I want to take a moment to revisit the Time Magazine article I wrote about a few posts back on Mandela’s Secrets of Leadership, lesson #8 was perhaps the most impactful and one that we don’t hear or read of too often. What was that lesson? That quitting is leading too.

He said, “knowing how to abandon a failed idea, task or relationship is often the most difficult kind of decision a leader has to make.” As President, Mandela willingly stepped down from the position, being the first to ever do so although everyone thought he should have pressed to be President for life after all he had been through.

Why do I think this was an important point? I think as Christians we believe we should NEVER quit anything but I think we need to fine tune this modus operandi. You see, I think we are not supposed to quit the “journey of discipleship” as a believer no matter what comes our way. However, there are things in the journey i.e. trying to make a relationship work, trying to get an organization off the ground or keep it running, giving up on a program idea that is just not taking off that sometimes requires one to make the hard decision to quit.

I don’t know I just think this was a good piece of information for a world so success oriented that one can never fail or “quit” something.