Asher's Blog

There are many things that can drain a leader. The pressure of responsibility can drain you. Financial uncertainty can drain you. Too many decisions, unresolved conflict, poor execution, lack of sleep and the burden of carrying information that cannot yet be shared can all leave a leader anxious, distracted and unable to think with the clarity the work requires.

But one of the most powerful drains I have experienced does not appear on a financial statement or operational dashboard. It is the effect of a wrong relationship.

A wrong relationship can consume the energy you need to create, solve problems and make sound decisions. It can fill your mind with noise, weaken your conviction and gradually pull your thinking towards mediocrity. I found this surprising because I consider myself quite independent. I assumed I could listen to anybody and remain unaffected. Yet I began to notice that when I consistently entertained certain people, conversations or relational dynamics, the quality of my thinking changed.

I became less clear. Decisions that should have been straightforward became emotionally complicated. Ideas that normally would have excited me began to feel heavy. I spent mental energy processing conversations that produced no progress.

That experience taught me that leaders must take ownership of their relationships. Your time matters, but your attention and inner clarity may matter even more. The mind with which you interpret reality, imagine possibilities and make decisions is one of your most valuable assets. You should not give everybody unrestricted access to it.

Relationships exchange energy

We often discuss relationships as sources of information, opportunity or emotional support. We speak less about the energy exchanged whenever two people interact.

Yet most of us recognize the experience. After speaking with one person, you feel clearer, stronger and more capable of addressing the work. After speaking with another, you feel confused, depleted or strangely diminished. The subject of the conversation may even have been the same; the relational effect was different.

Researchers use the term relational energy to describe the psychological resourcefulness generated through interactions with other people. Research published in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that relational energy was associated with later job engagement and performance. Other work on organizational energy describes “de-energizing relationships” as connections that reduce people’s capacity to work effectively.

This does not mean a useful relationship must always feel pleasant. A mentor can challenge you sharply and still leave you stronger because the conversation produces truth, insight and direction. A flattering person can make you feel good temporarily while weakening your judgment. Energy is not the same as comfort.

The better question is: what does this relationship consistently produce in me? Does it produce courage, wisdom, honesty and disciplined action? Does it help me see reality more clearly? Or does it produce anxiety, confusion, resentment, distraction and compromised values?

What makes a relationship wrong?

A relationship is not automatically wrong because the person is imperfect. Every relationship joins imperfect people. Neither is it wrong merely because it has entered a difficult season. Friendships, marriages, partnerships and working relationships require patience, forgiveness and repair.

A relationship becomes dangerous when its recurring pattern undermines your character, clarity, responsibility or wellbeing, and when honest attempts to establish healthier boundaries produce no meaningful change.

Some patterns deserve attention:

• The person repeatedly violates trust and expects access without accountability.
• They speak negatively about everyone, including people they claim to love.
• They manipulate through guilt, fear, flattery or manufactured crises.
• They resent your discipline, progress or important relationships.
• They encourage decisions that conflict with your values and obligations.
• They create confusion, then make you feel guilty for seeking clarity.
• They demand emotional availability but show little interest in your wellbeing.
• They treat confidential information as social currency.
• They continually pull you away from your priorities without accepting reasonable boundaries.
• They refuse truth, responsibility and repair.

No single difficult conversation proves that somebody is wrong for your life. Look for patterns, not isolated discomfort. Ask whether the relationship can hold truth, correction, accountability and mutual respect.

The purpose is not to label people casually as “toxic.” That language can become a convenient way to avoid anybody who challenges us. The purpose is to recognize relationships whose repeated effect is genuinely corrosive.

Disagreement is not the enemy

There is an important caution here: do not confuse a contrary opinion with a wrong relationship.

Leaders naturally prefer people who understand their thought process. Alignment makes communication faster. Shared values create trust. However, if you protect your mind by excluding every person who disagrees with you, you will eventually protect yourself from reality.

Adam Grant argues in Think Again that leaders benefit from a “challenge network”—trusted people who are willing to question assumptions and expose blind spots. They are not permanent critics trying to diminish you. They are people committed enough to the purpose, and secure enough in the relationship, to tell you when your reasoning may be wrong.

A healthy challenger may interrupt your thought flow, but improves your thinking. A destructive person interrupts your thought flow and replaces clarity with fear, ego, gossip or confusion.

You can distinguish them by examining the method and the fruit. Does the person bring evidence? Do they understand the objective? Are they willing to be questioned too? Do they want the decision to improve, or do they mainly want influence over you? After the disagreement, is there greater clarity, even if you still disagree?

Proverbs 27:17 says, “Iron sharpeneth iron.” Sharpening involves friction. The answer to relational drain is not a life without friction; it is learning which friction sharpens and which friction merely wears you down.

Proximity is permission

Every relationship does not deserve the same level of access. One of the practical things leaders should do is identify the type of each relationship. Some people are acquaintances. Some are professional contacts. Some are colleagues, advisers, mentors, business partners or friends. Even within friendship, there are levels of trust, intimacy and responsibility.

