Corporatology 10: The Broken Leader

How to Peter: Certainty, Failure, Formation

“Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.”
— often attributed to Francis Chan

This one took me a while to face.

I knew it—
but I just kept wrapping myself in woundedness
instead of breaking open and letting the Light in.

I thought too highly of myself,
which is almost strange
considering my chronic doubt fracture.

But pride doesn’t always sound like confidence.

Sometimes it sounds like principle.
Sometimes it sounds like urgency.
Sometimes it sounds like, I’m just trying to do the right thing.

And sometimes, if I’m honest,
it sounds like disrespect hitting a place in me
that still does not know how to stay soft.

I used to think leadership meant being unshakable.

Composed.
Certain.
Just a few [baby] steps ahead of collapse at all times.

I thought if I could just hold it together—
my decisions, my image, my output, my pace, my usefulness—
then I’d be worthy of the responsibility I was carrying.

I thought I needed balance.

What I actually needed was to stop trying to earn a life Jesus was already offering me.

Field Note 010

There’s a quiet assumption most leaders carry:

If I believe the right things about myself,
I’ll live them out when it counts.

But that’s not how formation works.

You are not formed by what you believe about yourself.
You are formed by what God exposes in you
when you are tested.

“These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold…”
— 1 Peter 1:7

Pressure doesn’t create your character.

It exposes it.

And most of us are walking around with an identity
that has never been challenged deeply enough to tell the truth.

So we lead from it.
We build from it.
We trust it.

Until we can’t.

Until the pressure comes.
Until the disrespect lands.
Until the title changes.
Until the job ends.
Until the room no longer reflects the version of ourselves we were counting on.

Until we collapse on the road.

And suddenly, what we believed about ourselves
is not enough to hold us together.

No Hiding Here

Peter used to feel distant to me.

Like a dramatic Bible character.
Like someone else’s cautionary tale.

Until I started seeing myself in him.

Not just in the denial.

In the overreach.

In the urgency.
In the mouth.
In the sword.
In the way he loved Jesus and yet still tried to prove himself.

Peter was not passive.

He spoke first.
Moved fast.
Reacted hard.
Made big promises.

He was the disciple who seemed ready to go down swinging for the principle.

And daggum is that just flat giving.

Because I can bulldoze people in the name of what is right.

I can convince myself that conviction gives me permission.
That urgency excuses impact.
That being right makes my delivery righteous.

It doesn’t.

I have confused passion with obedience.
I have confused principle with pride.
I have confused disrespect with danger.

And not every sword I picked up was for righteousness.

Some of them were just for me.

And after being turned out and reset, I'm ashamed of my insolence.

Because I do care about what is right.
I do care about principle.
I do care about excellence, order, responsibility, and people doing what they said they would do.

But somewhere in me, when disrespect enters the room, it does not feel like disagreement.

It feels like diminishment.

And that is where I start reaching for the sword.

What the Fire Reveals

There’s a moment in Scripture that used to feel like a side note to me.

“When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
— Luke 22:32

Not if.

When.

Before the failure ever happened,
it was already accounted for.

Not excused.
Not minimized.
Not waved away.

Known.

That changes everything.

Because it means the test is not the end of the story.

It is the revelation inside of it.

Jesus knew Peter would fail before Peter knew he was capable of it.

And that might be what wrecks me most.

Because I have spent so much of my life building an identity around what I would never become.

I would never be that person.
I would never need that much grace.
I would never let work become that much of me.
I would never confuse status with worth.
I would never miss my life chasing a version of success that still left me empty.

Except I have.

I like status.

And man, does that disgust parts of me.

I want what I don’t want to want.

I know Jesus is the only One who can fill that void effectively in me.
I know titles cannot heal what worthlessness broke.
I know recognition cannot become resurrection.

But status is seductive.

It feels like proof.
It feels like safety.
It feels like maybe this time I will finally be enough.

And that is the lie.

A title can decorate a wound.

It cannot heal it.

How to Peter

This is how it happens.

You build an identity around who you think you are.

You decide what you would never do.
What you would never need.
What you would never become.

You get comfortable in that version of yourself;
untested, unchallenged, certain.

And then the moment comes.

Not loud.
Not dramatic.

Just costly enough.
It's so expensive.

A room where you feel disrespected.
A job where you feel needed.
A season where your title props up your worth.
A responsibility that lets you avoid your real life.
A standard of excellence that slowly becomes a hiding place.

And instead of collapsing all at once,
you adjust.

You compensate.

You justify.

You call it work ethic.
You call it leadership.
You call it protecting the principle.
You call it getting things done.

And in that moment,
you do not become someone else.

You reveal who you are
when it actually counts.

That is how I Peter.

Not all at once.
Not intentionally.

Just enough.

