Performance vs. Formation: What's Really Underneath When the Mask Comes Off

Years of building walls to protect yourself can quietly start hurting the people you lead.

In this episode, Clay Scroggins joins me to talk about the moment every high-performing leader eventually faces,  when the drive that built your success starts costing you trust. We get into what it looks like to let God reshape not just your results, but how you get them. 

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⏱️ Episode Highlights
[01:09] – The Harder Truth: Once the mask comes off, you have to deal with what's underneath.

[02:56] – "I Don't Accept Excuses": Preston's early leadership style, and the team member who walked.

[03:52] – The Kid Who Started It All: Junior high, five foot two, chased home, where the walls began.

[08:40] – Meet Clay Scroggins: Pastor turned speaker, author of How to Lead When You're Not in Charge.

[11:13] – Crying Over a Spreadsheet: The dashboard full of red that triggered a crisis of the soul.

[16:55] – Looking Inward: Why "what's wrong with them" is the wrong question.

[23:03] – The Seeds of Failure: Why success, not failure, is when your "how" matters most.

[26:57] – "What's It Like to Be on the Other Side of Me?": The question every results-driven leader needs to ask.

[34:42] – The Saul to Paul Shift: Why formation doesn't kill what performance built,  it redeems it.

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Links & Resources Mentioned
• Discipled Leader Apprenticeship — prestonpoore.com 
• Discipled Leader Book — prestonpoore.com/books-by-preston 
• How is Greater Than What Book — prestonpoore.com/book 
• About Preston — prestonpoore.com/about-preston_poore 
• How to Lead When You're Not in Charge Book - clayscroggins.com/how-to-lead-when-youre-not-in-charge 
• Book - The Leadership Journey (Jim Quess, mentioned) 

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Connect With Me
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/prestonpoore 
Facebook: facebook.com/PoorePreston 
Instagram: instagram.com/prestonpoore1
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Closing Thoughts
If today's episode hit home, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Like it, comment, leave a review, it helps more people find the show, and quite honestly, it reminds me I'm not just talking to myself in here.

Peace out. Be a rock star.

About Preston Poore

Preston Poore is a former Coca-Cola executive who practices what he preaches. He uses his wealth of hard-earned experience in the corporate arena to help emerging leaders and millennials reach their potential—all while staying true to his values, purpose, and goals.

Preston is a Certified Maxwell Leadership Team Keynote Speaker, Facilitator, Trainer, and Executive Coach. Through his books, How Is Greater Than What, Discipled Leader (2022 Selah Awards Nonfiction Book of the Year) and 21 Days to Sound Decision Making, his blog, and podcast, he seeks to help people become redemptive influences in their workplaces and live more fulfilling lives.

Learn more about Preston Poore & Associates: https://prestonpoore.com

Work with Preston or invite him to speak: https://prestonpoore.com/leadership-development-services/

Sign up to receive the P³ Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/prestonpoore.com/thepulse

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/prestonpoore/
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

