We spend a lot of time on the podcast talking about identity and its impact on our leadership. In today’s episode, we take a deep dive into how working from a more accurate sense of identity helps us get and stay healthier as leaders, and the powerful influence it has on those we lead.

Here are the show notes:

General principles

1. Identity can impact your leadership in a positive way, or in a negative way
2. For those who feel fatherless, even if they’re born again, their reality is “I am my provider, protector, defender.” If we believe that, we behave as if we have no father.
3. The perspective of an orphan: “If I’m not in control, then I’m in danger.”
4. Anger often puffs in an orphan to deal with fear.

How does migrating from an orphan to an heir impact our leadership? What changes in the way we lead?

1. Remember: You reproduce everything you are, not everything you teach.
2. If you’re prone to worry or fear or jealousy, you often reach to something more powerful to deal with them – self-defensive anger for example.
3. A son understands that for everything he fears, God has a promise.
4. A son believes his “what if” is exciting and full of good things Jesus has prepared in advance for him to do.
5. A son asks “what’s at the root of my fear?” Fear as an orphan becomes surrender as a son, and surrender then becomes fearlessness as an heir.
6. An heir speaks a prophetic picture into the lives of others. He or she sees the greatness God has put in others and calls that greatness out of them.

Next steps

1. Understand the pathway from orphan to son to heir is a lifelong journey.
2. The next time we reach for an orphan’s reflex there needs to be a son’s or an heir’s truth present to counteract that reflex.
3. Application is the bridge between information and transformation.
4. Is the church I lead best described as an orphanage, a family, or an embassy?