The Meaning of Peace Over Performance — Nashville Institute for Faith and Work

We are excited to present to you “Peace Over Performance: Centered Leadership in Disorienting Times,” a webinar with executive coach Amy Balog on Thursday, October 15th from 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. CT. The pandemic has exacerbated the challenges of leading in today’s world, and the event will center around a refreshing approach to leadership that relies on the peace of Christ as the fuel to our performance in our daily work.

As the founder of ConnextionPoint offering executive coaching and leadership development for teams and organizations, Amy is an experienced coach and consultant who has worked with a wide range of clients including Fortune 500 Executives. Below is a preview of our October 15th event written by Amy focused on the paradigm of “Peace Over Performance” and its significance for today.

I am delighted to be invited to present next month’s webinar Peace Over Performance: Centered Leadership in Disorienting Times with my friends at the Nashville Institute for Faith and Work.

I am often asked about the phrase peace over performance – what does it imply? And why say peace over performance? Does this mean performance isn’t important?

“Yet our performance needs the fuel—the duet—of our peace, now more than ever.”

THE DUET OF PEACE

First, let me say that performance is a good thing. With the strides of performance, we experience life-giving energy in wins and build confidence in our God-given gifts and talents. Our performance creates valuable momentum personally and for others we lead and love. Yet our performance needs the fuel—the duet—of our peace, now more than ever.

When I speak of peace I am referring to access to the inner peace that Jesus spoke of in John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.” We may rarely consider Christ’s peace within the same vicinity as our performance. Many of us have learned how to survive in a world which has become increasingly competitive, volatile, and divided. Working diligently to meet our commitments in our careers and as leaders at work and home, we hone our ability to operate with a hyperfocus on performance – sometimes at great personal and spiritual cost. Without realizing it, the demands of the environment around us envelop our view of our worth and tax our faith. We experience living within our performance without the fuel of God’s peace.

FINDING PEACE AMIDST DISORIENTATION

And now at this extraordinary time, we are moved beyond disruption and into the realities of a deep disorientation. Before 2020 it seemed as though most challenges were limited to our own life; we recovered from our own setbacks and clamored back to a world we knew. Today, the seismic events of the pandemic and fracturing tensions that laid in wait within the fault lines of society have come to our door. For many of us, these events have destabilized our careers, life plans, and what we always trusted in our leadership in ways unimagined.

To recover our center in today’s disorientation, we need the fuel line of peace. Once our peace has a true command of our performance, practical and invaluable shifts become available to us in our leadership and vocational work. The shifts (which will be explored in the webinar) include:

We avoid overidentifying with our work and find our worth in Christ, rather than in our performance.
We shift from the tyranny of perfectionism in our work that leads to self-judgment, and instead lead with grace both for ourselves and others.
We practice the mechanics of self-compassion that help us to rewrite the performance narratives we’ve constructed for ourselves or that culture has taught us.

The peace that surpasses all understanding offered to us in Christ is abundant. It is God-designed and created. This peace offered to us is accessible and tangible, and can transform how you experience the moments when you are challenged at your core—when your greatest leadership is required.

We can know peace not as the world gives but as Christ gives.

To watch a recording of the Peace Over Performance webinar, click here.

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