The Dangers of Echo Chamber Leadership

We leaders often enjoy the affirmation and adulation of others as we express our ideas, provide direction, and set future courses.

And we sometimes enjoy it so much that we only want people to agree with us and affirm us, even if we are wrong.

It’s called echo chamber leadership. Properly defined, it’s an environment in which leaders encourage and encounter only beliefs or opinions that match their own, so that their existing views are reinforced and alternative ideas and pushback are not considered.

For certain, it’s very dangerous. And Christian leaders are not invulnerable to it, far from it. Indeed the evangelical celebrity culture exacerbates the problem.

What are some key issues that help us leaders not fall into the echo chamber leadership trap? Here are six considerations:

1. It is the leader’s responsibility to avoid the echo chamber. We can’t lay the blame on the shoulders of those who may be under our leadership. Leaders may have firing or some other type of punitive authority over them. Leaders must take the necessary steps, not the leader’s followers.
2. Sycophants are extremely dangerous. They take the echo chamber to its extreme to let leaders know how wonderful they are. They gush over them, fawn over them, and seek to please them unendingly. Leaders can really enjoy such adulation and attention. They can make the leader seem the paragon of perfection. Such pride is a forerunner to a fall.
3. Leaders must seek out people who care enough about them to speak truth to them. A…