The Wisdom of Limits: Leadership and Burnout

The Importance of Understanding Our Limits

Soundly especially prophetic for our modern age, the 16th century reformer and pastor John Calvin wrote in his commentary on Exodus about this passage, “The servants of God should learn to measure their strength; when they greedily take on too many jobs, they may well crack up. For “too-much-to-do,” is a common disease and attacks most men so violently that it cannot be quickly checked” (Haroutunian and Smith, 1958).

You can see the wisdom here, burnout is inevitable when leadership ignores limits. When leaders ignore their human limitations, it’s going to end in disaster.

If you are a leader, and this is true if you are a leader in ministry, at work, at school, in the home, wherever you are a leader of other people, you have to remember that God is the savior, you are just a limited servant and steward. It’s important to be especially in tune with your own soul and beware of the very human tendency towards a messiah complex.

Churches, in particular, suffer when leadership and authority is overly centralized around one person; around one pastor. It is bad for the pastor and it is bad for the people in the congregation.

Thankfully, in my Presbyterian tradition, it is built in that we have a shared model of leadership between pastors and elders. It’s not just on me to lead the church I pastor. It is the group of pastors and elders, in our language the Session, that provide leadership and we collectively are under-shepherds to the great shepherd in this church.

So, how can leaders navigate this tightrope of the actual responsibilities of leadership without falling into the abyss of burnout? Here are a few practical strategies that are helpful from Exodus 18 and the broader story of the Bible:

• Delegate Wisely: Sharing duties not only fosters teamwork but, like in Moses' case, lightens your load. Remember, you don’t have to do it all. You are a finite human being.

• Set Humble and Realistic Goals: Instead of striving for perfection, establish achievable objectives. Usually it is our ego living out a messiah complex that makes us think we are able to save and fix the world.

• Sabbath: God established the Sabbath for a reason. God didn't need to rest, but he knew we would need to rest and worship. He knew we would need the perpetual reminder to turn our attentions and affections away from our work. You as a leader are no different.

• Reflect and Adjust: Regularly assess your responsibilities. Check in with your own soul and your own body. If something is overwhelming, it’s okay to communicate that to the other leaders around you and cut back. That's what shared leadership is all about.

References:

• Joseph Haroutunian and Louise Pettibone Smith, Calvin: Commentaries (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1958), 390.