Crash Course
How Becca Stevens and losing a job changed my perception of leadership
I recently flipped back through my copy of Practically Divine by Becca Stevens and found these words I’d underlined, “Sometimes we feel like we have to leave love at the door if we want to be successful, seem strong, and sound businesslike. Forget that. That is neither practical nor divine. Love is powerful, and once you are following your passions, it is love that will lead you. No matter what.”
Stevens is the kind of powerhouse leader I always wanted to be. She founded Thistle Farms to help house and heal women survivors of trafficking, prostitution, and addiction. What started as five women making and selling candles in Tennessee has since grown into a thriving organization supporting women all over the U.S. and a Global Shared Trade network that employs 1,500 women in 28 countries. All born out of her conviction that when we come together to make things, we create loving connection and healing.
Stevens’ words struck a chord deep within me and had me reevaluating the path of my former executive career. I spent almost 16 years as a leader at a pediatric hospital system, promoted in title and responsibility from a program manager with a two-person team to a senior vice president over three departments and almost 150 people. The work, the people with whom I did it, and the many accomplishments we made together for the organization all brought me a sense of purposeful achievement.
I never imagined an outcome other than more success. I certainly never imagined getting fired.
I could blame a number of things. The departments rolling up to me had previously been led by three and half executives—I’d gained their responsibilities but not their replacements. An ever-increasing administrative burden seemed to consume all my spare time and mental energy. And I felt at odds with the culture and leadership style; it seemed to be veering further from the path I wanted to travel.
I could blame any of those things, but ultimately, I lost that job because I didn’t lead with love. And I lost that job so I could learn to lead with love.
My circumstances probably weren’t that different from when I first became an executive. Maybe more pronounced because of our growth and the increase in my responsibilities, sure, but the intense expectations, the red tape, the political nonsense wasn’t new. It simply hadn’t weighed me down before. Probably because on some unconscious level, love had been leading me.
I knew things were teetering on the edge when I stopped being candid and authentic with my CEO, when I ceased to challenge him on ideas. I could barely manage the swelling demands of my three departments but feared asking for help. And my wrecking ball of constant doing demolished every ounce of joy I once had in the work itself.
Stevens explains that leading with love is about “taking the highest attribute we assign to our Creator and saying that we will follow this lead.” God was giving me a crash course, and it didn’t include improving how I was leading. It focused solely on showing me how to follow.
It took me many painful months of stumbling around blindly to finally lose that job and leave a career that shifted my whole world and identity. It took me more months still to realize how small I had made my life and how much space I now had to expand it.
I work now as a remote consultant with a team of wildly imaginative, funny, authentic people. I get to create things with them that help others better serve their purpose—and always with Sombra by my side, my furry reminder of unconditional love. I’m deliberate about the energy I devote to my work and diligent in preserving time and space for my family, for volunteering, for writing and creating, for giving to others, for whatever God would have me do. Space to find the thoughts, the words, the actions that best serve the highest, most loving outcome in any scenario.
I’m no Becca Stevens, taking on monumental suffering in the world. But I do try to ask before client meetings, “What would You have me do here?” I try to let go of needing to impress them or to have them see me in a certain way and to delegate to God the outcome that best serves the client and the good they’re trying to do in the world.
In teaching me to better follow, God showed me that my contributions aren’t really mine. I don’t own the highest, most loving outcomes. I don’t need to own them. I simply serve as a conduit through which they can flow.
Looking back to my former job, I don’t doubt the outcome, but I do sometimes imagine what might have gone differently if I’d applied the lessons I’ve since learned. My time in that role needed to end regardless. But what if instead of struggling to stay in the cage I’d made, I unlocked the door myself?
If I’d focused on the highest, most loving outcome God wanted, I could have engaged my CEO in a heart-to-heart and spoken openly about our diverging paths. What he wanted from me and what I wanted to give no longer aligned. It wasn’t personal. I could have reminded myself how much I respected and valued this person and let love lead the way to the best conclusion for both of us.
I could have done that—if I’d already passed this particular divine curriculum. But then, I wouldn’t have needed it.
As much as I work now to apply the lessons I learned, I forget all the time to let love lead when I’m moving too quickly or my ego takes over. Ever the patient professor though, God never seems to mind. He simply gives the lecture again in a different way.
It reminds me of Marianne Williamson’s words in A Return to Love: “Any situation that pushes our buttons is a situation where we don’t yet have the capacity to be unconditionally loving.”
When I don’t let love lead, God always teaches me how to grow my capacity to do so. He may take the form of a toddler punching every number in my elevator bank, as He did in my total career upheaval. Or He may give me a very gentle but precise push right to my heart. Either way, I learn.
His highest, most loving outcome always prevails, but it’s much more fun when I knowingly contribute.
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