March 31, 2026 • 33 mins
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Let’s get honest.
Power makes most of us uncomfortable.
So we avoid it, minimize it, or misuse it.
In this episode, Pete Scazzero shares a defining leadership failure—one that cost him deeply: relationships, trust, and a 20-year community.
At the center of it?
Unclear boundaries and dual relationships.
You’ll discover:
- Why every leader must name and steward their power
- The danger of trying to be both a friend and a supervisor
- How blurred roles quietly damage teams and culture
- Why the burden of boundaries always falls on the leader
- What it means to do the inner work required for healthy leadership
This is not about leadership theory.
It’s about formation.
Because if you don’t deal with power and boundaries, they will deal with you.
Reserve your spot at our upcoming Global Leaders Conference.
September 30 – October 1, 2026
14th St. Salvation Army, NYC
(Live Spanish Translation available)
Register Now: https://ehd.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/3421612
Learn more about the EH Global Leader Conference 2026: http://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/conference
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (01:12):
Hi, my name is Pete Scazaro.
I want to welcome you today tothe Emotionally Healthy Leader
Podcast.
So good to be with you.
Our topic today is power andwise boundaries, what church
leaders must learn.
Now, this is the most painfullesson I've learned in my
(01:34):
decades of leadership.
Made so many mistakes aroundpower and dual relationships,
healthy boundaries.
So, I mean, it's it's a terribledilemma.
And I found it myself.
I was a boss, I was the leadpastor, I was people's
supervisor, but I was also theirfriend, which is complicated.
And so I struggled withobjectivity.
Am I their friend?
Am I their boss?
(01:55):
And I couldn't be objective.
And I was very muddled, uh, veryconfused, had mismanaged
boundaries, hurt relationships.
In fact, I would say this wasthe greatest leadership failure
in all of my years, has beenaround mismanaging power and
wise boundaries and issues likedual relationships.
But it was such an impetus forme, after having made mistakes
(02:19):
multiple times, to finally diginto this so deeply that it
ended up as a core chapter inthe book, The Emotionally
Healthy Leader, uh, where Iwrote a whole chapter on it,
because there was so littlewritten about it on leadership.
Uh, and uh, it was an eight-yearproject to write that book, The
Emotionally Healthy Leader.
But the problem is this almostevery church, every ministry,
(02:42):
every nonprofit that I've beenin touch with, every community
has had the experience of beingscarred by a poor use of power.
And uh this failure to stewardit well and to have really good
boundaries.
And but yet it's so rarelydiscussed.
And uh it just damagesrelationships.
It kills the mission of Jesus.
(03:04):
It's it's such a setback.
Um, it's a waste of so muchtime, energy, and money.
And it hurts the name of Jesusand his glory and the very work
we're trying to do.
So in this podcast, I'm gonnagive tell you a bit of my story,
give you some very specificexamples on how do you do this
in a healthy way.
And I'm gonna actually closewith eight very specific
principles for you to begin toshift your behavior uh and
(03:26):
hopefully lead people in a muchhealthier way for the long-term
flourishing of your ministry.
So uh, but this is gonna requiresome serious maturity and care.
So listen, power is not a dirtyword.
It's power is very simply can bedefined as it's the capacity to
(03:46):
influence.
It's the capacity to influence.
So, in a sense, everyone onearth has power.
That is God-given dignity andability to influence other
people, uh, either they don'thave a formal position of
leadership.
Uh, it's using our resources,it's, it's, it, it's, it's so
critical uh to get a good senseof how much power I have.
(04:07):
But the problem is, uh, I've hada guy named Robert, Robert
Goulov wrote a whole book on it,very helpful.
And he makes the point thateveryone, in a sense, does have
this leadership gifts.
But two things happened.
One is some of us, we underuseour power, and I was that.
I didn't realize I had this kindof power even when I was lead
pastor of our church 26 years.
Uh, and so therefore, I wouldn'tstep up and exercise it
(04:30):
appropriately.
There was a vacuum, and otherswould step in inappropriately.
And I didn't protect peoplebecause I didn't even know I had
this kind of power.
Other people overuse their powerand they manipulate, they abuse,
they hurt people.
We see that in people like Saul.
Uh, when you underuse yourpower, like I was doing, it ends
up being like the book ofjudges.
Everyone does as they see fit.
(04:52):
And when you overuse your power,you end up becoming more like a
Saul in 1 Samuel 15.
So most leaders, again, mostleaders I know don't have a good
sense of how do I steward theseboundaries?
And and uh, we're running onempty.
Uh we have deep scars comingfrom our own pasts.
And so I want to pick a pausehere, and I want to personally
invite you to our emotionallyhealthy global leader conference
(05:13):
here in New York City, uh,September 30th, October 1st.
First time we're doing one in avery long time, uh, but it's
gonna happen this year, uh,2026.
And we're gonna talk about howdo I steward power and wise
boundaries.
How do I, the theme is actuallyredefining success.
How do I create a flourishingculture out of which the mission
of Jesus can flow?
And how do I live in thespaciousness, the joy, and the
(05:36):
freedom of Jesus as I lead forhim?
And how do I live under ahealthy scorecard?
In other words, measuring whatmatters most to Jesus and not so
much what matters most to theworld.
So I want to invite you to youcome, bring your team because
it's an opportunity for you totaste and experience what this
even looks like and tastes like.
Again, just go toemotionallyhealthy.org slash
(05:59):
conference.
And if you hear this in time,get in on the early bird special
to register.
Again, there's a discounted rateif you bring your whole team.
So worth your time.
Again, again, just go toemotionallyhealthy.org slash
conference.
Love to see you there as we alllearn to steward our power well.
So let's talk about my story fora bit, okay?
(06:21):
And and uh where where roles gotall entangled and muddled.
I I became a Christian in theuniversity, and I eventually
went on staff with a groupcalled Intervarsity.
And the way we handled power waswe're all equals.
And I remember there was onestudent fellowship that I was
leading, and uh actually we wereall leading together.
There's about maybe 30, 35 ofus, and we were into body life,
(06:43):
1 Corinthians chapter 12.
So nobody was going to have anykind of a power or leadership
role.
We were all gonna extract ourgifts.
But then we got stuck where wecouldn't make every decision had
to be unanimous.
And so we got to a point wherewe couldn't make any decisions
because it was always one,actually, it was actually two
people in particular that alwaysobjected to certain initiatives.
(07:04):
And so I finally got soflustered.
Now, again, I was a I was astaff person.
I wasn't a student at the time.
So I was kind of givingoversight to the fellowship, and
I was so frustrated that Icalled a seasoned staff worker
from another, you know,university to come over and give
me some perspective.
And he walked in and within 15minutes he said to me, Oh, Pete,
(07:24):
uh, there's two people in thisgroup of 30, 35 people that has
all the power.
It's these two over here,because they just object to
anything that they don't likeand they they kill it.
And so just call it what it is.
The power is not in everybody,all 30, 35.
It's actually in those two folksover there.
But they've set up a system ofbody life where they actually
have veto power over everything.
(07:46):
It was just so helpful.
But I had this kind of studentmentality when I started our
church, even.
And I didn't have a sense thatthere was any kind of hierarchy
of leadership and power, but Isaw it as we're all in this
thing together.
And so we were friends.
Uh I was the lead pastor, but wewere all in this thing together.
We were sharing together,learning together.
