Surrender Really is an Option

Leadership is often associated with winning. It’s an easy leap to make when business schools use the language of sports and war as metaphors for success. Crushing the competition is a common theme in marketing campaigns. Achievement and status are held up as worthy goals and we reward those who accomplish what they set out to do with plaques, stock incentives, and plush corner offices.

I must confess that it is hard to resist this call to succeed. It’s one of the reasons I find myself working long hours and writing blog posts on weekends! This drive to win comes with a price – more stress but less satisfaction, more stuff but less joy. Perhaps most painful of all is the realization that it is terribly lonely at the top.

Earlier this year I shared some personal frustrations about my schedule and the stress of running a business with a friend from church. He offered a rather shocking piece of advice – surrender yourself and your business to God. I didn’t know how to respond. While I profess a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and try to integrate my faith in the workplace, he suggested that I do even more. Well, actually his advice was for me to do less (surrender) and allow God to do more.

Could this advice work? Is one of the keys to leadership success based on giving up control and yielding oneself to a higher power? In the months since this conversation I have struggled to implement my friend’s suggestion. It is so easy to believe I can handle things on my own. I make excuses for keeping control and silently wish I understood what surrender really looks and feels like.

Deep in my heart I know that surrender is the right course to take. So why don’t I do it? Is my ego really that big? Am I so insecure that I have to prove myself to others? If I give up control might God take me somewhere I don’t want to go? Does it all come down to being afraid?

I wonder how many other leaders share my questions. Perhaps the responses I receive to this post will offer some clues. If we are honest with ourselves surrender sounds too much like losing and that could be the real reason we don’t get out of the game and let God take over. But I’m pretty sure that isn’t how the final score will read. When I am willing to get out of the way, only then can I really be successful. Only then am I ready to lead. I guess it’s about time I raise the white flag.