New Year, New Gifts?

A grad school professor once told me, “A strong gift can take you where the absence of other gifts cannot hold you.”

In some ways, it’s similar to the old Peter Principle, a business theory that suggests that individuals are promoted until they reach a position where they are no longer competent.

But the Peter Principle is limited to issues of competence: Can you do the things your role requires of you? My grad school professor wasn’t talking about just competency; he was also referring to character. He was cautioning students that if they rise to the top based on skills alone, the fall could happen fast.

Consider the recent story of JaMarcus Russell, a football star at Louisiana State University and the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft by the Oakland Raiders in 2007. He signed a six-year deal worth over $60 million. He had the gift, it seemed.

But his career never really took off, and he was out of the league after a few years. That was one sign of having “a gift” (throwing the ball deep, leading a team, etc.) to start a rise but not enough complementary “other gifts” (fit passes in the tight NFL coverage windows, handling media pressure, managing yourself, etc.) to keep him there. 

The fall was even bigger. A few years later, Russell took a job coaching at his high school and was eventually fired over allegations that he accepted a $74,000 donation on behalf of the school and then kept the majority of the funds for himself. The guy had made tens of millions, and all of a sudden, he’s stealing thousands?

Remember the opening quote: “A strong gift can take you where the absence of other gifts cannot hold you.” It’s not just football players, though. Pastors, salespeople, school principals, CEOs, hospital administrators, and every profession deal with the danger of the rapid rise specially constructed on a single gift.

In the Old Testament, the Book of Proverbs states, “A man’s gift makes room for him / and brings him before great men.” Gifts get you in the room. They get you access. They get you opportunity. But single strong gifts can’t sustain success. You need other gifts—gifts of competency (new opportunities mean new challenges, and new challenges call for new skills) and gifts of character (praise and success test you deeply.)

But is the fall inevitable? No! While I do believe the axiom about needing other gifts is true, I really believe that a gift that pulls you up the stairs doesn’t mean that you’re forever teetering. You can gain stability.

As you look at the past year, where have your gifts taken you? As you look at the new year, where does that leave you teetering? Whatever your answers, let me make four suggestions for you in the new year. 

1. Grow who you are, not just what you do.

For the past four decades, I’ve tried to have a both/and coaching practice. Work life and personal life. I suppose, in some ways, it might be easier to do one or the other, but I never could. I just see life as far too connected for that. Who you are is part of what you do, and vice versa.

But we often get out of balance. If we’re not careful, we start paying way more attention to the skills and work front than the character front, which is why holistic growth is a huge part of sustaining the wake your gifts offer you. Formation is a buzzword these days in many circles (think Jon Tyson or, for people a bit older, Dallas Willard), and this is one buzzword I like. Your gifts can advance you, but you need to become someone, not just go somewhere.

Last May, I tore my calf muscle while playing pickleball. It’s been a long road back. I took my blue and red workout bands to Alaska with me on a fishing trip and to Europe on an anniversary trip because, if I don’t put in the work, I’ll wake up in a couple of years in the same shape or worse. One guy says it this way: “Pay the price of discipline now or the price of disappointment later.”

Life is the same. We don’t actually change much as we age—unless we try.

2. Don’t drink the Kool-Aid of the one-dimensional superpower. 

One of the pieces of writing I get the most feedback on is Becoming a Complete Leader. Sure, I’d love for you to buy it, but the short version is: Don’t pigeonhole yourself by your strengths. Grow your competence. Don’t try to do it all, but become a complete leader.

All the Meyers-Briggs, DiSC, Enneagram, and Working Genius personality assessments highlight something about you, but they also underscore your weaknesses. And if you just let those be weaknesses and trust in your strengths and ability to delegate the stuff that doesn’t come naturally, you’ve got a strategy that will eventually come back to bite you.

On the ministry and NFP front, we’ve developed some content for pastors around being a shepherd leader and an enterprise leader. But it’s not just for pastors; everyone wants to play to their strengths. Where do you need to play to your weaknesses this year? Where is your leadership and life exposed?

3. Plan for annual self-evaluation.

Ever since I was in college, I grab a half-day or so over the holidays for some reflection. I look at the year behind and the year ahead and try to be as objective as I can in both directions. I often ask myself the same questions, and I’m able to track some year-over-year growth.

This isn’t the only way to do it, but the practice has been wildly valuable in protecting myself against overvaluing or undervaluing what the past year has held.

In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought.” How do you do that? Look for your blind spots (if they were easy to see, they wouldn’t be blind spots) and be aware of the dangers that accompany success. Just commit to some real, honest self-evaluation and benchmarking. Ask the hard questions that demand a courageous answer.

4. Pull someone into your cave.

Finally, I’m often reminded that being a CEO/founder/leader is a lonely journey. Sure, there are some huge upsides, but it can be very isolating. The higher you are in the pyramid, the more isolated you are. Maybe you have a board; maybe you have investors; maybe you have family members, but some of them are audiences of your efforts, too, and all of them only see part of the picture of your life and work. 

Henry Stimson said, “The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him.” Get a trusted voice or two—perhaps an executive coach, perhaps a parallel role person in another organization, perhaps a friend—and invite them to be a listener and a speaker to you. The higher you climb on the ladder, the more you’ll need it.

Conclusion

Are you familiar with the idea of being “over your skis”? It’s when you’re forced into something before you’re prepared, and it leads to crashes in skiing, in leadership, and in life. As you approach a new year, are you feeling over your skis in any area? Has the pace of business or family or a side hustle or volunteer work picked up? It’s probably picking up because of some momentum you created last year, and that’s encouraging. But how will you sustain it this year? Because you can’t sustain it without sustaining yourself at the same time.

“A strong gift can take you where the absence of other gifts cannot hold you.”