And uh, and so I remember at onepoint, uh, some different
(08:08):
visions began to emerge.
And I told one fellow who hadbeen with us from the beginning,
I remember he just had adifferent vision of the way he
wanted new life fellowship togo.
And I remember saying to him,no, no, that's not the way I
want to go.
And he goes, I know, but who whomade you the leader?
I said, Well, I'm the leadpastor.
And he goes, Oh, you're you'repulling that card now.
I thought we were all equalhere.
And that was my first experienceof power being very muddled and
(08:31):
confused.
It was very difficult.
Uh again, he had sacrificed somuch, it hurt our friendship,
uh, very painful.
And then as the church grewlarger and larger, we set up
some structures, except it was aboard, there was a personnel
committee, et cetera.
But we came to a place, thechurch had grown quite large.
It was probably about 15, 20,maybe 20 people, 25 people on
staff.
And there were two good, verygood friends of mine.
(08:53):
One was a spouse of a goodfriend, another was a good
friend.
And the church had grown andthey were on staff, but they had
not, they had not grown with thechurch necessarily.
And I remember for a while I wasdoing their job because I
couldn't bear the thought ofthem leaving staff.
It was kind of like you're onstaff, you're my friend, you're
here for life.
But it was very clear to lots ofpeople this wasn't a good fit
(09:14):
anymore.
And I remember being in a placesaying, Oh, I'm in a, I'm in a
jam here because I can't, I I Iknow I'm the lead pastor, but I
can't fire them.
I mean, they're my friends.
And I hit such a wall that Irealized I probably need to
resign over this.
And and that's when I, the, the,our, the issue began that we're
talking about today, power andwise boundaries, began to get
(09:37):
clearer to me.
How do you exercise power in ahealthy way?
And make a long story short, uh,I did eventually let the two of
them go.
Uh, and we paid a terrible priceas a result.
Not the church so much.
The church did fine.
It was more our friendships, ourcommunity, Jerry uh and me, that
(09:58):
was so impacted.
We lost a bunch of our closefriends that we had spent 20
years building some closefriendships at the time in
Queens, New York.
It was devastating.
Um, and I did consider, like I,to me, it was such a horrific
moment.
I consider it my most, mybiggest failure in my
leadership.
I don't think I did it well.
(10:19):
Uh I did it okay.
Uh actually, our we we arefriends now, many, many years
later, but it was really painfuland uh created so much
misunderstanding.
I wish I had done it much betterthan I did.
Uh and again, it was a bummer.
And it caught the cost was greatof not doing it as well as I
wish I could have done it.
(10:40):
And actually, again, the EHemotionally healthy leader book
was written out of that painfuluh episode, uh episode instance,
and I realized, oh, that was oneof the major leadership lessons
of an emotionally healthyleader, and so I wrote that
whole chapter about it.
But let me dive into right now.
There's eight principles ofstewarding our power well, and
I'm gonna go through them ratherquickly.
(11:00):
You can pick you can read it inthe chapter on power and wise
boundaries in the emotionallyhealthy leader book.
But let me just review the coreones for you here today.
The first is this we've got todo an honest inventory of our
power.
In other words, we've got tolook at it, and I break it down
to six categories of our power.
Uh the again, the problem is sofew of us have an awareness of
(11:22):
our power because we measure itbased on how we feel on the
inside.
Uh, but it's really importantthat everyone re-especially
those of us in leadership,reflect on our power as we are
saying, whether you're a smallgroup leader, a worship person
on the worship team, whetheryou're just a member of a
church, let alone a lead pastor,associate pastor, director of a
(11:43):
ministry, maybe you're on, maybeyou're leading a nonprofit or on
staff at a nonprofit.
Again, regardless, but you havepower.
So there's you have to stewardthat power.
It's not yours.
It's given to you by God for ashort time on earth and it must
be stewarded.
So here's some of the categoriesto do an evaluation or at least
an awareness of your power.
(12:03):
First, there's a the God power.
When we speak for God, that'spower.
We speak what we believe God issaying or what God wants to do,
that's power.
And so when we approach peopleand we have, you know, people
see us as people having power,which is a second kind of power
that they evaluate, is I'll callit positional power.
Anytime you have a positionformally with a title, that's
(12:27):
power.
Uh, it carries something withit.
Then there's projected power.
People project onto us uh howthey see us.
And if you're like me, I was I'mpreaching, I was preaching on
Sundays, week after week, ormost weeks, speaking for God.
Well, people project on you thatyou actually know a lot more
than you do, that you can makedecisions about architecture.
(12:48):
They think, oh, he gets to, heknows God, he hears God, and and
they project onto you more thanactually we we merit.
But that's a level of power.
And then you've got things likepersonal power.
That is, we have gifts given byGod and skills and talents that
are pure grace.
That those are that's justpersonally given to us by God.
Uh and again, people, because ofour gifts, will attribute power
(13:13):
to us that you know, there'slots of other aspects of power,
but gifts are power.
Uh and then there's things likerelational power.
If you've been in a uh acommunity for a long period of
time, you have relational powerwith people.
Uh and I was a founder of ourchurch.
I had tremendous power after 26years.
I mean, everyone came in undermy leadership.
(13:34):
Uh and then, of course, there'scultural and gender and
generational power.
Uh, what culture you are, thecolor of your skin, how old you
are, uh, that all impactspeople.
So it's really important to do ahealthy assessment of my power
so that you're aware of itbecause it doesn't belong to
you.
It belongs to God, and you'restewarding it for a season.
(13:55):
But a second big principle ifyou do an honest assessment of
your power is oh, oh, yeah, I'msorry, let me just take a couple
more moments about power.
Uh, I didn't do an honestassessment of my power.
I didn't understand it.
It felt like a dirty word to me.
And I used to feel powerless.
The the irony was I had all thispower, but I felt powerless on
the inside.
Now that came out of mygenogram, my family of origin,
(14:18):
came out of a family and historyof abuse.
Uh, when you've, if you've everbeen, if you've been abused, you
know what it's like to bepowerless in those situations.
Uh, and so I couldn't see theimpact I was having on people.
You know, a study was done byCatherine Wengren, I believe her
last name was from Harvard.
And she wrote, she was writingabout the Holocaust.
(14:41):
And she was right, the mostdangerous people are Holocaust
survivors were Holocaustsurvivors who didn't understand
the power they had in their ownfamilies with their own children
or in their own organizations.
And that the most dangerouspeople are folks who are unaware
of their power.
And I'm telling you, it's true.
Because remember, remember,power is the capacity to
influence.
That's why, again, doing agenegram, understanding your
(15:03):
history and its impact on yourpresent and your leadership is
so important and why it's socore to the emotionally healthy
spirituality and therelationships course.
So, even for example, I I just Iused to say to Jerry all the
time, she was a spouse of thelead pastor that she had a lot
of power.
And she used to say to me in theearly days, Oh, I don't have any
power, I don't have anyposition.
(15:23):
I said, Jerry, you're the spouseof the lead pastor.
That's a lot of power.
It's real.
Uh, and it's more loving toacknowledge it than to deny it.
Um, when a board, I was withsomeone just recently, there it
was a board member uh of achurch, and he was referring to
the fact that there was a personthat the lead pastor needed to
(15:44):
be held into account for somethings he was saying and doing.
But the board wasn't doing it.
