Why I Stopped Running After Leadership

Some years ago, my mentor had a blog. It was named after himself, He wrote regularly, and I remember thinking it was pretty cool that he had an online presence.

A few years later, I was in ministry and convinced I had something to offer everyone. I wasn’t “somebody” yet—I just hadn’t been discovered.

At least, that’s how I explained it to myself.

So I decided to help the process along. I needed a place for all the people who were supposedly looking for my voice to find it. I launched a website— www.geoffcocanower.com —and started writing…… sporadically.

But I wasn’t writing for the process it was forming in me.
I wasn’t writing for the good it might offer others.

I was writing to build an online home for the stages I hoped would come calling.

I was going to be somebody. I just needed someone to discover me.

So I started running after speaking opportunities. And if it isn’t already apparent, that posture produced something pretty ugly in me.

I began to think in terms of ladders and leverage.
What stages would lead to bigger stages?
What messages did people want to hear?
Where should I offer myself next?

Do you know how many speaking requests came from that website?

Zero.

Not one.
Not a single invitation to grace a group of people with my mastery of the English language and the depth of Scripture. Shocking, I know.

But it wasn’t just speaking.

It bled into leadership.

If an opportunity to lead came up, I expected to be asked. I felt entitled to influence. Why wouldn’t someone want me to serve their cause?

If you’re looking for a diagnostic tool for narcissism in ministry, those paragraphs will get you most of the way there.

My soul was not in a good place.

There was a genuine desire to help the Church somewhere in there—but if anything good came from that season, it was only by the grace of God. That’s healthy, older me talking.

There came a point when running after leadership and ministry started to look like the folly that it actually is.

Especially in ministry, it’s incredibly easy to confuse pursuing leadership with being faithful. But believers aren’t called to run after influence. We’re called to be attentive to what God places in front of us.

And that distinction matters.

Because when we fixate on the next opportunity, we often neglect the responsibilities, people, and authority we already have. We overlook the spaces where God has already given us agency to lead because we’re hoping for something bigger, broader, or more visible.

I don’t remember if it was a conversation, a post, or a text exchange with a ministry friend, but he challenged me with something that stuck:

Let ministry come to you. Let leadership come to you. Lead into the things God has designed and designated for you.

The way I say it now is this:

Pursuing stages will make you passionate about platforms, not the people they were meant to serve.

And maybe the “platform” isn’t a preaching stage.
Maybe the influence isn’t a ministry title.

Maybe it’s control of a situation.
Maybe it’s the power to steer a group of people in a certain direction.
Maybe it’s the ability to make change that impacts a community or a generation.

Those aren’t bad things—unless they aren’t the things God has actually placed in front of you.

Leadership formed by chasing influence is exhausting.
Leadership formed by attentiveness is fulfilling.

So what if today we made a quieter commitment?

Not to run after what we want next—but to invest fully in what we’ve already been entrusted with.

To do the best work for the people already within reach.
To lead well where trust has already been given.
To be faithful before being visible.

Because the grind is exhausting.

But the life Jesus invites us into—the one shaped by obedience, attentiveness, and trust—is deeply fulfilling.

And leadership that grows out of that posture doesn’t need to be chased.

It will come in time.