Recently after speaking at a conference, a pastor come up to me; I could tell immediately that he was flat emotionally.

“I am totally bored in my job but have no passion to do anything else.”

My first thought was that I felt sorry for his congregation. I asked him how long he felt this way and what was going on in his life.  He shared with me that he had been through intense counseling to get some answers and the professionals told him he was depressed and burned out. This man is truly among the walking dead. I wanted to give him a silver bullet of hope— an easy fix for his heart.  Trust me, his situation is not easy to fix.

How does a man like that get there?  He is a pastor of a church and is faithful to the call of God on his life. What is it that takes passion completely out of our hearts?  In his case it was not that his circles did not overlap – he had just lost all passion. His heart grew cold if not frozen; he could not name one interest or thing that would excite him. That is what I know as severe burnout.

Leadership can wear you out. It is tough being the tip of the spear. The higher you go in leadership, the more eyes you have on you, and the more people there are to drain you. Expectations can drive you mad, especially if everyone has a different version of who you should be and how you should act. There are so many things that, like deadly piranhas, can eat away at our passion. If we lose our heart, we lose our leadership credibility.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23

There are some of the big passion piranhas that we need to guard against:

•  Prolonged discouragement
•  Opposition to your vision
•  Workaholism
•  Lack of real vacation
•  Working outside of your gifting
•  Working with people you don’t care for
•  Unrealistic expectations of yourself or others
•  Unending marriage problems
•  Constant financial pressure
•  A pattern of failure in leadership
•  Dysfunctional people pulling you down
•  Unhealthy leadership team
•  Lack of a leadership team to share the load
•  Constant unresolved staff conflict
•  Lack of respect for your leaders above you
•  Hidden moral failure
•  Neglect of your relationship with God

Time and again these things swim out and can robbed us of passion. If there is a preponderance of these issues plaguing you, you might need a change!

Here is a good exercise to do right now.  Go down this list and check off every item that is true in your situation.  If there are more than a few of these eating away at your heart you can see why you might be struggling in leadership.

Consider giving yourself a grade with a scoring system for each of the piranhas. It might be that you will find the explanation of how you got to where you are.

Excerpt From Chapter Four of The Power of Passion in Leadership.