They weren't holding a leadpastor accountable, and even
though it was their role, and Isaid, Do you realize you have
power, but you're not exercisingit?
This is not going to end well.
And he shaked his head, he said,Yes, I know it, but we really
got to get our act together, youknow, like, yeah.
And I've seen churches wherethere was no board.
(16:06):
There was a founding pastor andsome large, very large churches,
and there was no other power butthe lead pastor.
He he was there was no board.
There was nobody over him orher.
And uh that's dangerous.
Uh I um I spoke recently at mylocal church where I'm I am now.
(16:26):
I'm a member of a church, and Ispoke at a pastor's conference
at our church, and that's whenall these people realized oh,
Pete Pete writes books and Petedoes this.
And I realized, oh, people werelooking at me so differently
because they heard me speak.
It was a it was 300 pastors inthe room.
I write books, they were like,oh my goodness.
And so I realized power shiftedthere at that moment, even
(16:48):
though I don't have any positionat our church right now.
We've only been there a year, ayear and a half.
Uh uh, and I love the church,but I'm trying not to be in any
positional power.
But I realize, oh, that changedthe dynamic for people.
Uh and again, that's whyorganizational charts I think
are important because anorganizational chart shows lines
of authority.
It doesn't show everything, butit does show where there is
(17:09):
authority and it's it's honestat least.
So again, so first you want todo an honest assessment of your
power.
And then you want to uhacknowledge dual relationships.
You want to acknowledge dualrelationships.
That's the second principle.
Now, a dual relationship is whenwe have more than one role in a
person's life.
Now, say for example, when yougo to a doctor, the doctor's
(17:31):
your doctor.
They're not, you're not going onvacation with the doctor.
He he or she just sees you.
They they're professionals, youpay them money, you get a
service, you leave.
You go to a lawyer, you pay themmoney, they give you a service,
they have certain competency.
You go to a person that does mytaxes.
They're they're tax accountants.
They, they, I pay them, they doit.
We're not going on vacationtogether, we're not going out to
dinner.
(17:51):
Uh it's a clear relationship.
It's not a dual relationship.
Um, a relationship, it's arelationship that has certain
boundaries.
In fact, if you're a doctor or alawyer, for example, there's
certain ethical uh codes thatthey have to sign up for to be a
doctor and a lawyer.
Um, but there's only one rolethat you have in a person's
life.
(18:12):
So uh they're the experts andyou're a recipient of that
expertise.
So you can't think you could goto a therapist or a spiritual
director.
So, therefore, what happens?
For example, you're a pastor.
I'm a pastor.
And uh I I had a I was friendlywith a fellow in our church who
eventually became the boardchair.
His name was Andrew.
He was chairperson of a board ofelders.
(18:32):
He was now my boss.
We had to have a discussionbecause he was now my boss.
Uh, although I'm always hispastor.
So that's very dualrelationship.
But he was first my boss.
And it was a change of ourrelationship.
Our friendship took a back seat,uh, and we had to talk about it
because he could fire me now.
So we were, you know,friendships, friendship has an
(18:53):
equality to it.
We were no longer on thatfooting.
I was handing him a report everymonth.
He was evaluating me on anannual basis.
It was different.
So that's why a person on yourstaff, a person who's on your
team, is not your spiritualdirector because you're leading
that team, perhaps, or they'renot your therapist.
Uh therapist is hopefullysomeone outside or objective.
But that's why a person who's inyour church or a pastor or a
(19:17):
leader was also running anorganization to make money, uh,
a pyramid scheme, or a pyramidministry, pyramid organizational
generate money, or they're areal estate agent, but they're
also your pastor.
It's very complicated or a boardmember.
That's a dual relationship.
I allowed myself uh to becomelike a father to the person who
(19:38):
was at one time our youthpastor.
I was her father mentor, andthen I hired her as our youth
pastor.
So then I became her boss.
Well, that was reallycomplicated when things weren't
working out real well, and I hadto uh discipline her and fire
her at one point.
It was a disaster.
It was like a father betrayinghis daughter.
(19:59):
That's how she felt.
But I allowed myself to get intoa dual relationship with her,
and I really hurt her.
And I take responsibility forthat because the responsibility
when something like that happensis always with the person with
greater power because we havethe power.
So again, dual relationships arewhen you have more than one uh
role with a person, and theweight of the problem is always
(20:20):
with the person with greaterpower.
So you want to monitor dualrelationships.
At the same time, we can'teliminate and we shouldn't, all
dual relationships in thechurch.
Because we see, for example,Moses was the leader, but Aaron
and Miriam, his siblings, werekey leaders in coming out of
that promised land.
I mean, uh David uh handed downleadership to his son Solomon,
(20:46):
who then handed it to his son.
So that was a there was familyinvolved in that.
Um, Peter and the 12 apostleswas brothers, he his brother was
Andrew.
James and John were brothers.
So you see some dualrelationships.
They're apostles, but yetthey're siblings.
Uh uh, you know, John and Jameswere siblings.
And Priscilla and Aquila were amarried couple, and yet they
they served in a sense on stafftogether, the two of them.
(21:06):
And if the Priscilla was theleader of uh uh Aquila.
And then, of course, you hadJames, the brother of Jesus, he
led the Jerusalem church.
So fascinating.
So we don't always want toeliminate them.
You just want to be very awareof them because if something
goes badly in a dualrelationship, it is rough.
(21:28):
It's very, very tough.
So you want to be aware of it,you want to monitor it, uh, you
want to be careful with it.
All right, third principle isclarify primary roles.
Clarify primary roles.
So, in other words, you want tobe friends with friends, you
want to be a supervisor topeople under you, volunteers or
(21:50):
paid.
You want to be a mentor tomentorese.
So you want to clarify what's myprimary role with this person?
So I mentioned Andrew, who wasthe board chair.
He was a friend of mine.
I also was his pastor.
My primary role with him was uhI was his pastor, but then he
became my boss.
So his primary role was he wasmy supervisor.
(22:10):
That really changed our otherrelationships.
It's really important.
Um, friendships work amongpeers.
When there's a friendship,there's equal power and sharing.
I remember when I was in theearly days, when I was friends
with people in our church uh ina very friendly way, and I was
very confused about this.
And they would ask me about whathappened at the board meeting.
(22:33):
And I said it's really notappropriate for me to talk about
that with you.
But they want to know, becausewe're friends, like, why are you
hiding anything from me?
And it's like, well, it's justnot appropriate.
And it was friction there uhbecause we didn't, we didn't,
again, we don't understandpower.
So we had to clarify primaryroles there.
And uh the the the so thebalance is friends are friends
and there's a sense of equalitywith it.
(22:55):
The fourth principles is thisyou want to enlist wise counsel
to monitor dual relationships asneeded.
Because you're gonna have somedual relationships in the
church.
You just want to acknowledge itand you wanna get some wise
counsel in the midst of it to.
Make sure all is good.
Again, so I'll give an example.
(23:15):
Jerry was on staff, my wife atour church.
Imagine we were founders.
Church was large at this point.
And so we we, because she wasn'tmy co-pastor, she had different
titles and roles, but she hastremendous power being my
spouse.
And she was so gifted.
She would occasionally preach,talented.
And we tried at one point tohave her under a one a person
(23:37):
who was only on staff one year,that he'd she'd report to him.
It was foolish.
It was we recognized.
We had to talk about it as aboard and how to, how does she
fit in the org chart and allthat.
