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Christian Leaders: Your Leadership Isn't Broken, You're Just Missing This

  • Writer: Ryan Franklin
    Ryan Franklin
  • Aug 7
  • 19 min read

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Many Christian leaders feel stuck—not because they lack vision or effort—but because unseen barriers quietly sabotage their ability to connect. In this solo episode, Ryan Franklin uncovers four powerful yet often hidden barriers that disrupt relationships and weaken influence: pride, past wounds, poor patterns, and emotional exhaustion. With honest storytelling and biblical insight, he reveals how these walls form, how they affect your leadership, and how to start dismantling them—one intentional step at a time. If you’ve ever felt disconnected from those you lead or love, this episode will help you reclaim the relational strength your ministry needs. Tune in and learn why reconnection doesn’t start with them… it starts with you.





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Transcript


A lot of Christian leaders hit a wall in their leadership. They get stuck. And they can't figure out why. And they try to work harder. They pray more. They do whatever they can do to find something to get out of it. But something unseen keeps sort of sabotaging their relational influence and their impact. And here's the truth.


Most of us have deep, hardwired barriers that we're not even aware of. And these barriers don't just affect how we lead. They actually affect every connection that we try to build in our life. And in this episode, I want to walk you through the four barriers to connection that quietly hold leaders back and damage trust and relationships around you.


Once you learn these four barriers and you begin to soften them in your life, then you'll start to build healthier and more productive relationships around you. And you'll create the kind of leadership culture that draws people in instead of pushing people away. And it'll help your ministry accomplish far more than you ever imagined. So let's dive in. Before I tell you about the four barriers, let me tell you a story.


A while back, I noticed a good friend of mine had gotten quiet. The text messages sort of slowed down, way down. Calls had stopped completely. In fact, I had even asked him a few questions like, are you okay? And I got crickets. And all of my interactions just went relatively unanswered for a period of time. And at first I just said, well, we're all busy.


He'll probably, he's probably just busy and he'll get back with me later. But time kept passing and the distance felt like it kept growing. And one day I ran into him at a conference and I smiled and I started walking towards him. Like he was across the room and he barely made eye contact with me. And he even walked the other direction. Wow. Really?


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And so my mind just started going to all kinds of places. My pride kicked in immediately. OK. I see how this is. Well, it's your loss, buddy. And I had absolutely no clue what had went wrong. But I just chalked it up to his personal relational problems. He just doesn't know how to be close to someone, or maybe he was offended by something that I said at some point or did.


and he's not man enough to walk up to me and talk it out. And I thought, if he's going to be like that, then this just isn't worth it. And as leaders, we sometimes assume the worst, right? I did in this situation. And we may call it discernment or may try to explain it away. I try to explain it away with some psychological theory. But really, it's often just pride.


dressed up in leadership language. And the attitude that I had that day, it won't just hurt friendships. It'll actually wreck your influence with people eventually. My mind was going to all sorts of negative things. But later, thankfully, the Lord checked my spirit. I manned up to the pride that I was feeling. And I started thinking, well, maybe he's in a really tough place personally.


and maybe I just need to give him a little more grace and even some time to work through these things in his life and not write him off that quickly. And so I found out later he wasn't mad at me at all. He wasn't bitter. He was actually just tired. He was exhausted emotionally and physically. And his mind was preoccupied on his own life circumstances. Life had piled up on him.


He had a major health issue. He was juggling some financial issues and family issues. And a whole lot of life was just hitting him square in the face. And it was draining the life out of him. And the problem wasn't his heart in this matter. The problem was his own personal barriers that I couldn't see. And as I was thinking back on this, this truth came alive to me later. That relationships


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rarely blow up overnight. And mostly, they just sort of drift apart over time. And we often don't even notice the barriers that are building until that distance sort of feels permanent. And reconnection is possible at that point, but it's really hard by that time. it's usually going to have to start with me. And we often think in our mind that the separation from some big incident


Incident at that point is, we often, I'm going to have to start over there, Gentry. This is five minutes and 32 seconds. And we often think in our mind that the separation was some big incident at some point. And that's usually not the case. Usually it's the slow build of these little barriers in our life, the unspoken offenses, maybe an old wound that was


irritated or could even be bad habits. And more times than not, it's usually related to emotional exhaustion. And before you know it, the people you care so deeply about feel so far away. And today we're going to get into these barriers, these four barriers, and we want to evaluate our lives considering these four barriers. We're going to uncover the sneaky ways that relationships sort of drift apart over time.


