When Leaders Let Us Down

There is no such thing as a perfect leader, one who never fails his followers. Failure is a part of the leadership story of every leader. All leaders succeed and fail. Winston Churchill said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Since most of us are not “the leader,” the one in charge, that means we are following another person. Regardless of how incredible your leader may be, at some point, they will fail at a personal relationship or in some particular project. Your leader may even cause you to feel forsaken or neglected, leaving you with disappointment. Leaders are not perfect and they are going to let you down.

When faced with these feelings, we can either respond or react: the choice is ours.  One choice is to “wrestle to the ground” those feelings, fears and personal biases. Another decision is to guard ourselves from focusing on our leader’s failures and becoming overwhelmed. Eleanor Roosevelt said,  The choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

I am not writing as someone who has mastered this process…these are purely observations from my own journey. Here are five concepts I have written for myself that you may want to consider if your Leader Has Let You Down:

1.     I am responsible for my own heart regardless of the attitudes or insensitivities of my leadership. I must make sure I have a clean heart that is open to God – a heart harboring no malice. Psalm 51:10

2.     My leaders will give an account to God for their decisions and actions. I will give an account to God for my response to my leaders. Hebrews 13:17

3.     Everyone deals with disappointment or injustice at some point in their life. I am not a victim and must decide if I am going to thrive or give in and dry up.

      2 Corinthians 11:16-12:10 (long passage but don’t miss verse 12:10)

4.     The next move is always mine…I must determine what God really wants for me in my life and go after it. If that means being proactive with the people who have violated my trust then I must make that move. If not, then I must make the next move…but I must MOVE at God’s prompting and leading. This can only happen when I spend extended time in His presence!

     2 Corinthians 4:16-18; Psalm 16:11; Exodus 33:14; Lamentations 3:24-26

 5. Being brutally honest, in my own leadership I have let others down and caused them to experience these same challenges. I am just a sinner saved by, living by and in need of God’s grace, just like everybody else.

Ephesians 2:8-9

The reality is: all of us are leaders. Even if we do not realize it someone is looking at our lives and following us. The ugly truth is: we, like our leaders have let them down. When we think about it from this perspective, it helps us see things differently.

The question we all have to answer is how are we going to respond when our leader lets us down?