But we had to recognize she hada level of power.
And she was in a dualrelationship with people on
staff because she was mentoringmany of them as well, yet she
(24:00):
wasn't necessarily in thatsupervisory role.
Again, I learned, I had to, Iremember going to a fellow who
had had a staff of like 120people.
He's also a PhD therapist at thesame time.
He taught me a lot about dualroles and how to monitor it, how
to have discussions about it.
I remember I had a person whowas a therapist, and she was
(24:22):
very wise and helped me sort outmy power, dual roles, have
healthy conversations.
It was awesome.
So you want to enlist wisecounsel as it happens to you, as
it will happen to you.
Fifthly, is again the burden ofboundaries.
I mentioned it earlier that theburden to set boundaries is on
the person with greater power.
Why?
Because you have greater power.
(24:42):
And so when I was a lead pastorand I became friends with some
people and they got hurt by me,uh, it's really, I take full
responsibility for it because II didn't acknowledge, I didn't
realize how much power I had.
And so we're going camping, uh,we're hanging out in all these
informal settings, and yet onmidweek I'm I'm evaluating them.
(25:03):
And they can't fire me, but Ican fire them.
They're they're paying theirmortgage because I'm their, you
know, I'm their employer andtheir friend.
And so I got us in a situationwhere when I had to say some
things that were really hard,that were more I was their lead
pastor, I was stewarding theresources of the church and
hiring staff.
They got really hurt.
And, you know, I take fullresponsibility for hurting them
(25:26):
because I'm the one with thegreater power.
And uh I wasn't, you know,acknowledging it and I didn't
handle it well.
So that's why giving people atitle and power too quickly uh
is not good.
And so it's really importantthat you don't create confusion.
You're aware, you're monitoringit, and you're exercising your
power to come, as Jesus said, weuse it to serve people, to come
(25:49):
under people, not to be overthem.
Sixth principle about power andwise boundary is you wanna you
want to be sensitive tocultural, ethnic, gender, and
generational uh factors.
You want to be really sensitiveto culture, ethnicity, gender,
and uh generational dynamics,because uh they're all a
(26:11):
dynamic.
Now, again, we had a church with73 nations in it, but I'm very
aware of uh, you know, age, howmany cultures have such respect
for age.
I mean, you know, if your personis 20 and I'm in my late 60s,
that's a pretty big agedifference.
Uh, that's a level of power.
Culture.
A white male and a person ofcolor or a person from a who's a
(26:34):
uh an immigrant who immigratedhere from a country, somewhere
around the world, they're new inthe country.
English isn't great.
I mean, they're they look atAmerica very differently.
And here I am, they're leadpastor.
Again, I was I I was unaware ofthat.
I I realized I finally got to aplace realizing certain
cultures, they can't say no toauthority, especially from some
Asian countries whereConfucianism is is the backdrop,
(26:57):
such respect and reverence forauthority, which is a good
thing, but they have to belearned to say, how do you say
no?
Uh and I used to, I I becameaware if I ask certain people to
do something, they they for themit's an order, they have to do
it, uh, because they really justcan't say no to it.
It's such so contra theirculture.
So you want to become very awareof power around culture, gender,
(27:21):
ethnicity, uh, and age, becauseit's all significant.
And then seventhly, you want tohave honest conversations early.
I mean, as early as possibleabout the risks, about the
challenges, about theexpectations.
Uh, and again, you just want tohave those conversations early
on, not later when things havedeveloped.
(27:42):
So if a family member is onstaff or a really good friend or
on the team, you want to talkabout it uh before something
happens, and maybe you have toask them to leave the team.
Uh listen, I'm no longer thepresident of Emotionally Healthy
Discipleship.
Drew Hyun is.
Uh, and so therefore, I'm veryaware of the power dynamic, is
(28:03):
anything I do with an EHdiscipleship, I may be the
founder, but I am not presidentany longer.
And so I want to make sureeverything I do fits in with his
larger plan of where EHdiscipleship is going.
And uh I'm aware of managingthat power and coming under to
serve him and the board and theother staff and not using it
(28:26):
inappropriately, very importantfor succession.
And then finally, last principleis this eighth principle uh is
do your inner work when you gettriggered.
Oh, yes.
Do your work when you gettriggered.
You get triggered, you'll gettriggered by people.
I used to get triggered bypeople.
I'd be hurt.
I would get angry.
I would get so angry with folks.
I just want to explode off them.
Well, the person with greaterpower, you don't have that
(28:49):
option.
You want to process your angersomewhere else because you have
this power.
And so when you're triggered,you've got to have some places
to go to monitor those triggersand work through them so that
you lead well and you don't useyour power and hurt people and
say things that areinappropriate or wounding.
(29:11):
Uh, you can expect yourunresolved family of origin
issues to erupt.
They will come out.
That's one of the gifts ofleadership.
It is a crucible for our ownformation.
Uh, things will emerge.
So, what do you do?
You have a you have a mentor,you have a friend, maybe a board
member, somebody who's got somewisdom that you can go to when
(29:31):
you're triggered.
Uh, but where do you go?
Who are those people?
We all need supervisors,bishops, mentors, therapists,
you name it, but you want tohave people to go to when you
are triggered.
Just one little finalapplication, practical
application.
It has to do with endings andletting people go.
Hiring someone is easy.
Letting someone go from even avolunteer position is really
(29:53):
hard.
It's challenging.
So you want to do it gently.
You want to do it thoughtfully.
You want to do it prudently.
Uh, hiring is easy, letting gosomeone is hard.
Volunteer or paid.
So never hire someone hastily.
Do the hard work of writing ajob description, getting other
people involved, beingthoughtful, have a process, have
a testing period if possible,have a committee or some other
(30:15):
people involved in the process.
Don't rush, be careful.
It's better to have a positionvacant than to fill it with
someone then having to ask themto leave.
But understand your power as youoffer people positions uh and
give them authority and ask themto do something.
Again, your primary role at thatpoint is you are the supervisor,
(30:37):
you are the boss.
It's really, it's not anenviable position because it's
power that belongs to God thatwe're stewarding, or you want to
steward it to love people andcome under them.
Uh, and that has to be carefullymanaged.
A prudent person gives thoughtto their ways.
Proverbs 14, 8.
A hasty person misses the way.
So again, final word here.
(31:00):
Leading is lonely.
I don't care what level you are,there's a loneliness involved in
leadership, but it's a it's agift because it's a crucible.
We grow in ways that we couldnever have grown any other way.
So, yes, it's lonely, but it's agift.
I consider one of the greatgifts of my life has been to
have to wrestle in this furnacewith my own stuff, my own
(31:25):
failures.
And I've had to learn, I hopeyou will learn too, to forgive
myself when I make a mistake,seek to be reconciled to people,
acknowledge them.
Uh, but I'm actually living outthe gospel very practically uh
in growing in that process.
So uh again, the loneliness canbe a great gift, but you will
make mistakes, forgive yourselfin it.
So let me just encourage you uhas a final step here, you want
(31:48):
to go to emotionallyhealthy.orgslash leader.
And on that, in our website, uh,I want to encourage you to pick
up the EH leader book.
Uh, but there's a freediscussion guide, some videos.
There's actually in the book aninventory of how you handle
power and wise boundaries.
It's a 10-question inventory,really worth taking uh in in the
(32:08):
emotionally healthy leader book.