not because of hate, not because of lack of love, but oftentimes because of neglect or pride or unchecked patterns. And here's the deal. If we don't recognize and remove these barriers or at least soften them in our lives, there's no doubt that we'll eventually end up isolated or hurt or just out of sync with the people that God has called us to love. Even people that you so deeply


depend on as a leader in your church or in your ministry or in your business. Because unfortunately, these relational barriers will follow you into staff meetings, into ministry strategy sessions. They'll even follow you into the pulpit at times. And so here's the four barriers that we're to walk through together today. I'm going go ahead and give you a snapshot of them. The first one is pride. This is the wall that we choose to build.


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The second one is past wounds. These are the hurts that continue to try to write our stories. The third one is poor patterns. These are habits of disconnection that just slowly drift us apart. And then number four is emotional exhaustion. This is the quiet disconnect, that slow drift. It's also a slow drift that we don't even notice. And so my goal here today, if you'll stay with me through this entire episode, is really simple.


By the end of this podcast, I want you to be introduced to the barriers. And my hope is that you'll just work to at least identify if some of these barriers, one or two or three or maybe all four, are in your life and in your relationships. Because I believe that awareness and knowledge is the start for change in a person's life. It's not the end goal, but it's the start. Because if we can name it, then we can work to tame it.


And so let's start with the most deceptive barrier in my opinion. Number one, pride. Pride is the wall that you choose to build. This is the wall that we sometimes build because we're waiting for another person to act or for the other person to move first. And so let me take you to a story that most of us would know. The prodigal son in Luke chapter 15, we usually focus on that younger brother.


The one who took his inheritance, he wasted it and he came crawling back. But today, I want you to focus on the older brother. The older brother stayed home. He worked hard. He did all of the right things. But when the younger brother came back and the father threw him a party with a robe and a ring and a fatted calf, the older brother wasn't actually happy about it. He wasn't celebrating. The older brother was offended. And pride just whispered in the older brother's ear,


After all he's done, they're celebrating him. Luke 15 28 says that he was angry and would not go in. He literally stood outside the house while the family was inside reconnecting, reuniting with the prodigal. He didn't do it because of hate. He did it because of pride. And here's what I need you to know. Pride will build walls.


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but humility builds bridges in relationships. Pride keeps us on the outside while the people we love are on the inside. And here's the hard truth about that. Pride says, I'll reconnect after they make the first move. But Jesus never taught that. Jesus modeled a servant style of leadership. He never waited for others to get it right before making the first move.


And I want to tell you today, leaders don't wait to be pursued. They work hard to pursue connections with others. know, pride rarely comes out and just says, hey, I'm prideful. That's not the way it works. Pride actually shows up in sort of a sneaky way, like the silent treatment or the cold shoulder or the need to always be right.


or holding on to what they should have done, sort of an unforgiveness. And every time we choose pride, we actually put another brick in that wall of separation in our relationships. And let me ask you this. Just like that older brother, who are you quietly punishing with your silence? Here's another way to put that question.


Are you standing outside of a relationship waiting for somebody else to fix it first? Proverbs 16, 18 through 19 says, goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of a humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoiled with the proud. I want you to think about that. Pride feels safe in the moment, but in the long run, it just isolates us.


Humility is absolutely the better way. But what does humility actually look like? Here's what humility does. Humility makes the first move. Humility doesn't stand outside the house waiting on someone else to make the move. Humility goes to the person and says, let's talk this out. Humility says, hey, I value this relationship.


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much more than being right. Humility builds the bridge that pride keeps tearing down. And I want you to answer this question in your own private time or you could even pause this and answer it now. How is pride showing up in my relationships? I want you to be honest. Might be something small, but small things eventually build big walls.


