Drift
Scripture
“Keep vigilant watch over your heart, that’s where life starts. Don’t talk out of both sides of your mouth, avoid careless banter, white lies, and gossip. Keep your eyes straight ahead; ignore all sideshow distractions. Watch your step and road will stretch out smooth before you. Look neither right nor left, leave evil in the dust.” (Proverbs 4:23-27 MSG)
Thought
On the most recent episode of the Stay The Course Leadership podcast we discussed the concept of drift.
Leaders of all ages know what drift feels like. It’s something we all struggle with combatting. It is the subtle movement or “slide” we experience when we get too wrapped up in external forces.
Our ambitions drift, our motivations drift, our level of courage drifts. We lose purpose and discipline due to drift. Our lifestyle rhythms drift. This isn’t a new phenomenon, though there are new vices and an increased access to forces that cause us to drift.
The reality is, drift is and always has been primarily a heart issue. Drift starts in the heart.
“Keep your eyes straight ahead; ignore all sideshow distractions.”
Thousands of years ago when King Solomon penned these words in the book of Proverbs he recognized it will always be paramount for a leader to:
Guard your heart
By doing these two things:
Keep your eyes straight ahead
Ignore all sideshow distractions
There are endless sideshow distractions that will rob you of the necessary transformation right where you are.
When you look to the left or the right and see leaders further than you on the journey, other teams with better facilities, departments with more funding, less-qualified leaders getting a promotion over you, the pay scale in other organizations. These are heart altering external forces that will pull us from the transformational and force us to drift to the transactional.
If you want to combat the drift in your leadership life, start by tuning out the “sideshow distractions.”
We must recognize we are typically the ones at fault. We are the ones typically looking for the distractions. We scan the horizon for them. We don’t recognize how all of the scanning and comparing and focusing on things “out there” robs us of the here and now. The development process only found in our current circumstances.
Instead, concentrate on the here and now. Why are you here? What can you learn? What value can you bring?
How can you stop being so consumed with getting ahead and instead participate fully in the growth and transformation required of you at this time?
Keep your eyes locked on what is right in front of you. It’s difficult to drift when you’re focused on the here and now.
Your current environment needs a leader who pushes back against their own drifting.