As a Christ-follower, I strive to manifest a humble and unpretentious spirit. At the same time, as the pastor and leader of a local church, I sought to also convey a sense of poise and certainty to where people had a measure of confidence in me and would willingly follow. I felt at times like it was a balancing act … manifest enough belief in myself to where people will get on board and willingly follow, but not be so prideful to where I come off as insolent or cocky.
How do you know if you’ve crossed over the line? How can you tell if you’ve moved from a healthy sense of self-assurance that engenders voluntary followership to an unhealthy pride that alienates and estranges folks? While there may be more, there are three qualities that, to me, are dead giveaways that we’ve crossed the line.
(1) Refusing to listen to advice. Leaders who have an unhealthy sense of pride come off as if they know it all. Pride causes you to want people to think you know more than you actually do, and the attempt to perpetuate that perception causes us to often ignore the wisdom and insights of others. I’ve often thought the most dangerous person in the church is not the hypocrite, or the person with the hypercritical spirit. It’s the unteachable person—the man or woman who has it all figured out to where there’s nothing you, or anyone, can say that will cause them to re-evaluate their conclusions. For the pride and hubris hiding in that person will inevitably come out. And it will tend to wreak havoc when it does.
(2) An inability to own mistakes. When we’re proud, we can’t admit our errors—in fact, we do the exact opposite … we try to hide them or explain them away. One of the greatest instructors in life is our mistakes and shortcomings. But if we can’t recognize or acknowledge them, we can’t learn from them either. Pride does something within us to where we cannot capitalize on this fertile ground of growth.
(3) Failing to see our personal shortcomings. In many ways pride makes us immune to ourselves. We can’t be transparent and real because we’re too busy trying to convey an image of perfection and flawlessness. Unhealthy pride causes us to wear a mask—a mask that, ironically enough, those around us are typically keenly aware of but that we are clueless about.
Proverbs 16:18 says that pride goes before a fall. The challenge is to lean into God and draw from His resourcing in ways to where we come off as appropriately confident and self-assured without crossing the line to where we’re perceived as self-important and prideful.