He said, May I pray for you? And I said, No. You may not. I once told a team member, I don't accept excuses, and he said, What do you accept? I said, results. And he accepted a job offer somewhere else. Once the mask comes off, you have to deal with what's underneath it. A few years ago, I shared my bullying story for the first time. Junior High, 5'2, chased home. I thought that that was the whole story. Then someone reached out to tell me that I had bullied them. I had told the story of what had happened to me. I had not yet told the story of what I became. If you've ever been so focused on producing results that you didn't stop to count what it was costing the people around you, this one's for you. I spent 30 years in corporate leadership making every mistake in the book, some of them twice. I'm Preston Poor, and if you're a leader who's ever felt in over your head but too proud to say it, you're in the right place. This is PQ. Welcome. Last episode, the mask. Imposter syndrome. The gap between who people think you are and who you're terrified you actually are. The moment you stopped hiding and started being honest, that's when you connected. But here's the harder truth. Once the mask comes off, you have to deal with what's underneath it. And what's underneath might not be something you created, not something that was done to you, but something that you did. And that's today's tension. And it's the one that nobody in the room wants to go first on. Episode four performance versus formation. Every high performing leader hits this wall. The drive that pushed you to the top starts running over the people around you. The results at all cost, mindset, that made you a top performer starts costing you trust. The armor that you built to survive starts keeping you from connecting. The hardest leaders to coach are the ones who are producing. Because success is excellent at hiding what formation hasn't yet touched. Performance asks, what are the results? Formation asks, what is it costing the people around you? And the question that God is asking in all that moment is not what did you achieve? It's who are you becoming? Those are two very different questions. Before we go any further, you need to know something. I wasn't always self-aware about this. In fact, the leader that I'm about to describe, that was me. For years, looking back, I exercised some poor judgment. Before I tell you the rest of the story, I used to open team meetings with so much intensity, people would brace themselves, not to be inspired, but to survive. And he accepted a job offer somewhere else the following week. My early management style could be best described as motivational. Specifically, everyone around me was highly motivated not to be in the receiving end of it. And one night I asked Carla, my wife, do you think people are afraid to tell me hard truths? Well, she paused for a long time. And that was my answer. Okay, funny now wasn't funny then. You heard the cold open. Someone reached out and told me that I had bullied them. Let me take you back further before I became that leader. To the kid who started it all. Junior High, 5'2, scrawny, physically threatened, followed down hallways, chased home, hiding behind a closed door. Two boys trying to pull me outside. I called the police. I was terrified. I was alone. And that's where I learned the world will hurt you if you let it in. Five foot two became six foot one. Built walls, rejected strength. And if you look hard enough, people won't come after you. And it worked for a while. You know, psychologists have a word for this. It's displacement. It's redirecting fear, anger, and anxiety from a an original source onto a less threatening one. The intimidation that protected me as a kid started flowing downward onto the teams that I was supposed to be leading. I became the intimidator out of fear of being intimidated. But results, they kept coming, titles kept uh advancing, and by every external measure, it was working. You mistake the compliance of fear for the alignment of trust. It's funny. Success overcomes a multitude of sins. But someone who'd been on the receiving end told me the truth. You did to me what was done to you. Not dramatic, not loud, but just honest. And it stopped me cold. It wasn't until the Lord got a hold of me that I put down my defenses. I didn't need to be told to be tougher. I need to be taught to love. And that is a very different kind of hard. Most leaders I know go to church on Sunday and show up on Monday like they've never heard a word of it. I was one of them. The discipled leader apprenticeship exists to close that gap. One-on-one discipleship that shapes how you actually lead, not just what you do. If you're tired of living two separate lives, visit Preston4.com. Clay Scrogans, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here. I've been looking forward to this interview for a while and appreciate taking the time to be with us today. Hey, before we get into this, just tell us a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Sure. Yeah, first of all, thanks for having me, Preston. Um, thanks for taking your spotlight and shining it on me. Uh I'm really grateful. But I um grew up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Uh great parents, great family, uh, wonderful childhood, uh, moved to Atlanta to go to college, went to Georgia Tech, studied engineering. I I quickly realized when I was studying engineering that this is not what I need to be doing with my life, and the school agreed. Uh I jokingly say that when I was getting ready to graduate, I had failed physics too twice, and I needed to get through it so that I could finish this engineering degree. And I had to go meet with the registrar to get in some classes that uh you could only get into once you pass physics to. And I said, uh, she was like, Hey, what are you going to do with this degree? And I said, Well, I'm I'm planning on going to seminary to study theology, which she looked at me with the same befuddled look that my parents had for me when I told them that. But I uh I said, Why don't we do this? If you'll give me this degree, I promise you I'll never use it. How about that? And so I have um, she did not think that was funny, but I have stayed good on my promise. I um ended up going to seminary, studied theology, uh, met my wife in seminary. Uh, we've been married for it'll be 20 years this fall. We've got five kids, ages, I think 17 down to eight. And I spent 20 years as a pastor here in Atlanta, um, which is where we live still. And um, about five years ago, took the leap to step out on my own and pursue uh doing a lot of corporate speaking, still some preaching, but that's become my career now is standing in front of audiences and delivering content in a way that's hopefully engaging and uh impactful and helpful.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Yeah, no, that's so good. You add a lot of value to a lot of people. It's funny. I had a uh a guest on here recently that had read your book, How to Lead When You're Not in Charge, on influence. And uh that's one of those skills that I had to learn when I was at the Coca-Cola company early on. As a matter of fact, I didn't get a promotion because they told me I didn't know how to influence yet. So uh I had to learn the old hard way to figure all that stuff. Didn't have your book at the time, which would have been very, very helpful. So thank you for that. Well, let's uh let's roll into some of these questions that we have for you, just to dive into the topic today on that. And and the first one for you is uh when did you first realize the thing that made you successful was no longer enough?

