There is a question underneath almost every relationship that we rarely ask out loud:
Where do I stand with you?
Employees ask it of leaders. Children ask it of parents. Husbands and wives ask it of each other. Friends ask it. People sitting in church pews ask it of their church.
And whether we realize it or not, many of us ask it of God.
We are constantly looking for signals that tell us whether our standing has changed.
Did I disappoint you? Are we still okay? Do you still trust me? Do I still belong here? Do you think less of me now? Have I done enough to make things right?
That uncertainty creates one of the most powerful tools we have for influencing another person's behavior.
I call it leading from the lack.
It sounds something like this:
If you would just communicate more, I could trust you.
If you weren't so defensive, people would respect you.
If you worked a little harder, you'd get more opportunities.
If you prayed more, you wouldn't struggle like this.
If you had more faith, maybe things would be different.
Sometimes the criticism is completely legitimate.
Maybe I really do need to communicate better.
Maybe I need to work harder.
Maybe I should pray more.
Maybe there is something in my life that desperately needs to change.
The problem isn't identifying the lack.
The problem begins when we attach standing to it.
The Performance Contract
The formula is simple:
You lack X.
Therefore, you need to do Y.
Then you can receive Z.
Z might be trust.
It might be affection.
Opportunity.
Recognition.
Belonging.
Respect.
Spiritual approval.
We rarely say the entire equation out loud. We don't have to.
Humans are remarkably good at detecting changes in standing.
A manager's silence after someone disagrees in a meeting can communicate it.
A parent's disappointed expression can communicate it.
A spouse withdrawing affection can communicate it.
A pastor questioning someone's commitment can communicate it.
The message underneath all of them can become:
“Become what I need you to be, and then we'll be okay.”
That's where accountability quietly becomes something else.
It becomes performance-based acceptance.
And once people believe their standing depends upon their performance, something predictable happens.
They perform.
Not necessarily the behavior we hoped for, though.
They perform acceptability.
The employee stops bringing bad news.
The child learns which parts of himself to hide.
The spouse stops saying what she really feels.
The leader surrounds himself with people who tell him what he wants to hear.
People don't necessarily become healthier.
They become better at presenting the evidence of health.
We Do This at Work All the Time
Corporate leadership is full of leading from the lack.
We tell someone they need to be “more strategic” before they're ready for promotion.
Someone needs “more executive presence.”
Someone isn't “quite ready.”
Someone needs to demonstrate more commitment.
Those things can be legitimate feedback. People really do have developmental gaps.
But watch what happens when the conversation moves from behavior to standing.
An employee challenges a decision.
Suddenly she isn't a “team player.”
Someone says the project is failing.
Now he's “negative.”
Someone pushes back on an unrealistic timeline.
We're suddenly questioning his commitment.
We thought we were correcting behavior.
What the employee heard was:
“My standing here changed because I told the truth.”
The next time, don't be surprised when the truth arrives with better packaging.
Or doesn't arrive at all.
Organizations spend enormous amounts of money trying to create psychological safety while leaders unintentionally teach people that acceptance is conditional.
Then we wonder why everyone says the project is green until two weeks before it fails.
People optimize for the system they're actually living in.
If telling the truth threatens standing, people will manage perception instead.
And Then There's Church
Religion may be one of the places where leading from the lack becomes most powerful because the perceived stakes can become eternal.
If you prayed more...
If you had stronger faith...
If you served more...
If you gave more...
If you weren't struggling with that...
If you were really committed...
Again, some of the underlying expectations may be good.
Prayer is good.
Faith matters.
Serving matters.
Obedience matters.
Repentance matters.
The problem is the equation we can accidentally build around them.
Change → acceptance.
And suddenly people aren't simply wondering where they stand with us.
They're wondering:
Where do I stand with God?
Did my failure move me farther away?
Is God disappointed in me?
Does He still hear me?
Am I still good enough to be here?
If people believe their standing with God—or even their standing within the church community—depends upon appearing spiritually healthy, then hiding becomes rational.
Someone struggling with doubt learns to sound certain.
Someone struggling in a marriage learns to look blessed.
Someone wrestling with sin learns which sins can safely be confessed and which ones cannot.
Someone exhausted from serving keeps serving because stopping might look like spiritual weakness.
Someone grieving learns to say “God is good” before they've even had permission to say, “This hurts.”
We can become incredibly good at presenting the evidence of transformation without actually experiencing transformation.
That's the tragedy.
We can preach salvation by grace while discipling people through conditional acceptance.
We can intellectually believe in grace while emotionally living under probation.
But Jesus Pointed Out People's Lack
This is where the idea gets more complicated.
Because Jesus absolutely confronted people.
Sometimes sharply.
In fact, in Mark 10, a wealthy man approaches Jesus asking what he must do to inherit eternal life.
Jesus eventually tells him:
“One thing you lack.”
There it is.
Jesus identifies the lack.
But Mark includes a detail that changes the entire encounter:
“Jesus looked at him and loved him.”
— Mark 10:21
Then He tells him what he lacks.
Those things exist in the same sentence.
Loved him.
You lack something.