But go to emotionallyhealthy.orgslash leader and uh check out
the free resources that go withwhat we've talked about today.
And I trust you'll find ithelpful.
But may God bless you.
May God's good hand rest uponyou.
May you mature into a leaderwho, with their power, comes
under people and serves them anduse it like Jesus, gently,
(32:32):
humbly for his glory and hishonor and the building up of
people and the advancement ofthe name of Jesus in the world.
Blessings.
May you grow and mature in this.
Look forward to seeing you onthe next podcast.
Hi, my name is Pete Scazaro.
I want to welcome you today tothe Emotionally Healthy Leader
Podcast.
So good to be with you.
Our topic today is power andwise boundaries, what church
leaders must learn.
Now, this is the most painfullesson I've learned in my
(01:34):
decades of leadership.
Made so many mistakes aroundpower and dual relationships,
healthy boundaries.
So, I mean, it's it's a terribledilemma.
And I found it myself.
I was a boss, I was the leadpastor, I was people's
supervisor, but I was also theirfriend, which is complicated.
And so I struggled withobjectivity.
Am I their friend?
Am I their boss?
(01:55):
And I couldn't be objective.
And I was very muddled, uh, veryconfused, had mismanaged
boundaries, hurt relationships.
In fact, I would say this wasthe greatest leadership failure
in all of my years, has beenaround mismanaging power and
wise boundaries and issues likedual relationships.
But it was such an impetus forme, after having made mistakes
(02:19):
multiple times, to finally diginto this so deeply that it
ended up as a core chapter inthe book, The Emotionally
Healthy Leader, uh, where Iwrote a whole chapter on it,
because there was so littlewritten about it on leadership.
Uh, and uh, it was an eight-yearproject to write that book, The
Emotionally Healthy Leader.
But the problem is this almostevery church, every ministry,
(02:42):
every nonprofit that I've beenin touch with, every community
has had the experience of beingscarred by a poor use of power.
And uh this failure to stewardit well and to have really good
boundaries.
And but yet it's so rarelydiscussed.
And uh it just damagesrelationships.
It kills the mission of Jesus.
(03:04):
It's it's such a setback.
Um, it's a waste of so muchtime, energy, and money.
And it hurts the name of Jesusand his glory and the very work
we're trying to do.
So in this podcast, I'm gonnagive tell you a bit of my story,
give you some very specificexamples on how do you do this
in a healthy way.
And I'm gonna actually closewith eight very specific
principles for you to begin toshift your behavior uh and
(03:26):
hopefully lead people in a muchhealthier way for the long-term
flourishing of your ministry.
So uh, but this is gonna requiresome serious maturity and care.
So listen, power is not a dirtyword.
It's power is very simply can bedefined as it's the capacity to
(03:46):
influence.
It's the capacity to influence.
So, in a sense, everyone onearth has power.
That is God-given dignity andability to influence other
people, uh, either they don'thave a formal position of
leadership.
Uh, it's using our resources,it's, it's, it, it's, it's so
critical uh to get a good senseof how much power I have.
(04:07):
But the problem is, uh, I've hada guy named Robert, Robert
Goulov wrote a whole book on it,very helpful.
And he makes the point thateveryone, in a sense, does have
this leadership gifts.
But two things happened.
One is some of us, we underuseour power, and I was that.
I didn't realize I had this kindof power even when I was lead
pastor of our church 26 years.
Uh, and so therefore, I wouldn'tstep up and exercise it
(04:30):
appropriately.
There was a vacuum, and otherswould step in inappropriately.
And I didn't protect peoplebecause I didn't even know I had
this kind of power.
Other people overuse their powerand they manipulate, they abuse,
they hurt people.
We see that in people like Saul.
Uh, when you underuse yourpower, like I was doing, it ends
up being like the book ofjudges.
Everyone does as they see fit.
(04:52):
And when you overuse your power,you end up becoming more like a
Saul in 1 Samuel 15.
So most leaders, again, mostleaders I know don't have a good
sense of how do I steward theseboundaries?
And and uh, we're running onempty.
Uh we have deep scars comingfrom our own pasts.
And so I want to pick a pausehere, and I want to personally
invite you to our emotionallyhealthy global leader conference
(05:13):
here in New York City, uh,September 30th, October 1st.
First time we're doing one in avery long time, uh, but it's
gonna happen this year, uh,2026.
And we're gonna talk about howdo I steward power and wise
boundaries.
How do I, the theme is actuallyredefining success.
How do I create a flourishingculture out of which the mission
of Jesus can flow?
And how do I live in thespaciousness, the joy, and the
(05:36):
freedom of Jesus as I lead forhim?
And how do I live under ahealthy scorecard?
In other words, measuring whatmatters most to Jesus and not so
much what matters most to theworld.
So I want to invite you to youcome, bring your team because
it's an opportunity for you totaste and experience what this
even looks like and tastes like.
Again, just go toemotionallyhealthy.org slash
(05:59):
conference.
And if you hear this in time,get in on the early bird special
to register.
Again, there's a discounted rateif you bring your whole team.
So worth your time.
Again, again, just go toemotionallyhealthy.org slash
conference.
Love to see you there as we alllearn to steward our power well.
So let's talk about my story fora bit, okay?
(06:21):
And and uh where where roles gotall entangled and muddled.
I I became a Christian in theuniversity, and I eventually
went on staff with a groupcalled Intervarsity.
And the way we handled power waswe're all equals.
And I remember there was onestudent fellowship that I was
leading, and uh actually we wereall leading together.
There's about maybe 30, 35 ofus, and we were into body life,
(06:43):
1 Corinthians chapter 12.
So nobody was going to have anykind of a power or leadership
role.
We were all gonna extract ourgifts.
But then we got stuck where wecouldn't make every decision had
to be unanimous.
And so we got to a point wherewe couldn't make any decisions
because it was always one,actually, it was actually two
people in particular that alwaysobjected to certain initiatives.
(07:04):
And so I finally got soflustered.
Now, again, I was a I was astaff person.
I wasn't a student at the time.
So I was kind of givingoversight to the fellowship, and
I was so frustrated that Icalled a seasoned staff worker
from another, you know,university to come over and give
me some perspective.
And he walked in and within 15minutes he said to me, Oh, Pete,
(07:24):
uh, there's two people in thisgroup of 30, 35 people that has
all the power.
It's these two over here,because they just object to
anything that they don't likeand they they kill it.
And so just call it what it is.
The power is not in everybody,all 30, 35.
It's actually in those two folksover there.
But they've set up a system ofbody life where they actually
have veto power over everything.
(07:46):
It was just so helpful.
But I had this kind of studentmentality when I started our
church, even.
And I didn't have a sense thatthere was any kind of hierarchy
of leadership and power, but Isaw it as we're all in this
thing together.
And so we were friends.
Uh I was the lead pastor, but wewere all in this thing together.
We were sharing together,learning together.
And uh, and so I remember at onepoint, uh, some different
(08:08):
visions began to emerge.
And I told one fellow who hadbeen with us from the beginning,
I remember he just had adifferent vision of the way he
wanted new life fellowship togo.
And I remember saying to him,no, no, that's not the way I
want to go.
And he goes, I know, but who whomade you the leader?
I said, Well, I'm the leadpastor.
And he goes, Oh, you're you'repulling that card now.
I thought we were all equalhere.
And that was my first experienceof power being very muddled and
(08:31):
confused.