SPEAKER_01 8:40

That was uh that's been a hard, that's a hard journey. I mean, that question, uh, when I saw that in the notes that you sent me, I thought, oh, good grief. Preston's jumping right in. Nothing, nothing, no, no softballs to get the thing going, right? Um, they'd say the hardest thing about church world, well, well, I I wouldn't say this is always true, but in the organization I worked for, um, there was a strong desire for everything to be up and to the right. Um, and and and you would attach eternal consequences to that, right? That there's a life after this life, and um how we're impacting people's lives matter, and whether we're introducing more people to Jesus uh or less people to Jesus, it it it matters, not only in this life, but in the next. And so you there's all this there there there can be an immense amount of pressure for things to grow. The danger, the hard part is that uh life is not always up and to the right, right? And so um I would say somewhere in my approaching 40 is where I started to realize whatever skills I have acquired or whatever skills I had been given that allowed me to get to the point that I was in then. I mean, I was in a very uh in the church world, I had I would have been considered a, you know, that my career was a success. I had gotten into a really great spot. Uh it was a really large church. Uh they were paying me well. I had a lot of opportunities to influence, but things were not growing. Um thing uh the church I was working at was declining about, I don't know, somewhere between five and ten percent a year in attendance, which you know, uh every church wants to tell you that they're measuring far more than just nickels and noses. But at the end of the day, uh the money and the people in the seat, that's what people it's just so easy to make that the thing you care most about. And so uh that was a real trying time for me. I mean, I I would say uh you don't want to compare your own suffering, your own crisis to other people. This isn't the suffering Olympics, but for me, that was one of the most uh im important crisis of the soul in my life for sure, is that season when things had stopped growing and when I realized the skills that I have are not the skills that I need to get to where I want to be. So what'd you do? Well, I cried. That was the first thing I did. Okay. Did you ever cry? Did you ever cry in a meeting present at work at Coca-Cola? Internally, certainly.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

For many reasons.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

I had no, I mean, you know, I'd cried at a baptism, I'd cried at a you know, a story of somebody's life being changed, but I had never cried over a spreadsheet and um dead serious. I'm not proud of it. That's again, when I saw your questions, I thought, gosh, we're jumping right in. Usually I'd wait till, you know, a couple two-thirds of the way in the interview to talk about this kind of uh thing. But uh we we were we were trying to figure out what the issue was. We were and I was sitting at all these meetings, we were really uh data heavy, we were really paying a lot of attention to data, which churches don't always do that, but we had passed around another dashboard and another one of our executive leadership team meetings, and it there there was some green on it, but most of the columns that uh I was responsible for had a lot of red in it, um, meaning things were not growing, they were declining. And uh when I got done with the comp when we got done with the meeting, there were still people in the room, but I balled the paper up and threw it in the middle of the table, and my boss saw it, and he could tell that I was I was bothered and I was like, oh, that was that was it that obvious, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

So anyway, he reaches out to me a couple days later and he was like, Hey, before we go into the weekend, you want to revisit that meeting on Tuesday? I could tell you were visibly agitated. Um, and I thought, yeah, I would love to talk about it. So we have the meeting. He comes down to my office and we're sitting, I'll never forget this meeting because we're sitting there. And I mean, within five minutes, we're immediately arguing about we're arguing about whether we were measuring the right things and why things were going the way they were going. And um, I I did, I started crying, um, which I again I'd never cried in a meeting.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Just overwhelmed from the the burden of what you saw and frustration.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

