Celebrate your "Rivals"
Winning. Competition. Rivalry. For all of us who are Type A Leaders, jealousy in the form of competition is always a struggle. You may call it something else (competitive spirit, goal-oriented, fast pace), but at the end of the day, we all struggle with being jealous or envious of others successes, especially when it is in the same industry, or same town, or same circle, or same customer base. In these cases, it feels like competition, and again for us Type A’s, when there is a competition, we ALWAYS want to win.
How do you view those you are “competing” against? Whether competing for attendees, or resources, or prestige, or members, or customers, understanding the proper posture towards your rivals is crucial to being a Collaborative Leader. Most leaders I know never get this right.
And in the faith community- whether a non profit ministry leader, pastor, church leader or, or parachurch organization director, this sense of competition and envy is rampant. Instead of jealousy and envy, collaboration and partnership should be the norm in the Church and faith-based community. We should be celebrating the pastor or leader across town, instead of finding ways to make them look bad or talking bad about them to others but making it look like we are bringing it up so as to “pray” for them.
Competition for customers, resources, time and money will always be a reality, but the question is how YOU deal with this. Jealousy is natural, but how you respond to it will prove your maturity as a leader. And as a follower of Christ, jealousy or envy is definitely not one of the fruits of the Spirit!
So, the best solution I’ve found to combating jealousy/envy and competition is Celebration. When you find yourself tempted to speak ill about a rival or you are secretly wrestling with envy/jealousy over someone else you are competing with, flip that emotion on its head.
Celebrate your competition. Your rivals. Whether the leader or the organization overall.
Speak positively about them. In public. and in private.
Encourage the leader or leaders of that “rival” organization. Send them cards or notes, call them, and even visit.
Look for the good in what they are doing and celebrate that.
Pray for them, both in public and in private.
Lean into them, and seek opportunities to partner together in your community or industry.
The question you should be asking is, “how can I help this person win?” Church leaders- we’re all on the same team. We’re fighting the same fight. Let’s act like it.
Brad– I love this. Thanks for the suggestions and encouragement on how to spur each other on, especially within the Church.
We loved Catalyst, as usual.
Blessings,
Margaret
[...] Celebrate your “Rivals” The best solution I’ve found to combating jealousy/envy and competition is Celebration. When you find yourself tempted to speak ill about a rival or you are secretly wrestling with envy/jealousy over someone else you are competing with, flip that emotion on its head. – Brad Lomenick [...]
Hey thanks for this article – as much as we try and minimize it, competition and comparison are a part of the human experience. I have found that when I identify it, allow it to be there, look for the actual inciting factors that underly the feelings instead of just try and push it away, I find that I learn a lot more about myself.
It is important also to note that when you are focusing on competing and comparing, you are using up valuable brain cells that could, instead, be used for creativity, for new music or drama or art that God wants to create. We are limited beings – there is only so much energy and brain power to go around. When we are embroiled in the battle of competition, we are spinning wheels in the mud and not getting anywhere. Of course, we do it because it makes us feel better (in a weird sort of way). It’s a form of release. And because the brain loves a puzzle. So the whole time that we’re process-process-processing the hurt and the pain and the stuck and the jealousy and the competing, the brain is hard at work.
Hopefully a pattern emerges.
This comment post is already getting too long…if you are interested, I wrote a post over at worshipministry.com that talks about this very issue:
http://www.worshipministry.com/ministry-talk/when-competition-creeps-in/
I pray that ya’ll are blessed in your ministries, and that you see how valuable your contribution is.
Thanks Brad for the awesome post! I like the part about being intentional about Celebrating what fellow ministries are doing. We just started a new ministry on a college campus and it is so easy to compare and compete. If we are humble enough there is actually tons we can learn from each other. I have learned ALOT from the other ministries on our campus. For me the issue often boils down to pride. I am an identical twin and I have two younger twin brothers. Growing up we competed over everything. We competed in sports, grades and even who could get the attention from certain girls. In college I got involved in an awesome campus ministry and got stoked on sharing Jesus and making disciples. Before long it was easy for me to translate my competitiveness from the sports world into the ministry world. We just had a new way of keeping score. I wrote a post about motivation, competition and pride here if you want to check it out? http://www.heartofcampusministry.com/?p=3362