Modern language can blur those distinctions. People call one another “brother” after a few pleasant interactions. We use the language of intimacy before the relationship has passed through time, disagreement, confidentiality and sacrifice. Then we are surprised when the person does not behave like family.

A title does not create tested trust. Proximity gives a person information about your hopes, vulnerabilities, fears and unfinished thoughts. That information can be used to strengthen you, but it can also be used to influence, distract or injure you. Access should therefore grow with demonstrated character.

This is not suspicion; it is stewardship. You can treat everybody with dignity without giving everybody access to your private deliberations. You can be generous without making every recipient a confidant. You can conduct business professionally without pretending that the counterparty is a close friend.

The relationship should be named accurately because an undefined relationship often carries undefined expectations.

Mark the relationship by its type

It may help to think in relational circles; the broadest circle contains the public and acquaintances. These people deserve respect, honesty and appropriate kindness, but they do not require access to your private life.

The next circle may contain professional relationships: employees, colleagues, customers, investors, advisers and business partners. These relationships can be warm and deeply respectful, but they still require clear roles, agreements and boundaries. Friendship should not be assumed merely because business is going well.

Another circle contains friends with whom affection and shared experience have created genuine mutual care. Friendship itself has levels. Some friends are companions for a season or context. Others have demonstrated loyalty through time, disagreement and difficulty.

The innermost circle contains very few people: a spouse, family, tested friends, spiritual mentors or advisers whose character and judgment have repeatedly proved trustworthy. These are people with whom you can speak before your thoughts are fully formed because you trust how they will hold what you share.

The number of circles matters less than the principle: access should correspond with trust, role and responsibility.

When somebody is placed too close too quickly, they can exert influence they have not earned. When somebody is held too far away despite years of faithfulness, you can deprive yourself of the support leadership requires. Wisdom is not merely keeping people out; it is placing people correctly.

Who is actually a brother?

Many men use the word brother casually. But a brother in the deepest relational sense is not simply someone who uses affectionate language.

A brother does not betray your confidence for social advantage. He does not secretly celebrate your pain or compete with every expression of your progress. He tells you the truth when the truth is uncomfortable, but does not use truth as a weapon for humiliation. He supports what is good in your life, corrects what is dangerous and speaks about you with integrity when you are absent.

This does not mean a real friend must defend everything you do. Blind loyalty is not brotherhood. If you are wrong, a genuine brother should be able to tell you. If others have a legitimate complaint, he should not lie on your behalf. Speaking well of you means representing you truthfully and charitably, not protecting you from accountability.

Proverbs 18:24 describes “a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” Such a friend is discovered through consistency. Watch how people handle your weakness, success, boundaries and disagreement. Watch whether their public language matches their private conduct. Watch whether they can celebrate a door that opens for you without immediately making the moment about themselves. Trust slowly. Love freely. Do not confuse the two.

Wrong relationships distort decision-making

A leader’s decisions are rarely produced by logic alone. Conversations shape what feels urgent, possible and acceptable. The people around you influence which risks you notice, which opportunities you dismiss and which compromises begin to look normal.

A fearful circle can make every ambitious idea look irresponsible. A reckless circle can make every warning look cowardly. A cynical circle can persuade you that integrity is naïve. A flattering circle can convince you that your instincts are always correct.

This is why relationship management is part of risk management. Before accepting advice, examine the source. Does this person understand the relevant facts? Have they carried comparable responsibility? Do they share the values that must constrain the decision? What incentives might shape their opinion? Are they advising you towards your stated purpose, or towards the life they would prefer you to live?

Good advice can come from unexpected people, and experienced people can still be wrong. The point is not to judge truth only by status. It is to stop allowing every confident opinion equal weight.

Leaders become mentally exhausted when they repeatedly reopen settled priorities for people who bear none of the consequences. Listen broadly where useful, but define who has a voice, who has a vote and who ultimately carries the decision.

The hidden cost is attention residue

Some relationships do not consume many hours, yet they occupy enormous mental space.

A thirty-minute conversation can follow you for two days. You replay the words, prepare imaginary responses, question your judgment and bring only part of your attention into important meetings. The person is no longer physically present, but the interaction continues inside your mind.

For a leader, that residue has an organizational cost. The attention used to process unnecessary relational disorder is unavailable for customers, strategy, people and creative problem-solving. Your team may experience your distraction without knowing its source.

This is why protecting your mind is not selfish. People depend on the quality of your attention. If you lead a company, your mental clarity affects capital allocation, hiring, product decisions and the emotional atmosphere around you.

You cannot prevent every difficult interaction, and leadership itself requires engaging with conflict. But you can reduce voluntary exposure to recurring confusion. You can stop revisiting conversations that have no decision inside them. You can decline access that exists only because you feel guilty. You can move sensitive discussions into clearer structures with agendas, written agreements and defined next steps. Peace is not merely a feeling; it can be operational capacity.

Boundaries are instructions, not punishments

When a relationship drains you, the first response does not always need to be dramatic separation. Sometimes the relationship simply needs a boundary.

A boundary explains what access, behaviour or responsibility is appropriate. It may mean discussing business only through formal channels, declining late-night calls that are not emergencies, refusing to participate in gossip, limiting how much unfinished information you share, or stating that disrespectful communication will end the conversation.

