragement. Because I know, and you know, if you're a leader, that sometimes being a leader is like volunteering to be ugly. I mean, it doesn't start out that way. At least it didn't for me. I was invited to do some things years ago, over 40 years ago, and I was just a really, I was I was a young guy. You know, I was 25 years old, and man, I my my my frontal lobe had just gotten closed, right? So my my my life was not necessarily full of experience qualifying me as some sort of elder. You know, no, I mean I was on fire for the Lord, and I had a passion for him, and I had a call of God on my life. I knew that. And it got recognized, and I was invited to come on staff as a as an associate pastor of a local church in Northeast Minneapolis, Praise Assembly, an Assembly God Church. Powerful, it was beautiful, wonderful. Initially, and I mean that goes for everybody. Initially, it's there's a honeymoon that goes on with that. And I mean, I experienced it, and it was like there was nothing that I could do that was wrong. Everything was right, and I'm like, man, this is a this is a dream. I'm called, I'm getting paid to do what I'd love to do. Wow. Until one day I was confronted with something and it really threw me off. I mean, I was offended and I was hurt. I was I didn't get it, and I didn't know what to do about that. And it really soured the taste that I had in my mouth for leadership. And it was what I come to find out, it was my first experience with what we lovingly refer to as sheep bite, where something that someone says or does, and they are a member of the body of Christ, they're sheep, they're one of God's sheep. But sheep have teeth in the natural and in the spiritual. Sheep got teeth. And sheep can bite. And when they bite, they they don't necessarily, it's not lethal, but man, it hurts. And I experienced a sheep bite. Well, come to find out, that's a very common thing to experience when you're a leader. And I began to experience that on a fairly regular basis. And it felt like for a while, like I had become the local garbage dump. People just felt like they could come and dump on me and then walk away, and they might have felt better, but I felt lousy. And that started happening more and more and more until I found out that there's a lot of things that go on with leadership that aren't necessarily taught in seminary. You're not prepared for it. It's hard to prepare to prepare anybody for things that are negative. You say something, but oftentimes a person doesn't even hear it because we want to hear what we want to hear when we want to hear it. And when we're experiencing something that is kind of a honeymoon, we don't want to hear too much negative. We want to hear things that are positive. And I did, and then life kind of settled in. And you know, the funny thing about life is it's so daily. I mean, it happens every day. Daily living. And in daily living, we have ups and we have downs and we got a lot of in-betweens. And here's a good word of advice if you're a leader. When it comes to people that are giving you a lot of praise

Stop Chasing Praise Or Critique

SPEAKER_00 6:30

and adulation, believe about half of it. And when people are criticizing you, and you can't seem to do anything right in their eyes, believe about half of it. You get the point. We can't believe what people tell us about ourselves at face value all the time. We need to get our affirmation and our assurance, first and foremost, from God. And I want to remind you as a leader, don't look to people first to get your affirmation. Because people will let us down. How do I know that? I'm a people, and I let people down, and people that are other people let me down. And so we seem to let each other down, and that's part of life. That's part of that daily thing. The ups, the downs, the in-betweens. And that is kind of the in-betweens and a little bit of the downs. And there's a cycle that goes on. There seems to be an oscillating cycle where people come and people go also. If you're a leader, you'll notice that. That people will come into your life and they will then leave. They will come into your ministry and they'll leave. They'll come and some will come and stay, but a lot of people come and go and they come back and they go. And then they come back, and sometimes people just come and go. And it can be somewhat frustrating if you're trying to do something and you want to count on individuals to be there to help that thing take place. And when they're not, well, it really either doesn't take place or it's very awkward if it does. And I've experienced a bit of both. And I'm saying in leadership, we're going to, you're going to, we're going to experience those things. And we can't allow that to jade us in the long run. Now, it's all right to be frustrated. In fact, it's important to acknowledge it when you are, because if you don't, it makes you sick. The number one cause of depression is anger turned inward. And when we turn things inward, we stuff them, it gets heavy and we get depressed oftentimes. And so I'm encouraging you, as a