It was very difficult.
Uh again, he had sacrificed somuch, it hurt our friendship,
uh, very painful.
And then as the church grewlarger and larger, we set up
some structures, except it was aboard, there was a personnel
committee, et cetera.
But we came to a place, thechurch had grown quite large.
It was probably about 15, 20,maybe 20 people, 25 people on
staff.
And there were two good, verygood friends of mine.
(08:53):
One was a spouse of a goodfriend, another was a good
friend.
And the church had grown andthey were on staff, but they had
not, they had not grown with thechurch necessarily.
And I remember for a while I wasdoing their job because I
couldn't bear the thought ofthem leaving staff.
It was kind of like you're onstaff, you're my friend, you're
here for life.
But it was very clear to lots ofpeople this wasn't a good fit
(09:14):
anymore.
And I remember being in a placesaying, Oh, I'm in a, I'm in a
jam here because I can't, I I Iknow I'm the lead pastor, but I
can't fire them.
I mean, they're my friends.
And I hit such a wall that Irealized I probably need to
resign over this.
And and that's when I, the, the,our, the issue began that we're
talking about today, power andwise boundaries, began to get
(09:37):
clearer to me.
How do you exercise power in ahealthy way?
And make a long story short, uh,I did eventually let the two of
them go.
Uh, and we paid a terrible priceas a result.
Not the church so much.
The church did fine.
It was more our friendships, ourcommunity, Jerry uh and me, that
(09:58):
was so impacted.
We lost a bunch of our closefriends that we had spent 20
years building some closefriendships at the time in
Queens, New York.
It was devastating.
Um, and I did consider, like I,to me, it was such a horrific
moment.
I consider it my most, mybiggest failure in my
leadership.
I don't think I did it well.
(10:19):
Uh I did it okay.
Uh actually, our we we arefriends now, many, many years
later, but it was really painfuland uh created so much
misunderstanding.
I wish I had done it much betterthan I did.
Uh and again, it was a bummer.
And it caught the cost was greatof not doing it as well as I
wish I could have done it.
(10:40):
And actually, again, the EHemotionally healthy leader book
was written out of that painfuluh episode, uh episode instance,
and I realized, oh, that was oneof the major leadership lessons
of an emotionally healthyleader, and so I wrote that
whole chapter about it.
But let me dive into right now.
There's eight principles ofstewarding our power well, and
I'm gonna go through them ratherquickly.
(11:00):
You can pick you can read it inthe chapter on power and wise
boundaries in the emotionallyhealthy leader book.
But let me just review the coreones for you here today.
The first is this we've got todo an honest inventory of our
power.
In other words, we've got tolook at it, and I break it down
to six categories of our power.
Uh the again, the problem is sofew of us have an awareness of
(11:22):
our power because we measure itbased on how we feel on the
inside.
Uh, but it's really importantthat everyone re-especially
those of us in leadership,reflect on our power as we are
saying, whether you're a smallgroup leader, a worship person
on the worship team, whetheryou're just a member of a
church, let alone a lead pastor,associate pastor, director of a
(11:43):
ministry, maybe you're on, maybeyou're leading a nonprofit or on
staff at a nonprofit.
Again, regardless, but you havepower.
So there's you have to stewardthat power.
It's not yours.
It's given to you by God for ashort time on earth and it must
be stewarded.
So here's some of the categoriesto do an evaluation or at least
an awareness of your power.
(12:03):
First, there's a the God power.
When we speak for God, that'spower.
We speak what we believe God issaying or what God wants to do,
that's power.
And so when we approach peopleand we have, you know, people
see us as people having power,which is a second kind of power
that they evaluate, is I'll callit positional power.
Anytime you have a positionformally with a title, that's
(12:27):
power.
Uh, it carries something withit.
Then there's projected power.
People project onto us uh howthey see us.
And if you're like me, I was I'mpreaching, I was preaching on
Sundays, week after week, ormost weeks, speaking for God.
Well, people project on you thatyou actually know a lot more
than you do, that you can makedecisions about architecture.
(12:48):
They think, oh, he gets to, heknows God, he hears God, and and
they project onto you more thanactually we we merit.
But that's a level of power.
And then you've got things likepersonal power.
That is, we have gifts given byGod and skills and talents that
are pure grace.
That those are that's justpersonally given to us by God.
Uh and again, people, because ofour gifts, will attribute power
(13:13):
to us that you know, there'slots of other aspects of power,
but gifts are power.
Uh and then there's things likerelational power.
If you've been in a uh acommunity for a long period of
time, you have relational powerwith people.
Uh and I was a founder of ourchurch.
I had tremendous power after 26years.
I mean, everyone came in undermy leadership.
(13:34):
Uh and then, of course, there'scultural and gender and
generational power.
Uh, what culture you are, thecolor of your skin, how old you
are, uh, that all impactspeople.
So it's really important to do ahealthy assessment of my power
so that you're aware of itbecause it doesn't belong to
you.
It belongs to God, and you'restewarding it for a season.
(13:55):
But a second big principle ifyou do an honest assessment of
your power is oh, oh, yeah, I'msorry, let me just take a couple
more moments about power.
Uh, I didn't do an honestassessment of my power.
I didn't understand it.
It felt like a dirty word to me.
And I used to feel powerless.
The the irony was I had all thispower, but I felt powerless on
the inside.
Now that came out of mygenogram, my family of origin,
(14:18):
came out of a family and historyof abuse.
Uh, when you've, if you've everbeen, if you've been abused, you
know what it's like to bepowerless in those situations.
Uh, and so I couldn't see theimpact I was having on people.
You know, a study was done byCatherine Wengren, I believe her
last name was from Harvard.
And she wrote, she was writingabout the Holocaust.
(14:41):
And she was right, the mostdangerous people are Holocaust
survivors were Holocaustsurvivors who didn't understand
the power they had in their ownfamilies with their own children
or in their own organizations.
And that the most dangerouspeople are folks who are unaware
of their power.
And I'm telling you, it's true.
Because remember, remember,power is the capacity to
influence.
That's why, again, doing agenegram, understanding your
(15:03):
history and its impact on yourpresent and your leadership is
so important and why it's socore to the emotionally healthy
spirituality and therelationships course.
So, even for example, I I just Iused to say to Jerry all the
time, she was a spouse of thelead pastor that she had a lot
of power.
And she used to say to me in theearly days, Oh, I don't have any
power, I don't have anyposition.
(15:23):
I said, Jerry, you're the spouseof the lead pastor.
That's a lot of power.
It's real.
Uh, and it's more loving toacknowledge it than to deny it.
Um, when a board, I was withsomeone just recently, there it
was a board member uh of achurch, and he was referring to
the fact that there was a personthat the lead pastor needed to
(15:44):
be held into account for somethings he was saying and doing.
But the board wasn't doing it.
They weren't holding a leadpastor accountable, and even
though it was their role, and Isaid, Do you realize you have
power, but you're not exercisingit?
This is not going to end well.
And he shaked his head, he said,Yes, I know it, but we really
got to get our act together, youknow, like, yeah.
And I've seen churches wherethere was no board.
(16:06):
There was a founding pastor andsome large, very large churches,
and there was no other power butthe lead pastor.
He he was there was no board.
There was nobody over him orher.
And uh that's dangerous.
Uh I um I spoke recently at mylocal church where I'm I am now.