How is pride showing up in your relationships? And you have to understand that many times pride is really subtle. And a lot of times it can even feel justified. But at the end of the day, pride, no matter the reason, the fact is that pride builds walls and humility builds bridges. And reconnection always starts with your humility, always. So pride


is a wall that we choose to build. But what about this next relational barrier? This next one is often a wall that we didn't necessarily mean to build, but maybe it was a hurt that was never healed. And so this next one, past wounds, these are hurts that still try to write our stories and they quietly shape our relationships even today. And so let me tell you this wounded leaders


create wounded cultures, unfortunately. And if you're leading people while carrying unhealed, especially those deep unhealed hurts, it's amazing how you're going to start projecting that hurt onto your team in some form or fashion, on your church, on your decision making, in your family. And so, for this relational barrier, past wounds, let's go to Genesis chapter 50. Joseph is standing in front of his brothers.


the very ones who betrayed him. And they lied to their father. They literally sold him as a slave. They wrote him off for dead. And now, here they are, years later, needing Joseph's help. And he has the power. He has the upper hand on him. And if Joseph was like most of us, like me, he would have every reason to use that moment for payback.


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I'm going to make them pay." And Joseph had all the power he needed to do that, do just that, to punish them in this circumstance. But I want you to listen to his words, Genesis chapter 50 verse 20, but as for you, you thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good. And I think it's so important to point out that Joseph didn't ignore the wound. He was fully aware


of what they had done to him and he acknowledged it, but he refused to let it define the relationship that they would have, that they would all have in the future. And here's reality. I don't know what type of counseling work Joseph had to do to get to that place, but here's reality. If you don't figure out how to deal with your wounds, guess what? Those wounds will deal with you. Because if you, if,


We have unhealed wounds within us. The problem is that those wounds don't just stay quiet. And it's crazy how those things will sometimes bleed into other conversations in our lives. And unfortunately, sometimes those wounds will sort of twist how we hear people. Somebody may say one little small thing, but you react through the lens of that relational wound. And we all know people are really, really sensitive.


and get their feelings hurt. We know people like that over every little interaction. Those people truly do need deep counseling to overcome those deep hurts. But I'm really talking more about the common person. We too have these little things that sneak up in our interaction. For me, my issues revolve around rejection. That's a wound for me that I've worked really hard on for many years, and I'm still working on it.


But just like that, the connection with another person can easily get hijacked by the past, by our past wounds. And know, wounds are sneaky. They aren't always obvious. Sometimes they show up in like over time and just little interactions or over reactions or maybe our emotions get heightened on us too quickly.


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like anger or maybe it's sadness or some other emotion that's over exaggerated. Or maybe they just show up as assumptions. assume, we assume we know what that other person was thinking and it really wasn't that at all. Or it could be a large list of ways that our wounds could show up. But here's the issue. Many times the person in front of you isn't the real problem in the situation. Many times the real problem, the real problem.


is the wound that you've been carrying around. And here's what I've learned. If you don't work through your pain, you'll lead through your pain. And that's how cycles of unhealthy culture begins in churches and teams. And when you're the one observing this, it is so hard to tell someone that they're responding out of their hurt, right? It's so hard. But many times,


We are the ones that are doing that. And nobody around us wants to tell us. And the only reason that I can tell you this today is because we've got a screen between us. And you know I'm not singling anyone out here. I'm not singling you out. if I were to call someone's name right now, a specific name, my, these wounds are so sensitive. They hurt. They're challenging.


So let me ask you this. I want you to dig deep now. Take away the pride and ask yourself this. What wound in your life could possibly still shape the way that you see people?


Is there a relationship today that's suffering because of the hurt that you've never dealt with? You have to understand that unhealed wounds can absolutely create invisible walls and barriers to relationships. You may not see them, but oh, you'll feel the distance that they create. And this could be something from your childhood. It could be a family hurt. It could be a church hurt. could be a friendship that broke trust.


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with you. And here's the deal. You have to be real with yourself and you have to ask yourself if there are any unresolved wounds that are creating a wall or a barrier in your current relationships. And here's what I want you to remember. If you don't deal with your wounds, they will absolutely deal with you eventually. But trust me here, healing is possible for you.


I've worked through so much stuff in my life and I'm still working through those things. But it is possible. It is possible for you. Think back to Joseph. Joseph didn't excuse what they did. He acknowledged it. But he refused to stay trapped by their hurt. And that's what freedom looks like. Now, pride, that was number one.


is a barrier that we build by choice. Past wounds, that's barriers that we carry by default. But this next barrier, this barrier is built on one small decision at a time through the patterns that we build and tolerate in our life. Let's talk about poor patterns and how they quietly disconnect us, habits that slowly sort of pull relationships apart.


