I love avocados. They add a nice touch to a ham sandwich. And without them we wouldn’t enjoy guacamole with our chips. But avocados also provide a good metaphor for a healthy leader. Every leader needs a strong inner spiritual and emotional core, what I call a healthy spiritual immune system that helps us ward off leadership viruses like unhealthy people pleasing, margin-less leadership, and inflexibility. Here’s how an avocado pictures a healthy leader.
If you peel away an avocado’s skin, two parts remain: the mushy green stuff and the pit. It doesn’t take much effort to remove the fleshy part of the avocado. You can easily cut it off or scrape it off. However, you can’t do the same with the seed. You can’t easily cut it or change its shape. Why? Because it’s solid.
A strong spiritual and emotional core (strong immune system) is like that large, solid seed in an avocado. We certainly must have a soft side, but at his core, a good leader is solid, in the good sense of the word.
However, with a weak spiritual immune system, a people pleaser, a margin-less leader, or an inflexible leader has a much smaller inner core and a much larger ‘squishy’ part. We easily morph and adapt to the pressures around us and lose parts of ourselves when we try to please others in an unhealthy way. And of course we could swing in the other direction as well when we become too ‘solid;’ that is, unyielding and inflexible.
One writer on this subject, Murray Bowen contrasted these two parts by calling one a ‘solid self’ and the other a ‘pseudo-self’ when he wrote these words.
The solid self says: “This is who I am, what I believe, what I stand for, and what I will or will not do in any given situation. The solid self is made up of clearly defined beliefs, opinions, convictions, and life principles….The pseudo-self is composed of a vast assortment of principles, beliefs, philosophies, and knowledge acquired because it is required or considered right by the group.” [Murray Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice (New York: Aronson, 1978), p. 365]
Evaluate yourself to see how solid or squishy you are as a leader.
SOLID VS SQUISHY leadership
- Stands on principles vs changes to avoid other’s displeasure
- Does what is right vs keeps the peace to keep others happy
- Authentic vs pretend
- Clings to God when pressured vs acquiesces to others when pressured
- Listens to disagreement vs giving in to it or becoming defensive
- Carefully considers differing viewpoints vs quickly embracing them to avoid someone’s displeasure
- Thoughtfully responds vs automatically reacts
What other qualities do ‘solid’ leaders show in their leadership?
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Adapted by permission from People Pleasing Pastors: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Approval Motivated Leadership, IVP, 2014.
Great analogy Charles! We have to be both soft and hard when it comes to our life and leadership.
Thanks Dan. yep, takes both!