A Dangerous Enemy ~ Jenni Catron

As typical siblings do, my sister and I fought over EVERYTHING when we were growing up. We knew how to push each other’s buttons and we thoroughly enjoyed doing it. Most of the time our battles were over the petty things like who got the last piece of cake, who got to sit in the front seat of the car, or whose favorite TV show we got to watch.

Although petty, the things that we battled over were usually always things in limited supply, things that were scarce.

I think we learn to fear scarcity at an early age. The fear of not having enough causes us to race to beat others to get what we want. Before we know it this mentality infiltrates every part of our lives.

We're afraid of a friend (or colleague) becoming better friends with someone else, so we don't make the introduction

We're afraid the store might run out of that fancy new thing we want so we slap our credit card down and impulsively buy it

We keep our freezers stocked because we don't want to go hungry

We give our financial resources sparingly because we're afraid we won't have enough for retirement

We don't celebrate the accomplishment of a co-worker because we're afraid they'll get promoted sooner

We hoard.
We keep.
We guard.
We protect.

I believe that this mindset of scarcity is one of the most dangerous enemies to great leadership. Our unwillingness to champion others, to give to others, or to make a way for others is a dangerous place to find ourselves.

In our efforts to guard and protect ourselves we actually sabotage our leadership influence.

Scarcity is in opposition to great leadership because I believe one of the greatest responsibilities of leaders is to generously develop, inspire, and empower those you lead.

If you are constantly protecting what you have, you rarely have time to invest in the people around you.

"A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed."
Proverbs 11:25

I'll be honest; scarcity can get the best of me. It's one of the greatest challenges to my leadership.

How about you? Do you battle scarcity? What do you do to combat it in your life?

Posted: 20 Sep 2010 05:42 AM PDT on Catalysts Blog