I did I didn't know. I didn't know where the emotion was coming from. Wow. Uh you you know, in a league of their own, was it Tom Hanks that says there's no crying in baseball, you know? I mean, there should be no crying over spreadsheets. It's just data, it's numbers, it's black and white, it's not meant to be emotional. And so I was confused. And and my boss is um, you know, because we're working in the church context, he he's a pastor and I'm a pastor. And so he does all the things that you do when somebody's crying, you know, he told a joke. Uh, he, you know, they they weren't like uh your poor judgment jokes, but they he told, you know, he tried to make tried to make me laugh, you know, he gave me space, handed me a tissue. I mean, and the thing is, I knew all these things that he was doing because I've done it a hundred times to somebody I was sitting across the table from. And at one point he says, Hey, um, do you mind if I pray for you? And you would, yes, that was caring and kind, but that is not what I needed in that moment. That is not certainly not what I wanted in that moment because I felt like it was, you know, I'm feeling sorry for you and kind of patronized. Not he was not patronizing me, but that's kind of the way it felt. So, you know, that was a that was uh that was rock bottom for me when a pastor, me being a pastor, told my boss who's a pastor, when he said, May I pray for you? And I said, No. Yeah, you may not. Yeah. So he, we, we adjourned the meeting. I was like, we're gonna have to talk about this next week. I gotta figure out what's going on. And I went home and uh still just couldn't figure out what it was coming from, couldn't figure out what I why this was bothering me so badly. My wife, she immediately like shoes the kids into another room and she's like, What is going on? She had never seen me like this. I had never been like this. So um I told her, I was like, it feels like she had just had, we we had just had a baby, and so she was trying to get back to her normal weight of where she lives, and you know, with her getting her body back. And I said, Imagine that you're staying, imagine that you're trying to lose weight and you do everything you know to do to lose the weight. You're eating right, you're exercising, do all the counting everything, but every time you step on the scale, it goes, it's going up. How would that make you feel? And that was so helpful because I was really, that was, you know, my way of explaining to myself what I was feeling. Um yeah, I was, I think it yeah, after a couple weeks of a lot of conversation, what I realized is I was feeling I was feeling like a failure. It was really one of the first times in my life since failing physics too, where I had really where I had really felt like a failure. And and worse than that, I discovered something inside of me that I cared more about being perceived as success or as successful than actually being successful. So yeah, it was genuinely a crisis of the soul. So you you that was a long way of answering. What did I do? Uh a lot of soul searching, a lot of, a lot of trying to get under the I think our instinct is to deal with the immediate problem, right? I was trying to deal with why did this numbers make me feel the way they feel? No, there's something underneath it. Why did I feel inadequate? Why did I need to feel like I had it all together? Why was I afraid of people's perception that things weren't going well and uh how that might somehow define me? So that's what I did is I tried to deal with those root issues.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

So let's go off script for a little bit because these are some questions I think of when I listen to your uh your story. And thank you for your transparency. Uh it's not often you have somebody come in and admit that they had those types of emotions that were driven by some of these things. But how how in that clay then did this idea of formation start moving you versus the performance side? Because you're looking at spreadsheets, you're looking at numbers. It's no difference than the Atlanta Braves. They got to have butts and seats.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

That's right. Right?

SPEAKER_00 16:36

You got to have results. And I tell people all the time, results are table stakes, typically in any organization you're in. That's right. Uh so the question is you got to step back a little bit and look at the the identity, the character formation, what's going on in the inside. Uh, tell me a little bit about that uh and your openness and your transparency, like you've been. Uh what was going on there?

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Well, I I think I learned a practice in that season that whenever something is bothering you, our instinct is to look at the thing, look at the the the whatever the cause of agitation is. But a better, uh, a more profitable, I mean, I think that's understandable um and and sometimes appropriate, but I think a better, a better response when we think about discipleship, when we think about sanctification or growth, is to look inside and go, what is this revealing about me? Why, you know, uh uh the way this shows up in the workplace oftentimes is it's a person that's bothering you. You know, it's a boss that's bothering you. It's a colleague's ego that's bothering you. And instead of going, yeah, what's the issue? Why is that person such a mess? And why are they such a disaster? And what's her problem, what's his problem? It's always better to try to be spend some time of introspection going, what what is what does this say about me that this is bothering me? What is this disturbing inside of me that God may want to be working on, or that um may need some uh, you know, I think of the Jesus and the vine and the branches, you know, that pruning process, yeah, it ain't no fun, but it's a huge part of the process. And maybe, just maybe, God is using this form of irritation or this form of um uh of something that's uncomfortable to prune something inside of you. So I would say that was the one of the best outcomes of it is that it caused me to look internal and go, what's going on inside of me that I need to pay more attention to?

