Voices of Versa: Perry Maughmer on Grace and Mercy

Voices of Versa seeks to amplify thought leadership from our members and local professionals and showcase the diverse array of talent that chooses to work at Versa. This week, we bring you thoughts on grace and mercy from Central Ohio Vistage Chair and Versa member, Perry Maughmer.

Perry has been a Vistage International Chair for five years where he empowers C-level executives who lead organizations to create meaningful value in all aspects of their lives. He recently shared his thoughts on grace and mercy and we felt it was a great reminder for all of us.

Perry Maughmer on Grace and Mercy

“We don’t use these terms often enough in our daily work lives. We continue to think that we are “all business” and focus on using military and sports mentalities because they offer us the opportunity to avoid the emotional impact of our actions. I might even go so far as to suggest we do it so that we, as individuals, don’t have to deal with our own emotions that are generated each day as we strive for mastery and purpose.

For the sake of clarity, grace is “extending kindness to the unworthy” while mercy is “deliverance from judgment”. I would suggest that the very first thing to do is to offer both to yourself.

We strive each day to feel good enough and to earn the respect of others and we often fall short. When we do fall short we are not inclined to give ourselves grace or mercy so we must re-contextualize our shortcomings and that turns into blame, anger, frustration…see where this is going? We move our negative emotions from “me” to “them” which is both easier and very wrong. We do this because we have to address the dissonance that failure to achieve causes to our fragile self-image. If we accept our failures (and we have some each and every day), then we have to change our internal beliefs about who we are and that is painful, so we project onto others and we have magically saved our carefully curated image of ourselves that exists only in our own mind…because others know who we really are.

Imagine if you:

1. recognized that you are not the superhuman you imagined yourself to be
2. set realistic expectations for yourself and held yourself accountable in a positive manner
3. graciously accepted when you failed to achieve an outcome and honestly evaluated why you fell short (which is the only way to improve by the way)
4. offered yourself grace and/or mercy and then committed to the change required to achieve your goals
5. offered grace and/or mercy to those close to you when they failed instead of judgment and/or shame

How might these 5 steps change your life? More importantly, if you consider yourself a leader, how might these 5 steps change the lives of others?”

If you would like to contribute content or share a story with Voices of Versa, email Evan Schultz at evan@versa.works.