Monday, August 06, 2007

LEADERS WHO LIE

While researching my book on leadership and legacy due next month, I came across a thoughtful quote from Gordon MacDonald that reminds me of Neal Plantinga and my situation at Calvin Seminary.

"Perhaps inability to tell the full truth is a sign that one is actually lying to himself and cannot face the full truth of the behavior in his own soul.

But then all sin begins with lies told to oneself. The cardinal lies of a failed leader? I give and give and give in this position; I deserve special privileges—perhaps even the privilege of living above the rules. Or, I have enough charm and enough smooth words that I can talk anything (even my innocence) into reality. Or, so much of my life is lived above the line of holiness that I can be excused this one little faux pas."


MacDonald, an author and one-time megachurch minister, speaks from experience: "I am no stranger to failure and public humiliation. From those terrible moments of twenty years ago in my own life I have come to believe that there is a deeper person in many of us who is not unlike an assassin."

Find the entire article here.