How to get free from leadership overwhelm

“You’re not the head coach. I am. You’re the assistant coach.”

These words broke into my quiet time with a stark force.

I had been feeling “leadership overwhelm,” that feeling that comes over you when you fully grasp all that needs to be done in order to lead well (the stuff your brain usually tries to ignore). And during one of those moments of wondering how I could possibly lead with excellence in the midst all of the demands of being the leader of a team, I heard this word and felt like a man who lost 50 pounds.

It’s not that I don’t like being the main leader on a team. I have always gravitated towards the head leadership role in an organization. But somehow the weight of that role had begun to make me feel like a lone sled dog on a journey across Antarctica rather than an oxen attached to Jesus.

On the same day I felt the Lord give me that word, I got a voice text from a friend, describing a scene in which I was climbing up a mountain and my family was following behind. I was carefully scaling the mountain, leading all of them up with a rope. All of a sudden, I looked higher up the mountain and saw that Jesus was actually in front of me, i.e. I didn’t have to bare the weight of leading my family myself.

Okay, I thought. This apparently is an important word about me not being in charge, because here is somebody the same day giving me the exact same word!

But here was the question. And I imagine you have had the same question whenever you have gotten a word from your quiet time or from someone else saying, “Rest.”

How do I maintain a place of rest when as a leader I have a ton of people who depend on me?

As I have been incarnating this word into each moment, I have discovered a secret.

The more detailed I am in listening to God, and the more I involve him even in simple decisions, the more I feel a deep sense of freedom and peace.

Instead of just listening to God during my quiet time, I have been trying to listen to him every time a difficult situation comes up at work.

I stop, take a pause, and say, “Lord, what do you want to do here?”

Recently, I was using this with a staff member who has thousands of ideas, modifications, and criticisms whenever we present new changes to a program.

As I experienced the onslaught of opinions and suggestions, I stopped after each one and said, “Lord, what do you want to do here?”

There were moments when I felt to just let it go, that this wasn’t actually a helpful idea.

But there was another moment when I realized that his idea could save us hours of paperwork.

In each moment, I felt more peace and more confidence, knowing that I was checking in with the Lord for the details.

Hearing God’s voice as a leader unlocks a new level of peace and confidence. If you want to learn more about how to hear God’s voice as a leader, check out my course on hearing God for leaders.

I am praying for each one of you reading this, that God would give you increased peace and confidence this week as you listen to His voice as you lead.