A couple came to me a number of years ago and one of them said, you know, we're not really fighting much. We don't feel, we just don't feel close anymore. And it wasn't some big blow up that this couple had. There wasn't a scandal. It was just this slow drift of relationship. And so I asked the question, actually I was right back here doing pastoral counseling behind me, and I asked the question,


What does a normal week look like for you? And it was a middle-aged family. They both worked full-time. They would come home tired. They would eat dinner in front of the TV, or they would be scrolling on their phones until late in the evening. And they really didn't talk much. There wasn't many check-ins in the day. They hardly ever prayed together. There wasn't really any real conversations. And they didn't even realize it. But as we talked more,


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They weren't disconnected because they didn't love each other. They were disconnected because their habits just didn't create much opportunity for that relational connection. And this applies to our leadership too. If your rhythm doesn't include regular, intentional check-ins with your team, then your connection is going to slowly and eventually erode. You'll be managing people instead of truly leading people.


And that's the danger of having poor patterns. It's not necessarily bad things. They just kind of sneak up on us sometimes because they don't feel urgent. But the problem is, that eventually those slow patterns produce distance and there's danger in distance. I preached a message on that one time. There's danger in distance and the unhealthy patterns that you tolerate will eventually


dominate your relationships. And if you ignore the pattern too long, there's no doubt in my mind that it will become your new normal and it will eventually dominate the interactions in your relationships. Let me give you an example. A pattern of avoidance will eventually turn into silence and isolation. If you have a pattern of sarcasm, that'll eventually become bitterness. If you


start with a pattern of busyness, that will eventually become absence to the key relationships in your life. eventually the connection just fills out of reach and it feels distant and unimportant. And Paul in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 31 through 32 says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you.


and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted." He didn't just say, be kind. He actually listed the patterns that we've got to get rid of in our relationships. The bitterness, the wrath, the anger, the clamor, the evil speaking. And he listed a few of them there. There's plenty more. Because if you don't interrupt these patterns, then unfortunately,


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these patterns are going to interrupt your connection. You get the point. It's amazing to me just how these unhealthy patterns are so subtle, just dismissing someone's feelings when you think they're overreacting instead of tuning in to what's really going on inside of them. Or maybe you never resolve conflict in your relationships. Maybe you just move on with life. That's an unhealthy pattern.


Or maybe your pattern is that you can't ever admit when you're wrong. You always need to win. That's an unhealthy pattern. That can actually be linked to unhealed wounds, by the way. All of these are kind of connected. But these habits actually feel normal and okay when you're used to them and their routine. But I hate to tell you that just because it feels normal and routine,


That doesn't mean that it's healthy. And the way that you treat one person on your team actually becomes the model for how others will lead on your team. Your patterns, whether they're good or bad, they become your permission. And so let me ask you a hard question here. And this may be hard to answer because we're rarely aware of these things. All of these things are hard to be aware of.


Let me ask you this question. What relational pattern have you normalized that's actually creating distance in your relationships, in your life? Or here's another way to ask it. What do you keep tolerating that's slowly dominating your relational connections? Remember this, the patterns that you tolerate will eventually dominate. And the only way to break a pattern


is to start a new one, a more healthy one. Amen? Okay, so, so far we've looked at pride, walls that we build on purpose, we've looked at wounds, walls that we carry by default, we've looked at patterns, walls that we maintain without even noticing, but the last barrier, the last wall, this is one of the quietest and I have to say one of the most dangerous to our relationships.


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because it's so subtle and it's really socially acceptable these days, but it's emotional exhaustion. When you're so drained emotionally, and that emotional drain becomes a physical drain, and it all works together to just zap the energy that you would use to relationally connect, emotional exhaustion is one of the most challenging barriers to relationships.


So let's talk about it. Do you remember Elijah, the prophet in the Old Testament? Elijah had just called fire down from heaven. It was this huge victory in his ministry, but right after that Jezebel threatens him. And suddenly, Elijah is done. This prophet runs into the wilderness, and he sits under a juniper tree, and he says in 1 Kings


19,4. It is enough. Now, O Lord, take away my life. Wow. Think about that. One of God's greatest prophets, he was exhausted. He was isolated and he was emotionally drained to the point that he was giving up. And you have to understand that the problem wasn't his calling and the problem wasn't the people.


The problem was that he had nothing left in the tank. There's no way that you can pour into others from an empty cup. Yet, that's exactly what we try to do sometimes. When we get to this place, oftentimes we feel exhausted. We want to isolate ourselves. We want to get away from relationships. When we get to this point, sometimes we even want to give up.


