CHAPTER 12
Experiencing Trauma and Betrayal
Character cannot be developed in ease and
quiet. Only through experience of trial and
suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision
cleared, ambition inspired and success
achieved.
HELEN KELLERWhat is the most painful experience you can have as a leader?
Many would say being betrayed by someone you fully trusted,
someone with whom you’d let down your guard and become
fully vulnerable. They would liken it to the shock and bitterness
that often grips a divorced spouse, rejected by the intimate lover
who was supposed to love and protect.
In many ways, leadership is relationships, and if we are effec-
tive leaders, generally we need to build close ones. We are wary
at first of trusting anyone too much. We recognize our judgments
about whom we can trust must be accurate, or we can suffer
deeply. Yet sometimes even the most astute leaders get blindsided
by someone good at projecting sincerity and friendship, yet with
a different agenda.
Leaders face this all the time. In a survey of pastors, Leader-
shipjournal found that about sixty percent had experienced in
their professional lives at least one traumatic event extremely dif-
ficult to accept. The vast majority of those said they had felt
betrayed by persons they thought they could trust.