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Yeah, so good. So uh, how do you take what you've learned into your uh next chapter that you're moved out of the church and into uh speaking, being with groups, consulting, uh that type of stuff? How do you take what you learn from all that and apply it and then help other people grow?

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Yeah, which that's and uh that thank you for that question because that's another great thing to remember in the middle of it is that I was talking to our 17-year-old daughter last night. We went to the Braves game together, a little father-daughter date, and we were talking about that Johnny Cash song, Boy Named Sue. You remember that song? Yeah. I don't know, I don't even I think it had come up at school and they were talking about in like a philosophy class. And it's kind of a brilliant concept that this, you know, this guy, the dad names this guy, that this name Sue, and he he gets beat up, bullied his whole life, and um then he finally bumps into the dad and he wants to, you know, he wants to beat the mess out of him for naming him Sue, but the dad says, you know, he he reminds him, look at what it did for you, right? Look at what it got you ready for, look at what it built inside of you. And so, you know, we had a wonderful little moment where we could both think about the times in our life where the thing that we wished wasn't there, God was actually using to develop something in us that he would use later on. So good. But you can't see that in the moment, right? It's kind of like uh do are do you do Wordle, Preston? Are you a Wordle? I I have to admit, I'm not. No, I'm not. But you're aware of it, you know what it is. I am. Um, you know, so many people, I mean, I I've I play Wordle every day, and yeah, it it's you you wake up every morning staring at these letters, going, I know there's a word in here, but I don't know what it is yet. And you slowly start, it becomes more and more clear with every iteration. And that's really the way God works, right? Is that we can't see, we can't see what's on the other side. But um, to be able to trust and have faith that no, he it might be hard now, it might be uncomfortable now, but he's building something in you for something that's coming down the road that you're gonna need. You know, now I'm on my own, I'm a solopreneur. Um, my uh the success of my job depends on bookings. And it's real easy to live and die, or to it's real easy to let my emotional health, or at least my emotional state, run proportional to the amount of bookings I get, which is a really unhealthy, it's a terrible way to live because, you know, if I've got booked to do something today, I'm feeling good. If I didn't, I'm feeling like, you know, a disaster and questioning everything in life. So that, but I think what I'm able to handle now, I learned in that season, you know, 10 years ago when I first bumped into um, how do you deal with life when it's not always up and to the right? You you you try to gauge your success, not based on outcomes, but you try to gauge your success on faithfulness. And did I do the things that I knew that I was supposed to do today to that might lead to a booking down the road, right? I mean, that's Jesus', you know, what I think. I think it's the way he gauged success, is when, you know, that we would look forward to that moment where he might say, Well done, my good and successful servant, right? Sure. My good and booked servant. My good my good and yeah, it's faithful, my good and faithful servant. So I think that's the I think that's the hope for that's certainly the hope for me. I'm preaching to myself at this point. I hear you.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

That's so good. You know, Clay, uh, it's uh every leader has to go through something uh challenging. I I interviewed Jim Kuzis not long ago, and Jim is the co author of the Leadership. And he said, you know, Preston, one of the common elements of all great leaders are they've gone through something hard to get the other side, to do something extraordinary. And so I often look back and think about leaders like Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill that are both had struggles, challenges. And I even remember reading something that Winston Churchill said that said, everything that I did led me to this point, enabled me to lead like I did during World War II. And so uh God is shaping and molding and forming your character and preparing you for what you're doing next. And so that's that's a great point. So thank you for calling it out. I want to ask uh two other quick questions, uh, and then we'll see if there's anything else you want to add before we uh conclude our very uh valuable and rich time together. Um address this a little bit. What does it actually look like when a high performing leader lets God reshape the how? That's the way they approach people, the the way they go about things, uh, and not just the results. What does that look like? What has to die and then what has to stay or gets to stay? What happens in all that?

