You have to create an environment that does not tolerate sabotaging ahad. Listen, mistakes - yes, as a leader this is my philosophy. I've let my leaders make as many mistakes as they could, like without destroying something. I would let them make as many mistakes as they could. As long as they were journeying with the right heart I didn't care about their mistakes, but when they started sabotaging ahad that's when I'd cut their head off. Like I was on staff at some big churches and the only people I can remember ever having to step down out of leadership, it wasn't for adultery or addiction or anything like that. When someone was messing up, if someone messed up and they came to us and said listen, I've messed up, we always helped them. That was no problem, but when we started hearing people talking about other people, when we started hearing slander and gossip and things that break down ahad, no. No, we can't tolerate that here.
My pastor that trained me, there were a lot of guys in leadership who messed up with pornography or messed up with whatever and he would always help them. He wouldn't expose it - because they wanted help. [unclear 00.29.16] as long as you want help I'll help you and I will not expose you, and that's healthy. That's healthy but man, when that guy got word that there was this group of people and they were downing this group of people and it was breaking down the unity of the organisation, he would cut their head off. Why? Because the universe can't handle it. How much more can an organisation not handle it? So this is the effect of having guilt in your heart is a culture of suspicion. Number two, a culture characterised by professional courtesy rather than genuine community. Okay, let me say that again. When we're leading with guilt in our heart it's a culture characterised by professional courtesy, rather than genuine community.
Number three, the consequences of having guilt in the heart: very surface relationships because you're insecure about people knowing what's for real. [Yeah, that's right.] So my question to you before we go any further in this is do you have any secret things that you're dealing with that is affecting how you lead? Is there anything in your heart that only you know that's affecting how you lead? Is there anything where this guilt is entering into your leadership? Alright, then the next one is this. First is guilt, second one is anger, anger. Anger has the underlying heart attitude you owe me, you owe me. So guilt is I owe you and that's unhealthy; anger is you owe me. Now here are the traits of angry leaders: angry leaders overreact to unmet expectations. Angry leaders are prone to fix blame on individuals rather than systems, so instead of looking at the system of the organisation and how we can change that we fix the blame on one particular person or this particular thing. Typically it's not true. Typically it's a system problem.
Angry leaders punish failure and more often than not someone with anger in their heart, they refuse to accept responsibility for their own failures. So here's the consequences of that. When that's going on in our heart here's what it looks like in leadership: one, a culture of fear where you're scared to mess up all the time; a culture of cover up so then you have a lot of secrets which produce more guilt, then you've got a real mess; a culture of fear, a culture of cover up and then a culture where right - listen, a culture where right is defined by what pleases the boss instead of what's the best for the organisation. You don't ever want a culture that's defined by what pleases one man. You want a culture that's defined by what's best for the organisation alright. So the next one, first one is guilt, second one's anger, third one is greed. So guilt is I owe you, anger is you owe me, greed is I owe me, I owe me. Here are some traits of a guilty leader and if you find this to be true about yourself we're going to have to deal with this okay.
Greed. Here are some traits of a greedy leader and if you've found traits of this in yourself we'll have to deal with this. If there's any growling Mike will handle it, okay so [laughter] the greedy leader is reluctant to share the credit. A greedy leader is reluctant to share the credit. If there's something in you that you find it hard to share credit with somebody else, there's something in your heart needs to be dealt with and listen, that doesn't make you bad. It makes you normal okay. Everybody deals with this stuff. This doesn't make anybody bad. This is normal stuff that we all deal with. Number two, the greedy leader is reluctant to share the rewards of success, so they want to sort of hoard it to themself. Number three, the greedy leader will change the rules in the middle of the game to suit them - nothing's more frustrating than that in anything. Let's take a marriage for instance. A marriage, whether you realise it or not, starts out with a basic agreement between two people.