Earlier this week I was interviewed on Mornings with Lorri and Larry, a Christian talk show on FamilyNetRadio. Listen to the (brief) interview about my book, Leaders Who Last: Sustaining Yourself and Your Ministry.

I was interviewed this month for an article in the United Methodist Reporter on dealing with criticism. Here’s the link. Some good thoughts from a variety of folks on this topic. My favorite quote is from Bill Bryan, from Perkins School of Theology: “Nice is the curse of United Methodism. We will be nice even more than truthful. This makes conflict more surprising and more painful.” You could fill in almost any tradition for “United Methodism,” in my experience.

What is integrity? And why is it important for leaders? The word “integrity” comes from the word “integer” – remember those whole numbers in math? To have integrity means to be whole.

When we are whole leaders, we practice what we preach. Leaders whose inner and external lives are consistent have a greater impact, whatever their arena. This applies to our physical, emotional and spiritual lives. A leader who eats decently has energy to get through the day. A leader who is emotionally aware recognizes the range of emotions in himself and can express them appropriately. A leader who preaches the value of spiritual life knows she needs to have one herself.

When we are whole leaders, we have clear boundaries. We know what we will and won’t do. We are able to say a clear “yes” and “no” to obligations. We are less vulnerable to being manipulated. We are not hypersensitive to criticism, because we know it’s not necessarily about us. All this is much easier said than done, of course. Just the other day I took on a new responsibility I had said I wouldn’t do. Perhaps none of us are completely whole.

I was reminded recently about an applied mathematician I met once. I wrote about this years ago, and I think it’s worth saying again. He explained to me that while people usually think things break suddenly, that is not necessarily true. When something breaks, it is part of a process: microcracks begin, and then join together to make macrocracks, and ultimately a fracture occurs. This is more likely to happen under stress (for example, heat), which reduces the flexibility of structural materials.

At times of heightened anxiety (read, now), we are more vulnerable to “stress fractures” in our integrity – whether it’s making an ethical compromise, neglecting time to rest or pray, or saying yes to yet one more unnecessary obligation or difficult individual. Watch out for signs of cracks in your own life and leadership. Notice the decisions you are making every day so they can support wholeness on every level.

People are different than structures, because we can heal. Most of us have been broken in some ways, small and large. And when we are paying attention to ourselves, we are more likely to catch the small fractures so they don’t become a huge collapse in our integrity.

Here are some questions to consider as you assess your own wholeness as a leader:

1. When is the last time I spent time alone to reflect on my life?
2. Am I doing anything to support my physical health?
3. What am I telling people to do that I don’t do myself?
4. Do I do what I say I will do?
5. Am I too available? Or not available enough?

I visited my parents on the trip I just took to California. My father had a DVD of the movie The Namesake. The film, directed by Mira Nair, is about a young couple, immigrants to the United States from India, and their children, especially their son Gogol (named after the Russian author). It’s a fascinating and moving tale. A colleague told me when it was first released in 1996 that I must see it. It took me a while, but I enjoyed watching a multigenerational story with my parents, especially my father, who served in India in World War II. Highly recommended.

And for Americans, this story is a good reminder that we almost all have a story of immigration somewhere back through the generations. That displacement, and how the family coped, has an impact down the generations.

We all have people in our lives who encouraged us along the way to ministry. Who are those people for you?

Last weekend I attended a reunion in San Francisco for my alma mater, Simpson College (now Simpson University). It was more fun that I could have imagined to reconnect with people, in some cases after 30 or more years.

The memories flooding back included the many who encouraged my fledgling call to pastoral ministry, both faculty and fellow students. Simpson is part of a denomination which still does not ordain women. Yet I found support from Bible professors and dorm mates, and I’m grateful. And at the reunion people were thrilled to learn about my ministry and my new book. And I heard wonderful stories about the ministries of others, from Young Life, to inner-city theological education, to long-term local church ministry, to church organ design.

What stories do you have of support along the way?

How do you become yourself? God made each of us unique, and yet we all face constant pressure to be like others. I came across this wonderful quote by e. e. cummings hidden away in a file on my computer:

To be nobody-but-myself—in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.

– e. e. cummings (1894-1962)

Sometimes the worst interpersonal problems in congregational life are the ones we create ourselves — or at least we contribute to them.

I just finished reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which my book group will discuss next week. It’s a great read, with surprisingly accessible language for a book written in 1817 (by a 19-year-old, no less). Victor Frankenstein, out of his compulsive desire for knowledge, creates a living creature who ultimately destroys him and everyone he loves. The monster, while sympathetic in some ways, is unregulated and thus destructive.

Most ministry nightmares are not as bad as this! And yet we play a part in them. I’m thinking particularly of the very needy folks who can consume our time and wreak havoc in congregational life. We want our churches to be welcoming, and so we allow people to act badly, and are unable to set limits.

It’s important to be able to say, “You can’t act like that here.” Some people will be able to manage themselves when appropriate limits are set. Others may get angry and leave (and probably go act out the same scenario in another church). But when we allow the least mature to call the shots and dominate our own schedule, we’re not doing them any favors.

Where do you need to set a limit with someone?