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Well, I would I would say that the best time to pay attention to that, uh, the hardest time to pay attention to that, but maybe the best are in the seasons of success, right? Because uh I don't remember who said it. I think maybe somebody I heard maybe the CEO of Walmart years ago said the seeds of failure are most often sown in the seasons of success. That it's those, I I think of them as false wins, right? When you went about it with the wrong how, but you got the what that you were hoping for, right? That's dangerous, right? Because you think, oh, um, did I manipulate the person to get them to do what I wanted them to do to get the outcome that I was looking for? Maybe, but that's okay because I got the outcome I was looking for. That's dangerous, right? So I would say um we got to all be really aware of the how, particularly in the seasons of success, because we're we're way more aware of the how in the seasons of failure because we're going, how do I get out of this failure? How do I diagnose this? How do I fix this? How do I change this? How do I make sure this doesn't happen again? And so we we're we're able to look at the how, but it's the it's those times where maybe you got the sale or you you they increased your budget like you wanted them to, or you got the job that you were wanting, or you got the promotion, and you go, Great, I got the what, but we forget about the the how. So I think the thing that has to die um is our I think we have to first admit that, yeah, I there's a potential that I just because the what I got right doesn't mean the how was correct. And so I think we've got to let that um be willing to be open to maybe I could have done it a better way. Um, you know, I've I've noticed people people have a hard time. I mean, I was listening to John Ron yesterday talk about his decision to go on the Live Tour. And I I appreciate what he said because he said, I really don't live life with regret. And I I thought about it and I thought, I know what he's saying. Nobody wants to say I have a regret because it led you to where you are now, right? And so to say I wish I would have done it different, it it's kind of hard to say that. But there's a difference between if I could do it over again, I would do it differently, and I have a regret, right? I think, I think being able to go, yeah, if I could go back and do it differently now, knowing what I know now, I would do it differently. Do I regret the way it worked out? Maybe, maybe not, because it led me to the place where I am now. I think being able to uh parse those two uh issues out is really helpful as well as we think about the how versus the what.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Yeah, yeah. So so good. Now, I have to confess I have multiple regrets in my life. So we might do another series called the 20 regrets that I confess. So uh but each of those things I've learned, but right, uh, so I think it's about what you're what you're proposing uh is that it is a the way you look at it, the outlook you have. Agreed. Are you learning from your failure, that's right, your challenges to bring this to you. Yeah, it's a humility. It is. It comes from humility. And uh willing to admit that you did make some mistakes, but you know, uh there's some grace for yourself that goes into all that too. Hey, last question uh for you. It's for the the audience is for millennial leaders, and uh I'm really trying to cue in to help them as they are developing uh into leadership. I don't know if you know this or not. I share the statistic every once in a while that uh leaders typically are uh appointed from moved from individual contributor to a leader position, people leader when they're 30, but they don't get leadership training until they're 40. So there's a 10-year gap, and there's a lot of opportunity like me to make a lot of mistakes. And you can learn from those uh and you can not learn from those and create some habits either way. Um but for the millennial leader who's producing results, but starting to sense that something is off, what's the first honest question that they need to ask themselves?

