The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

by Peter Scazzero

Over the next six weeks, Phil spent a great deal of time reflecting on and then writing out his answers to the sentence starters on each rung of the ladder. He then practiced his responses in several meetings with Geri and me. Slowly, he developed confidence in his ability to clearly and honestly assert himself with Myrna. At our conference, in front of three hundred pastors and leaders, we invited Myrna to join us on the platform. Phil then summarized his ladder statements with her in about five minutes. Here is what he said: Myrna, thank you for being willing to let me share something significant for me. It has to do with that scheduling conflict around Emily’s Easter baptism. I appreciated that you apologized for your mistake. I then told you that it was “okay and no big deal.” I lied. It was a very big deal because what I thought was only going to take five minutes ended up taking five hours and I basically ruined my and Debbie’s Sabbath and the weekend of our one-year anniversary. My purpose in telling you all this now is because what really disturbed me was that I wasn’t honest with you. I brushed it off like it was nothing, but that was far from the truth. In the end what grieved me — and scared me — was that I could so easily lie to you. As I reflected on all of this, I realized that in my culture [Phil’s family is from India], it is an unspoken rule that a younger person never raise an issue with an older person or a more experienced staff person — even if that pe...