Anger, Depression, And Wise Venting

SPEAKER_00 9:05

leader, to express yourself, but be mindful who you express yourself to and what you say. Because people love information. And information creates emotion. And sometimes we all want to have a little bit of an emotional thing, a little boost or a little something. And sometimes information gives us that thing that's not quite so daily. We get to hear some juice about something, maybe. Or we'll make it up so we can have something to say that breaks the monotony. I remember as a kid growing up, we had a neighbor that lived a few blocks away. And for some reason, I was it was a summer day, and I was bored. I was a kid, I was maybe 12 years old, and I was just bored. I'm going over to my friend's house, and I looked at his mom, and for some reason I told her, Yeah, we had a bad thing going on her house today. And she was, what happened? I said, My sister was mowing a lawn, and she fell down, and lawnmower ran over her leg and it just chewed her leg all up. Well, that was a lie. That was an absolute lie about my sister. Well, my neighbor, my friend's mom, said, Oh no, and so she dropped herself and she went over to my house, our house, to find out if there's anything she could do. And she looked at my mom, she goes, Wow,

A Childhood Lie And Gossip Lessons

SPEAKER_00 10:50

I heard the news about Ramona, my sister's name. My mom goes, What? She goes, she she got a foot cot in the lawnmower. And my mom goes, No? Who told you that? I was behind my friend's mom, because I ran behind her to my house. And she said, She goes, David, did you tell her that? I said, Yes. She goes, uh, I'm so sorry, that's not the truth. I'll deal with it. And my mom did. And I was humiliated, and I had to go back and apologize to my neighbors, mom. And I did. And she was understanding, but she then told me, don't ever do that again, because that created an emotion inside of me. And I thought, your sister was really hurt. And it scared me. Don't do that. And I won't. And you know what? That lesson stayed with me when it comes to talking about issues, talking about other people and fabricating things about people. Don't do that. But if you're a leader, you're gonna have people fabricate things about you. And it's gonna be tempting to retaliate. But remember, Jesus, when he was falsely accused, he didn't open his mouth. He said he was like a sheep being led to slaughter. He didn't say anything, and a sheep doesn't when they're on their way to slaughter, to get slaughtered.

False Accusations And Quiet Authority

SPEAKER_00 12:25

And Jesus didn't say a word. He did not say a word because he didn't have to. You see, authority doesn't always have to say its authority and announce itself. Authority is a presence of and by itself. And Jesus had authority and he's given authority to us, he's given authority to you. You don't have to walk around excusing yourself for what you do. You don't have to excuse yourself that you are a minister of the gospel, like it's some sort of second-rate thing. If you're a minister of the gospel, don't stoop so low as to be the president of the United States of America, right? But if you're called to be a politician, then don't try to do anything else. But if you're called to be a minister, that's not a little thing. That's a significant thing. We are called to equip the body of Christ for the work of the ministry, to train people up to do the stuff, man. So as leaders, we need to be able to navigate through things without being thrown off course because of what other people say, think, feel, or do concerning us. And people will, and sometimes powers of darkness will attempt to do that. Because being a leader is a privilege but also a responsibility. We have privileges, but we also have responsibilities, but being a leader involves just that being upfront and leading. And leading in a way that is not harsh or demanding, but leading in a way that is compassionate and true. Leading in a way that is full of life and full of purpose, full of meaning, full of vision. Leading a life that is capable of experiencing negative things and not being thrown off by them for the long haul. Experiencing difficulties and acknowledging them and contending with them and having people that you can fight with so you can deal with them together, absolutely necessary, yes. But for the long haul, being thrown off, being thrown out of the race because of what people say, it's not worth it, man. Because one minute you'll be told

Privilege, Responsibility, And The Long Haul

SPEAKER_00 14:55

you're great, and the next minute you'll be told you're not. And then the next minute you won't be told anything about you. You'll wonder if anyone's even alive. Because in daily living, we experience all those things. And as a leader, you're going to experience them, you're going to be experiencing them, and sometimes with an even greater intensity when it comes to the negative things. So to be forewarned is to be forearmed. So I'm telling you, for some of you ahead of time, for some of you, it's a reminder that there are certain things that go along with being a leader. There are privileges and there are responsibilities. And sometimes the responsibilities involve dealing with negative things. But in the end, we experience a crown for faithfully serving in the capacity that we've been called to. Hallelujah. Let's pray. Father God.

Prayer And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Amen. Amen. So be it, amen. Hallelujah. Folks, we love you. And if you have any thoughts, questions, concerns, feel free to drop us the line at LifeAroundThefire at gmail.com. That's our email address. Or type in Life Around the Fire and look us up on the web. We'd love to hear from you. In the meantime, God bless you. Adios, amigos.