SPEAKER_01 26:58

I would uh I like the question uh what is it like to be on the other side of me? A good friend of mine, Jeff Henderson, introduced that question to our organization. And I've never uh I've used it so often, but I think the the thing that we miss so often when things aren't going well is the what could change about the way I'm approaching this or what could change about the way I'm showing up. Um so often it's the outcome that we're wanting to change. It's the well, how do I fix the result? But I would leverage the moment to go, maybe God wants to use this season to change something inside of me. Uh, maybe God wants to use this to uh adjust something, fix something, shape something. And and the best people that can help you with that are the people that are around you. God's God's given us this amazing opportunity to go solicit feedback and seek the kind of feedback that is going to help shape us if we're willing to do it. I love that there's a proverb Solomon wrote that said, um, the one who uh hates discipline is stupid, he says. I know, right? That basically, yeah, it feels like correction. It feels like discipline to have somebody tell you something about yourself that you don't love, but uh wouldn't you be better off to go and get it? So uh what would it look like for you to leverage this season where things aren't going as well as you maybe want them to go to go get some crucial feedback about yourself that could really help change things? And then I would also, you know, I would I would add to that maybe something that might not be as constructive, but can be just as formative. But trying to ask the question uh, whose approval am I after? Whose applause am I after? Um, who am I working for? Um, I I always think about that. There's a scene out of First Night. This is a movie from the 90s that millennials will not recognize, but Richard Gere played Lancelot in First Night, and he's jell that there's a big giant in the town square, key character in the movie. He's kind of showing off how great he is at fencing, jousting, whatever. And and uh Lancelot shows up on the scene. This is real early in the movie, and he goes, I'll tell I'll I'll give it a go. You know, it's kind of like jumping in the cage with the bear to wrestle the the bear, and he's like, I'll try it. And so he he's he's kind of going back and forth with the giant and he makes this little move and he's now he's got the giant sword. He's got his sword and the giant sword. And the people kind of go crazy and everybody's going, Oh, there's a you know, kind of like a new king on the on the uh on the stage. And um after the crowd dissipates, the giant comes to Richard Gere to Lancelot and he goes, How did you do that? And he goes, I'll tell you, are you really open to listen? He goes, Yeah, he said three things. Number one, you have to study your opponent. He said, I can do that. He said, number two, you have to know exactly when to strike. He goes, I can do that. He said, number three, you cannot be afraid of whether you live or whether you die. And Lancelot, you know, uh delivers that line and the giant kind of it's a little bit like Rich Young ruler, where he kind of just shirks back into the bush and goes, I don't know that I can do that, right? But I think that um when you establish that God is your authority, that he's the one whose approval you're seeking, that he's the one who determines your destiny, that he's more in charge of your career than your bosses, it can get you a, it gives you a freedom. It gives you a uh not a carelessness, but it gives you a um a freedom to care less about what somebody else might think about you, which will allow you hopefully to do the thing that you need to do in the situation that you're in. So I think that uh establishing some of those real foundation, going back to those foundational questions of uh why, why do I exist and who who made me, who formed me, who who can who really is the authority over me? I think it helps give us a a bit more um it can give us a sense of lightness in a really hard season when things aren't going as well.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

So good, so good. Uh so wise. Uh in the beginning of your comments, uh I I use a phrase all the time. What does it feel like to sit across the desk from me? Yeah, great. So similar to what Jeff Henderson maybe said that I learned uh to say and use. Uh so good. So, so rich, so evaluable. Thank you for all that. Is there anything else on this topic or anything else that comes to mind that you'd love to share that you haven't yet?

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Yeah, I would just say I I I um I speak a lot on leading when you're not in charge. That I've written a couple other books, but that book is the one that I get requested to talk about a lot. And whenever I talk about that topic, people naturally go, uh sounds great, but I got a terrible boss. What do I do? I would just say to anybody listening to this, going, Yeah, uh I'm in a situation where I just have got uh it's not healthy for me. It feels maybe, you know, it's just not, it's not a place where I'm able to grow and uh not able to be the leader that I really want to be today. Uh if anybody's feeling that kind of discouragement, I would just tell you, um, having a great boss, having great colleagues, working at a great place, of course, it's wonderful, but that's not always the case for every single one of us. A lot of people are working for uh somebody that you feel like is really not good for you long term. And I would just encourage you, number one, uh, you're probably not going to be there long term. So that's okay. And you can take some hope in that and some have some peace in that. But number two, uh, back to what you started off with at the beginning. What uh before you leave, before you go do something else, make sure you squeeze everything out of what you can learn, because one of the greatest times to learn is when things are not going well. Um there's a reason why the weights in the weight room are heavy. It's because that resistance, that those, that that weight creates resistance, which builds strength. And so the situation that you're in right now, though it may be hard and though it may be challenging and maybe even frustrating, uh, if you allow it to, it really can build something in you that um is going to be so valuable down the road. So before before you just take off and run, which sometimes is understandable often understandable and sometimes appropriate, I would just encourage you to do everything you can to go, all right, God, what what is it? Before you remove this or before you remove me from this situation, how can you use it? How can you use this situation to shape something in me? So I love the theme that you brought today. And I just um would would love to encourage anybody listening that hey, uh some something's going on. The Almighty God is doing something inside of you, and so let him continue to do his work. And uh I think you'll look back and be really glad that you did.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

