Boundaries for Leaders: Results, Relationships, and Being Ridiculously in Charge

by Henry Cloud

I am referring to patterns that have to do with you as a person, such as being conflict-avoidant, or impulsive, or risk-adverse, or distracted, or overcommitted, or afraid of authority, or people pleasing, or resistant to making hard decisions, or fear of failure, etc. Those are the kinds of patterns that have to do with your makeup and have to be addressed, as they will render your strengths unusable. We are not expected to have all the gifts or strengths. But we are expected to have sufficient emotional intelligence to be able to make our gifts profitable. Character is not negotiable. If Michael Phelps developed a pattern of avoiding cold water in the morning because he did not like the way it made him feel, and did not address that pattern, his gifts would never bring success. That is a weakness, not a lack of giftedness. There is a difference. Get over the fear of cold water so you can win some medals using your gifts.