I opened Reggie McNeal’s Practicing Greatness as a book about leadership and found myself examining far more than how I lead. The seven disciplines he describes reach into identity, family, ambition, friendship, and rest. They ask what kind of person is doing the leading.
That question can be uncomfortable. I can recognize a useful principle much faster than I can admit where I am failing to live it. McNeal gave me a way to look honestly at both.
Knowing what is driving me
Self-awareness begins with recognizing the experiences and wounds that have shaped us. In my case, hurts from childhood influenced the ways I sought escape and affirmation, including alcohol, lust, and the rush of adrenaline. I believe God has brought freedom into my life, but I still need to understand those patterns rather than assume they can no longer affect me.
I also need to know my strengths. There is a difference between accepting responsibility and insisting that I must do everything myself. Recognizing what I do well should help me recognize where another person’s abilities are needed.
That has consequences for the way I lead. I have seen in myself both the impulse to insist on “my way or the highway” and the tendency to express frustration indirectly. Neither helps people flourish.
Listening is part of the remedy. My family, friends, employees, and mentors can see things I miss. Prayer matters, too. I want to hear what God is showing me, including through people whose observations are difficult to receive.
Managing a life, not just a schedule
McNeal’s discussion of self-management reaches beyond keeping a calendar. How I handle emotions, money, health, and expectations affects the people around me.
I tend to set high expectations and make too many commitments. Enthusiasm can persuade me that I have more capacity than I actually do. When reality catches up, the pressure affects more than my productivity.
I need to pay attention to what I am feeling and how I respond, rather than let an emotion make the decision for me. I also need time for exercise, physical health, and enjoyment. Those things belong in a responsible life; they cannot always be what is left over after the work is done.
Staying teachable
I enjoy learning, and I do not think learning belongs only in a classroom. Books, conversations, experience, and unfamiliar challenges can all develop us. Sometimes the difficult part is unlearning an approach that has worked before.
My experience as an entrepreneur has taught me that an effective habit in one situation can become a limitation in another. I appreciated opportunities to learn alongside other leaders, including through a Christian and Missionary Alliance leadership network.
But enjoying learning does not mean I always choose the kind I need. I can avoid stretching a less-developed ability because I am comfortable using a stronger one. I also questioned how often churches give people jobs simply because they are willing, rather than considering their abilities and energy. That seems a poor way to help people develop.
My wife and I had both struggled with burnout. I needed to take seriously what sustains our energy, rather than assume we could keep giving without attending to our own growth and health.
My mother gave me a useful response to failure: “What did you learn?” That question makes failure something I can examine. It does not erase the cost, but it gives me a reason to keep growing.
Knowing what my life is for
McNeal’s discipline of mission brought me back to the personal mission statement I had formed after coming to understand my calling:
To boldly love and humbly lead people into obedient relationship with Jesus Christ.
For someone unfamiliar with Christian language, obedience here means learning to live in response to Jesus’ teaching and love. My aim is to help people know him and follow him, with boldness in loving and humility in leading.
I came to believe that God was calling me to be a pastor through prayer and through the encouragement of others. By calling, I mean a direction I understood God to be giving my life. It was more than wanting a title.
A clear mission gives me a way to evaluate commitments. Does this use my energy toward the purpose I believe I have been given? Or am I simply doing it because it is available, familiar, or flattering? Without that question, I can be busy and still drift.
Making better decisions and learning from the others
Good decisions need good questions, good information, appropriate timing, and the right people involved. My wife is particularly good at asking questions I have not considered. I need that.
I can make small decisions too quickly, although I tend to give larger ones more thought. I also need to examine motives. It is easy to question someone else’s reasons while assuming my own are pure.
The people involved matter as much as the plan. An idea that works in one season of a business or ministry may not be right for the next. I need to think about the intended outcome, ask who is suited to the work, and then look back honestly at what happened.
The most personal lesson concerned the connection between decisions and self-worth. In 2007, when my surf and skate shop was successful, some of my satisfaction came from the attention it brought me. Later financial pressure exposed how closely I had tied my identity to the business.
When the work struggled, I struggled to distinguish a difficult business situation from a verdict on me. McNeal’s discussion helped me see why that distinction matters. I want to learn from a decision without making either its success or its failure the measure of my value.
Belonging to people
Leadership does not remove the need for friendship and closeness. My relationship with my family needs deliberate attention. I want to know them more deeply and make room for practices such as praying with my children.
I also value strong friendships. At the time I read this book, I was experiencing something new at work: having coworkers after previously always being the boss. Working alongside peers gave me a different setting in which to build relationships.
McNeal’s discussion of mentoring made me think about what each person brings to a relationship. I was still working through how mutual a mentoring relationship should be. Peer friendships more obviously give both people room to support and challenge one another.
As I considered pastoral leadership, I also needed to think about the well-being of the people I would serve. They are people to know and care for, rather than simply people who help accomplish a mission.
Learning to be alone and to stop working
McNeal’s final discipline brought me to a weakness I could not explain away: rest. I could fill a life with business, study, and Christian service and still struggle to spend unhurried time with God.
I had known difficult, lonely seasons, including around my first time at Nyack in 1998 and before returning to study there. Christians sometimes call such a period a “wilderness”: a time when familiar supports are stripped away and direction feels uncertain. Those experiences had shaped me, but I still found it hard to choose quiet when life was full.
At one point I was carrying responsibilities across four businesses as well as part-time ministry. Sunday itself involved work. I needed a Sabbath, a regular time set apart for rest and attention to God. But even plans to protect another day could collapse under unfinished tasks.
Morning prayer was difficult when I was exhausted. Being around people could crowd out solitude; television and movies could become ways to avoid facing what needed attention. I needed to distinguish rest that restored me from escape that simply delayed things.
Beneath some of the busyness was pride, and beneath some of the pride was the fear that I was not worth much. I needed the reminder that God’s love was not a reward for how much I could accomplish.
The greatness I want to pursue
I choose greatness, but working through this book made that choice more personal than a desire to achieve. I want to become someone who knows he is loved and helps other people know that love.
That requires decisions, relationships, learning, and rest. It also requires honesty about what is still unfinished in me. McNeal gave me useful questions for that work, and I want to keep asking them.
Book discussed
Reggie McNeal, Practicing Greatness.
A question in the margin is a good place to begin.