Good boundaries are specific. “Respect me” is difficult to apply. “If you raise your voice or insult me, I will pause the conversation and we can continue when we are both calm” is clearer.

Boundaries also require enforcement. A request that produces no consequence when repeatedly ignored is only a preference. Enforcement need not be hostile; it can be calm, consistent and proportionate.

The other person may dislike the boundary. Their discomfort does not automatically mean the boundary is wrong. At the same time, leaders should remain open to correction: a boundary should protect legitimate wellbeing, values and responsibility, not shield pride from ordinary accountability.

Where trust has been broken, restoration should depend on truth, ownership, changed behaviour and time—not merely an emotional apology. Forgiveness can be offered without immediately restoring the previous level of access.

Audit the relationships around your leadership

Leaders regularly review finances, performance and operational risk. Relationships deserve a thoughtful review too.

Consider the people who have meaningful access to you and ask:

1. What is the actual type and purpose of this relationship?
2. Have I given this person more access than trust and role justify?
3. What do our interactions consistently produce in my thinking and behaviour?
4. Can we disagree honestly without manipulation or punishment?
5. Does the person protect confidential information?
6. Are support, interest and responsibility reasonably mutual?
7. Does this relationship strengthen or weaken my values?
8. Is the problem the other person’s pattern, my lack of boundaries, or both?
9. What conversation or adjustment is now necessary?

Do not conduct the audit in anger; a difficult week can distort perception. Look across time, seek wise counsel and be willing to identify your own contribution. Leaders can drain relationships too. Your inconsistency, excessive dependence, poor communication or failure to respect another person’s boundaries may be part of the problem.

Taking ownership does not always mean removing someone. It means refusing to leave an important relationship undefined and unmanaged.

Build a circle that restores capacity

Protecting yourself from wrong relationships is only half the work. Leaders also need relationships that restore and expand them.

Harvard Business Review has described “positive relational energy” as energy exchanged between people that uplifts, enthuses and renews. Research summarized there associates positively energizing leadership with stronger engagement, innovation, teamwork and performance.

An energizing person is not necessarily the most cheerful person in the room. They may be quiet, serious and demanding. What they bring is authenticity, wisdom, hope, generosity and movement. They help you confront reality without surrendering possibility.

Build a circle that includes people who can pray with you, challenge you, understand responsibility and remind you who you are when a difficult season reduces your perspective. Include people outside your industry who see you as a person rather than merely a position. Include experts whose knowledge protects you from avoidable mistakes. Include younger people whose questions keep you curious.

Do not use these relationships only as extraction points. Support them. Listen to them. Celebrate them. Keep their confidence. Relational energy is strengthened through contribution, not merely consumption.

Guard your heart and remain teachable

Proverbs 4:23 says, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” Guarding your heart does not mean hardening it. It means taking responsibility for what you repeatedly allow to shape your inner life.

The challenge for a leader is to remain both guarded and teachable. If you are completely open, manipulation can enter easily. If you are completely closed, wisdom cannot enter either.

Ask the Holy Spirit for discernment. Pay attention to repeated fruit, not merely impressive language. Notice when a relationship persistently pulls you away from peace, truth, responsibility and love. But also ask whether your discomfort is conviction rather than danger. Sometimes the person you want to avoid is the person telling you a truth your ego does not want to hear. Godly relationships do not only affirm; they strengthen obedience, wisdom and character.

Your mind is an asset

A leader’s mind is where possibilities are imagined, facts are interpreted and decisions are formed. Protecting it is not an invitation to isolation. Isolation can distort leadership as seriously as the wrong company can. The answer is disciplined access.

Choose relationships wisely. Name them honestly. Let trust grow through evidence. Keep business agreements clear even when affection exists. Build a challenge network rather than a praise choir. Establish boundaries before resentment makes you cruel. Restore access slowly after betrayal, and do not confuse forgiveness with the removal of every consequence.

Most importantly, examine what your relationships are producing in you. The right people do not always agree with you, but they help you become clearer, wiser, braver and more faithful. The wrong people may flatter you, entertain you or claim intimacy while steadily draining the attention your assignment requires.

Leadership already carries enough unavoidable weight. Do not add the preventable burden of unmanaged relationships.

Protect your energy. Protect your space. Protect your values. Protect your mind. Then use the capacity you have preserved to think well, love well and lead well.

References and further reading

• Adam Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. See also Wharton’s discussion of the value of a challenge network.
• Bradley P. Owens, Wayne E. Baker, Dana McDaniel Sumpter and Kim S. Cameron, “Relational Energy at Work: Implications for Job Engagement and Job Performance,” Journal of Applied Psychology 101, no. 1 (2016): 35–49.
• Marijke C. Schippers and Gerben S. Hogenes, “Energy Management of People in Organizations”, Journal of Business and Psychology 26 (2011): 193–203.
• Emma Seppälä and Kim Cameron, “The Best Leaders Have a Contagious Positive Energy”, Harvard Business Review.
• Proverbs 4:23, 18:24 and 27:17.