That's important.
The problem was never acknowledging someone's deficiency.
Love doesn't require pretending everything is okay.
Good leadership doesn't ignore weakness.
Good parenting doesn't eliminate expectations.
Grace isn't the absence of accountability.
The question is whether the person's standing becomes the leverage we use to produce change.
Jesus could look at someone, love him, and tell him the truth about the very thing standing in his way.
That's different from:
“Fix this, and then I'll love you.”
Peter Might Be the Better Example
Peter gave Jesus plenty of reasons to reconsider his standing.
He was impulsive. He misunderstood Jesus. He argued with Him. And eventually, at the moment when loyalty mattered most, Peter denied even knowing Him.
Three times.
If there were ever a performance review that should end badly, that's probably it.
Then comes John 21.
After the resurrection, Jesus meets Peter again.
Three times Jesus asks Peter about his love, an unmistakable echo of those three denials.
Jesus doesn't pretend the failure didn't happen.
He goes directly into it.
But then He does something remarkable.
“Feed my sheep.”
Jesus gives Peter responsibility.
He doesn't say:
Demonstrate six months of consistent loyalty and we'll revisit your leadership potential.
Peter's failure is confronted inside a restored commission.
Jesus addresses the lack without making Peter perform his way back into usefulness.
That's a very different kind of leadership.
“If You Love Me...”
There is another statement from Jesus that can initially sound almost exactly like leading from the lack:
“If you love me, keep my commands.”
— John 14:15
But notice the direction.
Jesus doesn't say:
“Keep my commands so that I will love you.”
Obedience isn't purchasing the relationship.
It's flowing out of it.
That distinction changes everything.
Leading from the lack says:
Change, and then your standing will improve.
Grace says:
Your standing has been established. Now let that relationship change you.
Christianity doesn't remove expectations.
It changes their order.
God Keeps Answering the Standing Question
This is what I find so powerful throughout Scripture.
We keep asking:
“Where do I stand with You?”
And God keeps answering.
“While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
— Romans 5:8
“There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
— Romans 8:1
Paul says that neither death nor life, present nor future, nor anything else in creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ.
— Romans 8:38–39
We're described as adopted children and heirs.
— Romans 8:15–17
We're told salvation is by grace through faith, not something we earned through works.
— Ephesians 2:8–9
These are statements of standing.
Yet many of us live as though God conducts a new performance review every morning.
I prayed today. We're good.
I haven't prayed much lately. He's disappointed.
I resisted temptation. I'm close to Him.
I failed again. I've moved farther away.
I'm serving. Giving. Attending. Reading.
Surely I'm doing okay now.
We've turned relationship into a constantly fluctuating spiritual scorecard.
And I don't think that's the freedom we're supposed to be living in.
Secure Standing Doesn't Mean Lower Standards
This is probably the most important distinction.
The opposite of conditional acceptance is not unconditional approval.
Secure standing doesn't mean everything you do is okay.
Jesus clearly called people to repentance.
He expected obedience.
He demanded sacrifice.
He told people to follow Him.
At times, His expectations were extraordinarily high.
Secure standing simply changes the foundation from which those expectations are addressed.
I can say:
“This behavior needs to change.”
without saying:
“Your standing with me depends upon changing it.”
I can tell an employee:
You made a serious mistake. We need to understand what happened.
without communicating:
You'd better convince me you're still worth having here.
I can tell my child:
What you did was wrong.
while making absolutely certain they know:
Nothing you just did changed the fact that you're my child.
I can tell someone I love:
This is hurting our relationship and we have to deal with it.
without weaponizing my affection to force the outcome I want.
And in faith, I can confront my own sin without believing I must somehow earn my way back into God's presence.
That may actually make honest transformation more possible.
Because when standing is secure, confession becomes safer.
Truth becomes safer.
Failure becomes discussable.
I don't have to hide the worst thing about myself just to preserve the relationship.
The Question I Keep Coming Back To
I've started wondering whether the best diagnostic question for leadership isn't:
“Do I have high expectations?”
High expectations aren't necessarily the problem.
Maybe the better question is:
“What happens to someone's standing with me when they fail to meet them?”
And maybe there's an even harder one:
“What am I withholding from someone until they become what I think they should be?”
Respect?
Affection?
Opportunity?
Belonging?
Trust?
Grace?
We all lead from the lack sometimes.
Managers do it.
Parents do it.
Spouses do it.
Churches do it.
And perhaps most relentlessly, we do it to ourselves.
When I lose the weight...
When I make enough money...
When I finally accomplish this...
When I stop screwing things up...
Then I'll be okay.
Maybe that's the lie underneath all of it.
Because transformation doesn't have to begin with the threat of losing our standing.
At its best, leadership can begin somewhere much more secure:
I see the lack.
I'm not going to pretend it isn't there.
We're going to deal with it honestly.
But your standing with me isn't the currency I'm going to use to make you change.
Maybe that's one of the most powerful things a leader, parent, spouse, friend—or church—can communicate:
You don't have to perform your way into standing before we can work on what's missing.
And perhaps that's because, ultimately, that's not how God leads us either.