Have you fallen into this thinking trap?

Tom Harper June 9, 2025

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I just started reading the Christian classic A Treatise on the Fear of God, and my mind is getting stretched again. John Bunyan published it in 1679, the year after his Pilgrim's Progress graced the world.

After reading the first chapter, titled The Object of Our Fear, I find myself thinking about God differently. Which surprises me, because I've been a Christian for over 30 years.

As a leader, have you ever had one of your own long-held perspectives turned on its head?

I believe the longer we've led, the more surprised we are when we find out our stalwart beliefs and perceptions haven't expanded enough, or even were plain wrong. Wisdom is supposed to come with age, right?

No matter how old I get, I feel like I am learning. This keeps me feeling young. I remember starting out as a young executive at 30 and thinking my partners, a generation older, weren't equipped to handle the "new economy" of the early 2000s.

I patronized them as old-world business execs. But it turns out they were right: There wasn't much "new" about the economy just because the Internet was taking off.

I feel like we can fall into similar thinking traps as leaders. Are there any beliefs you're holding onto that might need a looser grip?

None of us like being wrong, but if you're like me, you like to grow.

In my next post I'll start explaining just how Bunyan has expanded my view of God.

Growing with you,

Tom Harper
Founder, BiblicalLeadership.com
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Tom Harper is publisher of BiblicalLeadership.com and executive chairman of Networld Media Group, a business-to-business publisher and event producer. He has written five books, including Servant Leader Strong: Uniting Biblical Wisdom and High-Performance Leadership (DeepWater Books, 2019) as well as the Christian business fable Through Colored Glasses and its sequel Inner Threat (DeepWater, 2022). Learn More »

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