John Gunter

Thoughts on Life and Living

“If you shot for nothing, then you will hit it every time”

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JG.V.P.P._edited_2Planning is boring.  Planning is sometimes arduous.  The awkward few that do like planning are almost social scourges to the rest of the world that hate planning.  “There she/he is. . . the person that PLANS everything.”

However, everyday life and history point to the absolute need of planning on both the professional and personal fronts in life.

On the professional side, I am amazed when meeting with teams and organizations how few actually have plans, genuine thought out plans, of where they are going directionally.  Most can articulate “purpose statements” and inspiring vision pieces.  However, when you actually ask how this noble vision is going to take place, essentially how do you plan to accomplish this vision, vague and choppy explanations often ensue.

What will success look like for your organization/team this time next year?  In 5 years?  In 20 years?

In light of your purpose statement/vision, what needs to happen this week/quarter/year to get you going in this direction?

These and other questions are often followed by either bumbling, unintelligible answers or awkward silence.

One of the leadership clichés of which I often quote is, “if you shoot for nothing, then you will hit it every time.”  I know this is a little trite and simplistic, but [Read more…]

“It’s lonely at the top” – Leadership Isolation

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The statue of David
King David saw isolation open the door for his moral collapse.

I have been grieved this week to read of three high-level men, one in ministry, one in education, and one in politics, who have apparently all fallen in horrendous sin.  Two of the men are being accused of pedophilia and the other of murder.  Like you, I read these accounts and I am mortified over the thoughts of such moral deadness and absolute failure on the part of these men.  They have all taken vows to care for and protect those under their domains of responsibility and done the complete opposite.

It has gotten to the point where stories of “fallen” leaders are the norm, rather than the exception.  Whether it is sexual indiscretion (too many cases in politics and ministry to recount), financial corruption (as is the case in the main story of fallen leadership in the country where I currently live), or emotional breakdown (the recent break of the producer of Kony2012), “fallen leaders” seem to be dominating headlines across the world.

While there is clearly no one answer for this problem, I do think that one of the core issues of moral failure in leadership on this level is ISOLATION.  The “higher” you get in leadership, the fewer the peers and the greater the responsibility. The fewer peers you have, the less healthy outlets there are to “decompress” in life.  The greater the responsibility you have, the higher the emotional toll and stress you shoulder.  The result [Read more…]

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