As a leader, the health of your marriage directly affects the impact of your leadership… Being effective at work or in ministry begins by being effective at home.
I wanted to share this post by Michael Hyatt that is a great reminder of things I am doing okay and things I need to work on.
How well do you speak of your spouse? Do you hold them up well publicly?
For example, my wife is more patient than she gives herself credit for. Being married to me is… well it's not easy! I very often have to take time away from our marriage to give it to others- which is hard on our relationship at times, especially when I'm working from home. I'm right there… but I may not really be available and may be distracted. So yeah- not easy.
Fortunately, she is always telling me how proud she is of me and how she has been boasting about me to her lady friends, etc.
Well, let me take a queue from my ‘virtual mentor' Michael Hyatt and agree with his recent post.
It often pains us to see couples and especially leaders who do not speak well of their spouses. Sometimes it is in humor, and yeah- sometimes even we are guilty of making fun of each other around our friends.
But I need to remember that eyes are on me these days. Michael's point #5 hit home for me this morning:
To be a truly effective leader, you must lead yourself, and then you must lead your family. Your marriage is a powerful visual of how you treat the people you value the most.
When you speak highly of your spouse, your followers are more likely to trust you.
I am unbelievably blessed to have a wife that is so caring for me and so patient. Especially on weeks like this where I'm working way too many hours – I want to call out publicly that she just plain rocks.
I'm proud of how she is on a mission to help others, and I thought I would say so here! I'm really glad we get to do fun things together, and that we are both passionate about living our life to its fullest!
My wife and I meeting Joe Satriani in 2013
So- how will you hold up your spouse? Are you willing to do it publicly? If not- try Michael's 10-Day challenge and see if it helps!
I encourage you to like and share this with your friends – and as always leave a comment if you like! I'd love to hear from you!
