LEADERS OF ORGANIZATIONS and movements face anxiety. It can range from sweating over budget insecurities, employee turnover, mismanagement, or secondary trauma. Stress brings forth the best and worst in leadership. But toxic stress can distort a leader’s gifts. What Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung would call the unexamined “shadow” can turn what was intended for good into something harmful.
I recently facilitated a workshop called “Leading Ourselves Through Conflict” with national justice movement leaders. The first 30 minutes felt grounded, even inspired. But one leader almost ruined the “vibe” by blurting out, “Yeah, this feels good and all, but I’m in a different space now, and I’m ‘checking out’ of spaces where people don’t care for me!” Somehow, I didn’t expect conflict to show up at my workshop about conflict!
When our leadership goes unexamined, we can become too reactive to the energy around us. In the past, I might have tried to bypass the discomfort I felt at hearing this statement, especially to preserve the good energy of my workshop. Instead, I was able to pause and acknowledge the beauty and truth behind the energy: This leader had been hurt by white men in power. By staying with my own discomfort, I sensed the group lean into the safety we were cultivating together. Thankfully, my goal was not to ensure the “warm fuzzies” or provide conflict resolution tools. Instead, we left knowing the space had been a good and rigorous dojo for the practice of becoming more free.
Under stress, a prophetic leader can push agendas ahead without feedback from others. A calm leader can become passive aggressive when feeling questioned by members of their team. An inspirational leader can become aloof from the details of a project and have others experience them as out of touch. Or a creative leader can become withdrawn and misunderstood if people overlook the aesthetic qualities of their work.
As hip-hop artist Lauryn Hill told us, “How you gon’ win when you ain’t right within?”
Leaders need to be attuned to their own tendencies in stressful moments while shepherding others through their own such moments. How do we develop an inner sturdiness to hold spaces for discomfort? Wrestling with the gray space between conflict and resolution is unsettling. Yet embracing that space is where we can learn, grow, and cultivate healthier ways of being together.
I’ve heard it said that every difficult conversation is rehearsal for the world we’re trying to build. Hence, the truest measure of leadership may not be what we accomplish, but whether people become freer around us. In our justice movement work we might win important policy victories, or move forward the needle on social change, but at what cost? Is our team left feeling cynical, unheard, or embittered because of blind spots in our own leadership? What good is it to gain the whole world and lose the soul of our leadership to toxic forms of power?
We can take a more contemplative approach in our leadership by holding space for unpleasant emotions, allowing people to ask the tough questions, and even leaving room for disagreement. This takes holding a mirror up to our own leadership. As hip-hop artist Lauryn Hill told us, “How you gon’ win when you ain’t right within?”
One way we can get it “right” is by cultivating spaces and institutional cultures that reflect the world we want to build. Perhaps beginning with examining the soul of our leadership is the daily rehearsal we need for the world we want to build together.
José Humphreys III is an ordained minister, author of Seeing Jesus in East Harlem: What Happens When Churches Show Up and Stay Put, and co-author of Ecosystems of Jubilee: Economic Ethics for the Neighborhood (Zondervan, 2023).
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