The Lonely Leader

Have you ever found yourself in a sea of people, yet adrift in waves of solitude? Tune in as I, Todd Rhoades, shed light on the silent struggle of loneliness that pervades leadership roles, particularly in church settings. As leaders, we're expected to be pillars of strength, yet these very expectations can create barriers to genuine connection. In the latest Healthy Church Staff Podcast, we delve into the paradoxical loneliness that leaders face despite being surrounded by their congregation. Discover why leaders like you and I are prone to feeling isolated and how this isolation can often lead to a cycle of self-imposed solitude that's hard to break.

This episode is a lifeline for those of us treading lonely waters in leadership, offering the beacon of shared experience and actionable advice. I discuss the challenges of finding confidants within the church community and the complex power dynamics that can stunt the growth of authentic relationships with our team members. But fear not, we don't stop at just diagnosing the problem. You'll leave with a toolkit of strategies to navigate these choppy waters, including seeking out mentors and creating peer connections that can withstand the storm. So join me on this journey to bridge the gap between leadership and loneliness, and find solace in the solidarity of our shared challenges.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Do you ever feel lonely? As a leader, you're always around people. You have people around you all the time, but yet you just feel isolated and lonely and you don't have anybody that you can really share anything with. We're going to talk about that today here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Hi there, if this is your first time joining us, my name is Todd Rhodes. I'm your host and also one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom when we talk about leadership.

Speaker 1: 0:38

A lot of times I've talked with a lot of pastors that are doing a great job leading, but in reality, if you ask them, they just feel lonely. Leading often feels isolated, even when you're in the midst of a ton of other people and have people around you and maybe even have hundreds, if not thousands, of people attending your church and watching you every weekend or every Sunday. Why in the world do you feel lonely? Here are some reasons. Isolation is big for leaders. Let me back up just a second. Loneliness and if you're a leader, maybe you're not a senior pastor, maybe you're just on a church staff, but you're a church leader and you feel lonely. You're not alone. I think you may feel lonely, but you're not alone. Loneliness in leadership is very common. Here's some of the reasons why. The first is I started to talk about is isolation. Who can you really share things with? Leaders often work alone in their roles and because of that they can feel really disconnected. Who can you talk to? Can you talk to other staff members, board members? Can you talk to your spouse? None of these, a lot of times in certain situations, are not really good choices. We'll get to a little bit more on that here in a second.

Speaker 1: 1:58

Isolation is one reason that you feel lonely. The second is man. You're always under high expectations. The pressure to appear strong and decisive is always there. If you're like a lot of leaders, they feel like they need to project confidence and suppress their vulnerabilities at the same time. That really does make it hard to form authentic connections with others. A lot of times also, there's an inability because of this to build close relationships with subordinates. That's not a really good term to use. Let's say you're the senior pastor and you have three or four or 10 staff.

Speaker 1: 2:32

It's really hard because of that power dynamic and yep, there's power dynamic in churches. A lot of times it's really hard between leaders and their teams to be able to communicate in a way that can foster genuine relationships. If those genuine relationships aren't there, if you don't have a good close relationship with your staff, it doesn't mean you share everything with them, but if you don't have a good close relationship with your staff, if that line gets blurred, you can become a lonely leader very quickly. A lack of sounding boards is another reason and that goes along the same thing. A lot of leaders have very few people that they can confide in. Because of what we just talked about, the expectations and it's really difficult. To build relationships that can be open, where you can talk about anything with some of your staff, is very difficult. So a lot of leaders have very few people that they can confide in. Who do you go and talk to, if you're a church leader, about maybe some of your personal doubts or your leadership struggles or those kinds of things? It's really hard to within your church because sometimes people judge, sometimes you're just not comfortable. But when you don't have those sounding boards, if you don't have somebody that you can talk to a mentor or someone there can really be a sense of emotional isolation and you put all these things together and it just breeds some self isolation tendencies. Lonely leaders often, the longer they go, often withdraw even further over time than reaching out, and that just makes things worse. It worsens their sense of disconnection from others. So here's the encouraging word If you feel lonely today, I want you to know, and I want you to hear this, that you aren't alone. There are a lot of leaders that are experiencing this as well. Okay, so what can you do about it? There are some things here that some of these are a little bit more obvious than others, but the first and I think this seems obvious, but it's difficult Seek out mentors and peers.

Speaker 1: 4:37

I always say that every pastor, every church leader, really needs to have somebody that they can let me say this, and I don't mean it but someone that they can let the F-bombs fly around, and I don't mean that literally. What I mean is you need somebody that you can share anything with and get their input and their advice on. You need somebody that you can rant to from time to time and rave about from time to time, both in the good times and the bad times. And chances are, chances are that is somebody outside of your church and many church leaders, many pastors, do not have that person. That's one of the reasons that chemistry staffing. I do a good amount of work with pastors that just need somebody to talk to, that just need a coaching relationship, and if you would like information on that, you can always reach out to me at podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. I'd love to be able to share with you some opportunities to do that, but it doesn't have to be me by all means. You just need to have somebody outside of your church.

Speaker 1: 5:36

I always say somebody that doesn't have a dog in that fight, in your fight, that you can talk to and push things off of and have open and challenging conversations with. So seek out that. If you don't have that, reach out to me. I'd love to talk with you. What else can you do? You can build authentic relationships. Try and make genuine connections with others and even people on your staff, and that's my next one is foster connections with your team. You need to be vulnerable, like you can't share everything with your teams, especially if they're in different roles than you, but promote openness and empathy and build relationships that are beyond just surface level interactions.

Speaker 1: 6:16

This is really going to help you combat that loneliness. It won't take care of all of it for you, but it will help not only help maintain your ability to lead, but it will help you to foster some good relationships. Make sure you take care of yourself. Reflect off and look back on times in the past maybe that you've been lonely, maybe tough stretches and remember how you felt then and how you got out of those. And it always helps really to have a focus outward.

Speaker 1: 6:44

If you're feeling lonely, just remember that you're not the only one and chances are there's somebody that's probably lonelier than you, and you probably have a couple of those people in your head right now. Redirect some attention to ministering those who might be even lonelier, maybe through outreach service projects. Maybe take somebody out to lunch that just is having a tough time, because you'll be able to build into them. But without even knowing it, they'll be able to build into you. And finally and this might be not something that you want to consider, but sometimes you just go through a period of loneliness and recognizing those feelings of isolation are, as I said, they're normal, even when you're flying high with your leadership success, and you don't always necessarily have to hide it. You can seek solutions to present that from getting worse over time. And really I think the problem here is if that kind of season of loneliness turns into a really long season, then I think you really need to start looking at building those authentic relationships and seeking out with the mentors and fostering your team even more. Lean into that and that will help you. But, guys, gals, being a leader sometimes is lonely business and people don't understand that, but you do if you've been there.

Speaker 1: 8:06

Okay, we're going to take a little bit of a curveball tomorrow. We're going to talk the next two days on a lot of buzz going around about artificial intelligence and we're going to talk about that. Unpack that a little bit tomorrow and the following day here on the Healthy Church Podcast. If you have a topic that you would like me to discuss or to bring up or do a podcast episode, I would love to hear from you. Or just hear from you and tell me a little bit about yourself, your story. If you need help finding a mentor or you want some transitional coaching or some leadership coaching, love to do that as well. You can catch me anytime at podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. And until tomorrow, have a great day.