The Speck You See in Their Eye Might Be the Exact Log in Yours
In a time when the world’s view of conflict resolution seems to be defined by “winning” and humiliating your adversary, there is a lesson that I continually apply in order to try to bring grace and healing to tense situations.
This post continues themes I’ve written about before, the themes of “practical proverbs for leadership and life.” They come from lessons I’ve learned over my career as a leader in secular higher education, working for major universities and large corporations. In this installment, the focus is on the importance of, and tools for, Christ-centered evaluation of yourself first and others second.
The practical proverb goes like this: The failings of others that bother us most are those of which we are the most guilty. As a key verse, consider these words of Jesus, “You hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean” (Matt. 23:27b NIV).
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I was once in a “conversation,” which in reality meant that I was on the receiving end of a seemingly endless monologue. It so happened that there was a clock behind the speaker, so I could time how long the individual was talking. It seemed the person needed to talk, and so I let it go on for a while. But after literally forty-five minutes had passed, I tried to interject something, and the person immediately snapped, “Would you let me talk!?” The person dominating the conversation was highly critical of people who talk too much.
That experience led me to the more general observation that a person who gets incensed about a sin or a failing of another is often especially guilty of the very same thing. Unfortunately, we see this all too often in very public settings. One leader vociferously decries the unethical behavior of another, only to be caught sometime later in a virtually identical scandal. Or another leader justifies a terrible act or statement by blaming the other person or party of the exact same thing. These hypocrisies are generally accompanied by some convoluted justification for how the two things are different, or why it’s okay in one direction but not the other.
Some of the worst leaders I’ve worked with or observed have demanded loyalty from their subordinates. They are so insecure and self-focused that they don’t trust their people to be loyal. As a result, they see loyalty as something to be demanded as opposed to something to be earned. It is not surprising that in each instance, loyalty was not one of their own personal characteristics. And the often-frequent accusations of disloyalty and lack of integrity that those leaders laid on others were actually indictments of themselves.
The obvious question, then, is what is the sin you observe in others that is the most problematic to you? It’s a different way of asking you to identify your own weaknesses. But it is phrased in a way that requires honesty and yields answers that can be quite humbling. This is ultimately because it is a question that elicits an answer from which you cannot hide.
For me, it is pride. I find that I am really bothered by prideful people. It is the failing that I seem to discern more quickly in others than any other. By my own reasoning, then, I have convicted myself that pride is, therefore, one of my greatest sins.
One day, when I was much younger, I got really upset with my brother for boasting about something or other. My dad, who was watching all of this unfold, remarked to me, “You know, Tim, there are two kinds of ego [i.e., pride]. There’s the outward ego that makes people go around bragging about how great they are. And then there’s a quiet kind of ego that can’t stand it when people go around bragging about how great they are.”
Guilty as charged. That comment still sticks with me these many years later. While I am generally careful not to grandstand about my skills and successes, it does not at all mean that I am innocent of being incredibly prideful. And while I don’t by any means excuse myself, isn’t pride something of which we are all guilty?
But the key leadership lesson here is training oneself to be deeply introspective about one’s own failings and working to mitigate or redirect those failings to positive ends. We live in a time when people are increasingly quick to find fault with others. Sometimes it appears to me that debate has devolved into an exercise of making the other side look bad and not about an exchange of ideas. And in the process, voices get louder, shriller, and the dialogue becomes increasingly inane.
What seems lacking, particularly in leaders, is not just clear and visible attempts to understand their opponents but, more importantly, the humility to look into themselves to see how they can better respond to conflict or disagreements. This is particularly important for leaders who profess Christ as their Lord and Savior. As Christians, people should be able to look at us and see the fruits of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22). We need to make sure the focus is on being like Jesus and not winning for Jesus. (Last I heard, he was doing a pretty good job on his own.) Failure to live like Jesus undermines both our leadership and our witness.
Recently my wife and I had lunch with a dear friend, and the name of a mutual acquaintance we knew from different circles came up. When we said, “Oh yeah, we know him. We used to go to church with him,” our friend exclaimed, “He’s a Christian!?” She went on to say, “I mean, he’s a good guy and all, but I would never have thought he was a Christian!” In that moment, it struck me how horrible it would be to go through life as a professed Christian and have no one ever suspect it.
In short, we fail as Christians and as leaders when we look past the proverbial logs in our own eyes. My mom used to say, “You can’t change people, but you can change how you respond to them.” A perfect place to start is recognizing that the failings to which you are most sensitive in others are likely the same failings to which you are most vulnerable.
Timothy (Tim) Wei is an aerospace engineer by training and motivated by the call in Matthew 25:35–36. He has been a professor, department head, and dean of engineering and currently leads an initiative developing technologies needed to “feed the hungry.” “He and his wife, Sally, are active at Hope Community Church in Glenview, Illinois.” Their two young adult children, Nathan and Carissa, are actively involved in Christian ministry.