(16:26):
I'm a member of a church, and Ispoke at a pastor's conference
at our church, and that's whenall these people realized oh,
Pete Pete writes books and Petedoes this.
And I realized, oh, people werelooking at me so differently
because they heard me speak.
It was a it was 300 pastors inthe room.
I write books, they were like,oh my goodness.
And so I realized power shiftedthere at that moment, even
(16:48):
though I don't have any positionat our church right now.
We've only been there a year, ayear and a half.
Uh uh, and I love the church,but I'm trying not to be in any
positional power.
But I realize, oh, that changedthe dynamic for people.
Uh and again, that's whyorganizational charts I think
are important because anorganizational chart shows lines
of authority.
It doesn't show everything, butit does show where there is
(17:09):
authority and it's it's honestat least.
So again, so first you want todo an honest assessment of your
power.
And then you want to uhacknowledge dual relationships.
You want to acknowledge dualrelationships.
That's the second principle.
Now, a dual relationship is whenwe have more than one role in a
person's life.
Now, say for example, when yougo to a doctor, the doctor's
(17:31):
your doctor.
They're not, you're not going onvacation with the doctor.
He he or she just sees you.
They they're professionals, youpay them money, you get a
service, you leave.
You go to a lawyer, you pay themmoney, they give you a service,
they have certain competency.
You go to a person that does mytaxes.
They're they're tax accountants.
They, they, I pay them, they doit.
We're not going on vacationtogether, we're not going out to
dinner.
(17:51):
Uh it's a clear relationship.
It's not a dual relationship.
Um, a relationship, it's arelationship that has certain
boundaries.
In fact, if you're a doctor or alawyer, for example, there's
certain ethical uh codes thatthey have to sign up for to be a
doctor and a lawyer.
Um, but there's only one rolethat you have in a person's
life.
(18:12):
So uh they're the experts andyou're a recipient of that
expertise.
So you can't think you could goto a therapist or a spiritual
director.
So, therefore, what happens?
For example, you're a pastor.
I'm a pastor.
And uh I I had a I was friendlywith a fellow in our church who
eventually became the boardchair.
His name was Andrew.
He was chairperson of a board ofelders.
(18:32):
He was now my boss.
We had to have a discussionbecause he was now my boss.
Uh, although I'm always hispastor.
So that's very dualrelationship.
But he was first my boss.
And it was a change of ourrelationship.
Our friendship took a back seat,uh, and we had to talk about it
because he could fire me now.
So we were, you know,friendships, friendship has an
(18:53):
equality to it.
We were no longer on thatfooting.
I was handing him a report everymonth.
He was evaluating me on anannual basis.
It was different.
So that's why a person on yourstaff, a person who's on your
team, is not your spiritualdirector because you're leading
that team, perhaps, or they'renot your therapist.
Uh therapist is hopefullysomeone outside or objective.
But that's why a person who's inyour church or a pastor or a
(19:17):
leader was also running anorganization to make money, uh,
a pyramid scheme, or a pyramidministry, pyramid organizational
generate money, or they're areal estate agent, but they're
also your pastor.
It's very complicated or a boardmember.
That's a dual relationship.
I allowed myself uh to becomelike a father to the person who
(19:38):
was at one time our youthpastor.
I was her father mentor, andthen I hired her as our youth
pastor.
So then I became her boss.
Well, that was reallycomplicated when things weren't
working out real well, and I hadto uh discipline her and fire
her at one point.
It was a disaster.
It was like a father betrayinghis daughter.
(19:59):
That's how she felt.
But I allowed myself to get intoa dual relationship with her,
and I really hurt her.
And I take responsibility forthat because the responsibility
when something like that happensis always with the person with
greater power because we havethe power.
So again, dual relationships arewhen you have more than one uh
role with a person, and theweight of the problem is always
(20:20):
with the person with greaterpower.
So you want to monitor dualrelationships.
At the same time, we can'teliminate and we shouldn't, all
dual relationships in thechurch.
Because we see, for example,Moses was the leader, but Aaron
and Miriam, his siblings, werekey leaders in coming out of
that promised land.
I mean, uh David uh handed downleadership to his son Solomon,
(20:46):
who then handed it to his son.
So that was a there was familyinvolved in that.
Um, Peter and the 12 apostleswas brothers, he his brother was
Andrew.
James and John were brothers.
So you see some dualrelationships.
They're apostles, but yetthey're siblings.
Uh uh, you know, John and Jameswere siblings.
And Priscilla and Aquila were amarried couple, and yet they
they served in a sense on stafftogether, the two of them.
(21:06):
And if the Priscilla was theleader of uh uh Aquila.
And then, of course, you hadJames, the brother of Jesus, he
led the Jerusalem church.
So fascinating.
So we don't always want toeliminate them.
You just want to be very awareof them because if something
goes badly in a dualrelationship, it is rough.
(21:28):
It's very, very tough.
So you want to be aware of it,you want to monitor it, uh, you
want to be careful with it.
All right, third principle isclarify primary roles.
Clarify primary roles.
So, in other words, you want tobe friends with friends, you
want to be a supervisor topeople under you, volunteers or
(21:50):
paid.
You want to be a mentor tomentorese.
So you want to clarify what's myprimary role with this person?
So I mentioned Andrew, who wasthe board chair.
He was a friend of mine.
I also was his pastor.
My primary role with him was uhI was his pastor, but then he
became my boss.
So his primary role was he wasmy supervisor.
(22:10):
That really changed our otherrelationships.
It's really important.
Um, friendships work amongpeers.
When there's a friendship,there's equal power and sharing.
I remember when I was in theearly days, when I was friends
with people in our church uh ina very friendly way, and I was
very confused about this.
And they would ask me about whathappened at the board meeting.
(22:33):
And I said it's really notappropriate for me to talk about
that with you.
But they want to know, becausewe're friends, like, why are you
hiding anything from me?
And it's like, well, it's justnot appropriate.
And it was friction there uhbecause we didn't, we didn't,
again, we don't understandpower.
So we had to clarify primaryroles there.
And uh the the the so thebalance is friends are friends
and there's a sense of equalitywith it.
(22:55):
The fourth principles is thisyou want to enlist wise counsel
to monitor dual relationships asneeded.
Because you're gonna have somedual relationships in the
church.
You just want to acknowledge itand you wanna get some wise
counsel in the midst of it to.
Make sure all is good.
Again, so I'll give an example.
(23:15):
Jerry was on staff, my wife atour church.
Imagine we were founders.
Church was large at this point.
And so we we, because she wasn'tmy co-pastor, she had different
titles and roles, but she hastremendous power being my
spouse.
And she was so gifted.
She would occasionally preach,talented.
And we tried at one point tohave her under a one a person
(23:37):
who was only on staff one year,that he'd she'd report to him.
It was foolish.
It was we recognized.
We had to talk about it as aboard and how to, how does she
fit in the org chart and allthat.
But we had to recognize she hada level of power.
And she was in a dualrelationship with people on
staff because she was mentoringmany of them as well, yet she
(24:00):
wasn't necessarily in thatsupervisory role.
Again, I learned, I had to, Iremember going to a fellow who
had had a staff of like 120people.
He's also a PhD therapist at thesame time.
He taught me a lot about dualroles and how to monitor it, how
to have discussions about it.
I remember I had a person whowas a therapist, and she was
(24:22):
very wise and helped me sort outmy power, dual roles, have
healthy conversations.