Enough to let work become refuge.
Enough to let excellence become anesthesia.
Enough to let status whisper that it could fill the void.
Enough to keep hyperventilating because panic felt more familiar than peace.

The Myth of Balance

The world loves to sell work-life balance like it is a scheduling problem.

Block your calendar.
Set better boundaries.
Take a walk.
Drink water.
Log off earlier.
Protect your peace.

And yes, do those things.

But let’s not lie.

There is no real balance when your identity is starving.

There is only a better-managed panic.
A prettier paper bag.
A more polished way to hyperventilate.

If work is where you run to avoid real life,
you will turn balance into another performance metric.

You will optimize rest.
Schedule healing.
Curate peace.
Brand your stillness.
Perform wellness while your soul is still gasping for air.

I know this because I do it.

I am an overachiever addicted to a job well done.

I do not just like excellence.
I hide in it.

I bury myself in work to avoid real life.

And that sentence costs me something to write.

Because it would be easier to say I am driven.
It would be easier to say I care deeply.
It would be easier to say I have high standards.

All true.

But incomplete.

Sometimes I work hard because I love the work.

And sometimes I work hard because stillness makes me face myself.

There is no balance without Jesus.

Without Him, balance becomes self-management.
With Him, balance becomes surrender.

Without Him, rest becomes recovery, so I can produce again.
With Him, rest becomes trust.

Without Him, work becomes proof.
With Him, work can become stewardship.

Without Him, I am still trying to earn a life.
With Him, I can finally receive one.

Lessons Learned

I wasn’t strong.

I was untested.

And the test did not ruin me.

It told the truth about me.

God does not expose you to shame you.
He exposes you to form you.

And He exposes you in the quiet place.

After I lost my job, something in me came into the light.

Not around me.

In me.

I didn’t bring anyone with me.
I just kept it there.

I saw how deeply I had tied my worth to title.
How much I liked being important.
How quickly I reached for productivity when peace felt too spacious.
How addicted I had become to being useful.

Jesus has been undoing that in me.

The status-title-based identity.
The need to be respected in order to feel safe.
The belief that a job well done could make me whole.
The panic I kept choosing because breathing deeply felt unfamiliar.

He is showing me there is wide open space to breathe.

And even now, in a new season, I feel the pull.

The temptation to stop breathing deeply.
To move too fast again.
To prove too much again.
To make work heavier than it is supposed to be.

Because familiar is seductive too.

Even when it is killing you.

But breathing with Jesus looks different.

It looks like moving at a reasonable pace.
Being at peace.
Enjoying my life and my people.
Not missing the moments that matter most.

My family.

My children.

They grow so fast.

And I do not want to spend my life proving my worth
and miss the people who already know it.

The Shore

After Peter failed, he went fishing.

Back to what he knew.
Back to what he could control.
Back to the work.

I fricking get that.

There is comfort in competence.
There is relief in doing the thing you know how to do.
There is a strange safety in returning to the familiar, even when the familiar cannot heal you.

And look at that, Jesus met him there.

Not on a platform.
Not in a strategy session.
Not with a lecture on leadership recovery.

On the shore.

With breakfast.

That detail matters so much to me.

Because Jesus restored Peter in the ordinary before sending him back into the calling.

He did not ask Peter if he was ready to lead.

He did not ask him to explain the failure.
He did not ask him to defend the panic.
He did not ask him to prove he could carry the weight this time.

He asked:

“Do you love Me more than these?”

And today, that is the question I cannot get away from.

More than the title?
More than the status?
More than the clean execution and the job well done?
More than being respected?
More than being needed?
More than the seductive pull of proving I was worth something?

Do you love Me more than these?

That is where formation starts.

Not with a better calendar.
Not with a better title.
Not with a cleaner productivity system.
Not with a more impressive version of myself.

With love.

With surrender.

With Jesus on the shore, asking what my heart is actually attached to.

Action Item

Stop avoiding the places that might expose us.

Not recklessly.
Not performatively.

Honestly.

Pay attention to where we feel the tension-
the places where our identities may not hold.

That is not where we shrink back.

That is where we are formed.

And do not do it alone.

Find a place where you are known
without needing to prove anything.

Not a platform.
Not a room where you perform well.
Not a title that makes you feel safe.

A place where the truth can surface
and you do not run from it.

Because we do not need to become stronger.

We need to become honest.

We need to come back to shore.

You say you never would—
until you do.

And what you do after that?

That is what forms you.

Peter said the same thing.

“Even if all fall away, I never will.”

And a few hours later,
he did not hold either.

But that was not the end of him.

It was the beginning of who he actually was.

Maybe that is how you Peter.

You strive.
You prove.
You react.
You reach for the sword.
You run back to what you can control.

And Jesus meets you there anyway.

Not to crush you.

But to ask what you love most. 🤍