This is often a crazy rat race of a life, Ministry is tough. It seems like balance is just a non-existent word for most people in this world. And oftentimes we run on fumes, we overcommit, we say yes to everything and everyone, and we actually withdraw from relationships and wonder why we're irritable or withdrawn.


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or disconnected or all of the above. Because emotional exhaustion can show up in a ton of different ways. one of the most overlooked ways that it shows up is just a simple word called indifference. You stop reaching out. You stop listening deeply. You stop caring as much. And emotionally, you just get disconnected. Not because you don't love them.


but because you're drained and you just don't have the energy to do it. And here's the danger in that. Emotional exhaustion can create a drift that sometimes you don't even notice until the distance feels permanent. And when a leader is emotionally depleted, they don't just withdraw. They actually start leading from autopilot.


and their vision becomes vague. They struggle to get vision. Their communication gets sharper with people in a negative way. And people start to feel a lack of acceptance and they feel unseen. And I want to point out what God didn't do with Elijah. God didn't rebuke him. He didn't give him a long list to get back to work on. He actually just


gave him rest and he gave him food and he restored Elijah by bringing him back into a healthy life balance. And only after that, God spoke to Elijah in a still small voice. so reconnection for Elijah started with rest. And it's amazing how when we calibrate our lives, when we


work on getting rest and eating right and trying to find a better rhythm for our life. It's amazing how that can improve our emotional state of mind, which can help us move into a much better place for relational connection. And we can't survive without relational connection. Emotional margin can make a huge difference in our lives. And so let me ask you a few final probing questions.


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First one is, where are you running on empty in your life? Where are you running on empty? And who in your life is feeling the effects of your exhaustion? And finally, what would it look like to pause, to replenish yourself, to rest, and then reconnect from a healthier place? Maybe it's


setting better boundaries. Maybe it's some sort of Sabbath or something of that nature. Maybe it's saying no to things that don't really matter. You have to understand that you can't pour into others from an empty cup. And if you want stronger relationships in your life, then you absolutely must work to steward your emotional energy.


So today, as I wrap up here, we looked at four barriers today. Number one was pride that builds walls. The second one was wounds that will write false stories. The third one was poor patterns that will slowly pull us apart. And then the fourth one was emotional exhaustion that quietly disconnects us. And here's the good news for all of us. If you're struggling with connection in your relationships,


because of any one of these barriers. There's no doubt in my mind that reconnection is possible for you and the people around you. But here's the deal. It doesn't start when they change. Reconnection starts with me. Reconnection starts with you. You can't expect your church or your team or your family to pursue a healthy connection if you are not modeling it first.


Reconnection always starts with a leader. As we bring this to a close today, I just want you to picture this in your mind. Every relationship that you care about deeply, whether it's a personal relationship or a leadership relationship, every relationship has a bridge between you and them. But over time, barriers such as the ones we've identified today, they just start piling up on that bridge.


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Pride is going to add bricks and the old wounds will just continue to stack on top and those poor patterns, they start to clutter the path and our emotional exhaustion just seems to just flood it with unnecessary deprey. Until one day, you look up and you realize, wow, I'm disconnected. And the relationships around you are blocked and you get this terrible feeling of isolation.


We've walked through these four biggest barriers that I see. One more time, pride. Number one, pride builds walls where humility should build bridges. Number two, wounds that we don't deal with will deal with us. Number three, unhealthy patterns we tolerate will eventually dominate our relationships. Number four, emotional exhaustion quietly disconnects us until drift feels, until that drift feels permanent. But here's our hope.


Every one of those barriers can come down. Reconnection doesn't start when they change. Reconnection starts when I change. And it starts with humility, and it starts with healing, and it starts with breaking old patterns, and it starts with rest and healthy rhythm. Reconnection starts with me. Leaders, I want to give you a simple challenge this week.


Don't just reconnect personally. I challenge you reconnect strategically. Schedule one conversation with one person that you've drifted from. Ask a team member how they're really doing. Model what healthy, honest leadership looks like because when a leader reconnects well, the entire culture can change. Choose one step, one person, one bridge to rebuild.


or unclutter, and don't wait for them. And don't overthink it. Just start this week. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Christian Leader Made Simple podcast. God bless you.


Copyright © 2025 Ryan Franklin. All rights reserved.

 
 
 

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