Why True Leaders Confront the Elephants in the Room (Part 2)
The Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality
4.8 • 673 Ratings
🗓️ 13 May 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
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There’s no other way to lead with integrity—none—than by confronting the elephants in the room.
In Part 2 of this series, I unpack the spiritual and emotional cost of avoiding the hard conversations that must happen in every church, team, and family system. I begin with a powerful parable—“The Bridge”—a vivid picture of what happens when we carry burdens that don’t belong to us. Many leaders are doing just that—overfunctioning, sidetracked, and drained—because we’ve accepted ropes we were never meant to hold.
We’ll explore why ignoring dysfunctional behaviors is not compassion, it’s compromise—and how, over time, it kills mission, culture, and credibility. You’ll learn why every unresolved conflict or unhealthy pattern is not just a leadership issue, but a discipleship issue.
This episode is an invitation to courage. To maturity. And to the deep peace that only comes on the other side of truth and integrity.
Your leadership matters. Let’s do the hard, holy work together.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, my name is Pete Gazzaro. I want to welcome you today to the Emotionally Healthy Leader |
| 0:08.3 | Podcast. Our topic today is why true leaders must confront elephants in the room. Why true |
| 0:14.1 | leaders confront elephants in the room. This actually is a part two that I began in the last podcast. |
| 0:20.1 | I want to frame this large, very important |
| 0:23.3 | topic around a story that comes out of Friedman's fables called The Bridge. It goes like this. |
| 0:31.1 | It's a fable. Once upon a time there lived a man who had been given a great, who had given a great |
| 0:36.5 | deal of thought and effort to |
| 0:37.5 | determine what he wanted out of life. Then one day a door opened for him to actually live his |
| 0:43.4 | dream. And so this opportunity would only be available for a short time. So he had to embark |
| 0:49.3 | on this long journey. So he began walking and he grew more and more excited as he thought about |
| 0:53.5 | his future dream becoming a reality. But as he hurried along, he had to cross over a bridge that was over |
| 0:59.0 | a very dangerous, rapidly flowing river. As he started walking halfway through the bridge, a stranger |
| 1:06.0 | rapidly approached him from the opposite direction. And the man had a rope wrapped around many times |
| 1:12.2 | around his waist. The rope looked like it might stretch at least 30 feet. So the stranger began to |
| 1:18.5 | unwrap the rope around his waist as he walked. And just as the two men were about to meet, |
| 1:23.6 | the stranger said, pardon me, sir, would you be so kind as to hold this end of the rope for me? |
| 1:31.0 | Without thinking almost instinctively, the man reached out and took the rope. |
| 1:35.2 | Thank you, said the stranger. |
| 1:36.6 | He then added two hands now, and remember, hold tight. |
| 1:40.1 | And at that point, the stranger jumped off the bridge. |
| 1:44.1 | The strong pull from that now extended rope was so strong. |
| 1:48.1 | It almost dragged the man on the bridge off the bridge. |
... |
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