So good. Yeah, thanks, Clay. It's this idea of uh instead of um, why is this happening to me in this moment, what can I learn from it? Yeah, that's right. And that's that truly comes from a character that has formed a posture of humility, as I've often learned uh what not to do from toxic work environments or bad managers. And you don't want to carry that on. If you do have if you don't have a character or you don't have character developed, and you often develop the uh and see them as role models, and leadership by example kicks in and you just replicate that behavior. And so that's why we see so many leaders in the marketplace that uh uh are not great leaders, is because they probably have been formed and seen leaders do the same to them, and they've just thought that that was the way to do it. So so good. Our conversation's been so rich today, but here's what keeps coming back to me. Here's what keeps coming back to me. It's the tension between performance and formation isn't just a leadership problem, it's a soul problem. You can drive results your whole career and still not be the person God is calling you to be. Because the real question isn't about what you're producing, it's who you're becoming. And nobody in scripture wrestled with this more than Saul. Think about Saul. By every measurable standard, he was absolutely exceptional, zealous, credentialed, advancing. He knew the law, had the mission, and had the authority. But folks, he was terrorizing people. He was going house to house, dragging men and women off to prison. He was breathing threats and murder against anyone who followed Jesus. And he thought he was doing God's work. Think about that from his perspective at the time. He thought he was doing God's work. He was performing, but for the wrong formation. But then he meets Jesus on the road to Damascus, and everything stops. He's blinded, he's brought low, he's led by the hand into the city for three days, no food, no water, just sitting in what he'd become. Then this guy named Ananias comes. God sends him to the man who had been hunting Christians. God says to him, Go to him, restore his sight, he's my chosen instrument. And that very thing that made Saul dangerous, his fire, his drive, his refusal to quit. God didn't extinguish that, he directed it. Paul, the most prolific missionary in history. That's who Saul became, Paul. The same energy, the same intensity, the same relentlessness. I want you to hear this. Formation doesn't kill what performance built, it redeems it. So that's the invitation for you today. Not to become soft, not to lose your edge, but to let God take the fire in you and aim it at something worth burning for. So, what do we do with all this today? I'm not going to let you sit in the tension that we're talking about today. There are three things that I wish someone had told me when I was younger before I hurt people that I was supposed to be leading. Number one, fear-based results have a ceiling. You can drive people through intimidation and get results for a season. But the ceiling is low and the cost is high. Trust-based leadership scales. Fear-based leadership collapses under pressure. The sooner you know this, the fewer people you have to go back and apologize to. And Lord knows I've had to do my share of that. Number two, the people who push back are actually a gift. When I was younger, I resented feedback. I saw pushback as disloyalty. Now I understand that the person willing to tell you the hard truth is the most valuable person in the room. The ones who stay quiet aren't loyal. They're afraid. What's important for you is to learn the difference. Number three, God is more interested in who you're becoming than what you're producing. Your results are not your legacy. The people who were shaped by leading alongside you, that's your legacy. The question isn't, what did you build? The question is, who did you build it with? And what did it cost them? The toughness that kept you alive doesn't have to be the thing that defines your leadership. Let God take the armor off. What's underneath, it is the leader that people actually want to see. So that's arc number one. Four episodes, four tensions about identity. Who you are when the title changes, that was number one. Who you are when pressure amounts was number two. Who you are when the mask comes off was number three. In today's episode number four, who you are when you finally see what you become. And here's the thread underneath all four. Rooted in identity, performance is unstable ground. Okay. In Arc 2, the tensions actually shift. They move from who I am to how I lead, from identity to execution, and from formation to function. See you then. Well, that's a wrap. Thanks for spending part of your day with me, and I know your time is valuable and your to-do list is long. If this was helpful, share it with someone else who needs it. Like it, comment, leave a review. It helps more people find the show, and quite honestly, it makes me feel like I'm not just talking to myself in here. And if today's tension, hit home, maybe a little too close to home, and if you're tired of being one person on Sunday and someone else on Monday, check out the Disciple Leader Apprenticeship at Preston4.com. Ten weeks, one hour a week, one conversation at a time, no slides, no lectures, just real time. And find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram. Peace out the rock style.