Emotionally Healthy Leadership
Imagine you're a juggler, juggling balls that represent the important aspects of your life—ministry, marriage, children, health, spirituality, education, etc. You're struggling to keep all the balls in the air.
You realize that the ministry ball falls, and since it's made of rubber, it bounces. Someone picks it up, but in your eagerness, you lose focus, and the health ball falls. But since it's made of glass, it breaks, and the damage can be irreparable.
Many leaders are dropping glass balls, and they don't even know it because they've disconnected their emotions from their faith.
For leaders in urban, Latino, and high-demand contexts—like many of us—this book is water for a thirsty soul.
Leading without healing is leading from a wound. That's one of the powerful truths Peter Scazzero confronts us with in Emotionally Healthy Leadership. This isn't just another book on leadership. It is an urgent and prophetic call to a generation of leaders who have been trained to do, but not to be; to serve others, but not to care for their souls.
Scazzero leads us to recognize something uncomfortable but necessary: no matter how gifted, skilled, or passionate a leader is, if their soul is fragmented, their leadership will be too. The book insists that a leader's character and emotional health are not optional. They are essential to sustaining a ministry that not only impacts others but glorifies God without destroying us in the process.
The book addresses four critical areas where leaders often fail:
Lack of self-awareness
Prioritizing ministry over family or personal life
Doing more than their soul can sustain
Lack of a healthy work-rest rhythm
It's not hard to see ourselves reflected there. We've all, at some point, ignored our emotions, said "yes" when we should have said "no," and used ministry activity as a spiritual disguise to avoid dealing with our inner selves.
The most valuable aspect of the book is not only the diagnosis, but the call to a more holistic, Christ-centered life. It's not about doing less, but about living better. Scazzero invites us to concrete practices such as the weekly Sabbath, honest self-exploration, and prioritizing the soul over the system. He reminds us that Jesus wasn't in a hurry. That the pace of the Kingdom is different from that of the evangelical world, which applauds activism but ignores the health of the heart.
For leaders in urban, Latino, and high-demand contexts—like many of us—this book is water for a thirsty soul. It's not comfortable. But it's necessary. Personally, it has been a loving confrontation of the Spirit that has led me to reorder my priorities, to value silence, rest, and vulnerability more.
In short: if you're leading from inner scarcity, this book is a divine intervention. Don't read it quickly. Read it like someone who wants to live. Because God's work in you is just as important as God's work through you.
Victor Marte is a UBA Church Consultant primarily serving Hipanic congregations and those wishing to reach the Spanish-speaking community. Pastor Marte has served in leadership in the city for years and leads UBA’s Lideres Transformadores and Church Planting Cohort.
Victor Marte reviews Peter Scazzero’s Emotionally Healthy Leadership