Leadership and Emotional Sabotage: Resisting the Anxiety That Will Wreck Your Family, Destroy Your Church, and Ruin the World

Who are you when the teeth come out?

For every true act of leadership, there is an equal and monstrous act of sabotage.

Look Inside the Book

Our leaders have been entirely routed by the agitated and the anxious. These emotional tyrannies manifest themselves in local libraries, HR cubicles, elder meetings, and at your Thanksgiving dinners.

In this book Professor Joe Rigney seeks to recover the nerve of old that steadied leaders to make tough calls. The nerve that braces them when sabotage comes--because it will. The nerve that has more fun than its enemies.

Cheer up, there's no way out but through.

Check out Joe Rigney's supporting video series on Canon Plus here!

People Are Saying:

"Outstanding...Biblical leadership for the unique cultural moment we’re in. It will challenge you.”~Andrew T. Walker, Associate Professor of Christian Ethics and Public Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“Weak leaders often fail by a failure of nerve (especially by fearing to take stands at the risk of displeasing people). In this book Joe explains what a leader should do when people are highly reactive and anxious and combustible—like a gas leak that can explode with just a spark.”~Andy Naselli —Professor of Systematic Theology and New Testament for Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis and one of the pastors of The North Church

“A critical and sobering read for fathers and organizational leaders. With pinpoint accuracy Rigney diagnoses the chaotic ethos of our age and draws from the wellspring of Scriptural wisdom to reintroduce joyful and steadfast leadership in Christ.”~Jeremy Tate, CEO of the Classical Learning Test

"In a day when an egalitarian spirit has flattened any respect for authority and the most miserable member is consoled most and considered first by unassuming leaders, Leadership and Emotional Sabotage is necessary reading. Senior pastors would do well to read a copy, and they would do better to read this book with their fellow elders, ministers, or church leaders. On the topic of emotional sabotage, this short book by Joe Rigney provides a neon sign that explains much of the inexplicable challenges pastors face in our anxious age. Take up, read, and share."~David Schrock (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), pastor of preaching and theology at Occoquan Bible Church in Woodbridge, Virginia