It was awesome.
So you want to enlist wisecounsel as it happens to you, as
it will happen to you.
Fifthly, is again the burden ofboundaries.
I mentioned it earlier that theburden to set boundaries is on
the person with greater power.
Why?
Because you have greater power.
(24:42):
And so when I was a lead pastorand I became friends with some
people and they got hurt by me,uh, it's really, I take full
responsibility for it because II didn't acknowledge, I didn't
realize how much power I had.
And so we're going camping, uh,we're hanging out in all these
informal settings, and yet onmidweek I'm I'm evaluating them.
(25:03):
And they can't fire me, but Ican fire them.
They're they're paying theirmortgage because I'm their, you
know, I'm their employer andtheir friend.
And so I got us in a situationwhere when I had to say some
things that were really hard,that were more I was their lead
pastor, I was stewarding theresources of the church and
hiring staff.
They got really hurt.
And, you know, I take fullresponsibility for hurting them
(25:26):
because I'm the one with thegreater power.
And uh I wasn't, you know,acknowledging it and I didn't
handle it well.
So that's why giving people atitle and power too quickly uh
is not good.
And so it's really importantthat you don't create confusion.
You're aware, you're monitoringit, and you're exercising your
power to come, as Jesus said, weuse it to serve people, to come
(25:49):
under people, not to be overthem.
Sixth principle about power andwise boundary is you wanna you
want to be sensitive tocultural, ethnic, gender, and
generational uh factors.
You want to be really sensitiveto culture, ethnicity, gender,
and uh generational dynamics,because uh they're all a
(26:11):
dynamic.
Now, again, we had a church with73 nations in it, but I'm very
aware of uh, you know, age, howmany cultures have such respect
for age.
I mean, you know, if your personis 20 and I'm in my late 60s,
that's a pretty big agedifference.
Uh, that's a level of power.
Culture.
A white male and a person ofcolor or a person from a who's a
(26:34):
uh an immigrant who immigratedhere from a country, somewhere
around the world, they're new inthe country.
English isn't great.
I mean, they're they look atAmerica very differently.
And here I am, they're leadpastor.
Again, I was I I was unaware ofthat.
I I realized I finally got to aplace realizing certain
cultures, they can't say no toauthority, especially from some
Asian countries whereConfucianism is is the backdrop,
(26:57):
such respect and reverence forauthority, which is a good
thing, but they have to belearned to say, how do you say
no?
Uh and I used to, I I becameaware if I ask certain people to
do something, they they for themit's an order, they have to do
it, uh, because they really justcan't say no to it.
It's such so contra theirculture.
So you want to become very awareof power around culture, gender,
(27:21):
ethnicity, uh, and age, becauseit's all significant.
And then seventhly, you want tohave honest conversations early.
I mean, as early as possibleabout the risks, about the
challenges, about theexpectations.
Uh, and again, you just want tohave those conversations early
on, not later when things havedeveloped.
(27:42):
So if a family member is onstaff or a really good friend or
on the team, you want to talkabout it uh before something
happens, and maybe you have toask them to leave the team.
Uh listen, I'm no longer thepresident of Emotionally Healthy
Discipleship.
Drew Hyun is.
Uh, and so therefore, I'm veryaware of the power dynamic, is
(28:03):
anything I do with an EHdiscipleship, I may be the
founder, but I am not presidentany longer.
And so I want to make sureeverything I do fits in with his
larger plan of where EHdiscipleship is going.
And uh I'm aware of managingthat power and coming under to
serve him and the board and theother staff and not using it
(28:26):
inappropriately, very importantfor succession.
And then finally, last principleis this eighth principle uh is
do your inner work when you gettriggered.
Oh, yes.
Do your work when you gettriggered.
You get triggered, you'll gettriggered by people.
I used to get triggered bypeople.
I'd be hurt.
I would get angry.
I would get so angry with folks.
I just want to explode off them.
Well, the person with greaterpower, you don't have that
(28:49):
option.
You want to process your angersomewhere else because you have
this power.
And so when you're triggered,you've got to have some places
to go to monitor those triggersand work through them so that
you lead well and you don't useyour power and hurt people and
say things that areinappropriate or wounding.
(29:11):
Uh, you can expect yourunresolved family of origin
issues to erupt.
They will come out.
That's one of the gifts ofleadership.
It is a crucible for our ownformation.
Uh, things will emerge.
So, what do you do?
You have a you have a mentor,you have a friend, maybe a board
member, somebody who's got somewisdom that you can go to when
(29:31):
you're triggered.
Uh, but where do you go?
Who are those people?
We all need supervisors,bishops, mentors, therapists,
you name it, but you want tohave people to go to when you
are triggered.
Just one little finalapplication, practical
application.
It has to do with endings andletting people go.
Hiring someone is easy.
Letting someone go from even avolunteer position is really
(29:53):
hard.
It's challenging.
So you want to do it gently.
You want to do it thoughtfully.
You want to do it prudently.
Uh, hiring is easy, letting gosomeone is hard.
Volunteer or paid.
So never hire someone hastily.
Do the hard work of writing ajob description, getting other
people involved, beingthoughtful, have a process, have
a testing period if possible,have a committee or some other
(30:15):
people involved in the process.
Don't rush, be careful.
It's better to have a positionvacant than to fill it with
someone then having to ask themto leave.
But understand your power as youoffer people positions uh and
give them authority and ask themto do something.
Again, your primary role at thatpoint is you are the supervisor,
(30:37):
you are the boss.
It's really, it's not anenviable position because it's
power that belongs to God thatwe're stewarding, or you want to
steward it to love people andcome under them.
Uh, and that has to be carefullymanaged.
A prudent person gives thoughtto their ways.
Proverbs 14, 8.
A hasty person misses the way.
So again, final word here.
(31:00):
Leading is lonely.
I don't care what level you are,there's a loneliness involved in
leadership, but it's a it's agift because it's a crucible.
We grow in ways that we couldnever have grown any other way.
So, yes, it's lonely, but it's agift.
I consider one of the greatgifts of my life has been to
have to wrestle in this furnacewith my own stuff, my own
(31:25):
failures.
And I've had to learn, I hopeyou will learn too, to forgive
myself when I make a mistake,seek to be reconciled to people,
acknowledge them.
Uh, but I'm actually living outthe gospel very practically uh
in growing in that process.
So uh again, the loneliness canbe a great gift, but you will
make mistakes, forgive yourselfin it.
So let me just encourage you uhas a final step here, you want
(31:48):
to go to emotionallyhealthy.orgslash leader.
And on that, in our website, uh,I want to encourage you to pick
up the EH leader book.
Uh, but there's a freediscussion guide, some videos.
There's actually in the book aninventory of how you handle
power and wise boundaries.
It's a 10-question inventory,really worth taking uh in in the
(32:08):
emotionally healthy leader book.
But go to emotionallyhealthy.orgslash leader and uh check out
the free resources that go withwhat we've talked about today.
And I trust you'll find ithelpful.
But may God bless you.
May God's good hand rest uponyou.
May you mature into a leaderwho, with their power, comes
under people and serves them anduse it like Jesus, gently,
(32:32):
humbly for his glory and hishonor and the building up of
people and the advancement ofthe name of Jesus in the world.
Blessings.
May you grow and mature in this.
Look forward to seeing you onthe next podcast.
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