Most leaders will spend money on strategy, systems, and talent, then act surprised when trust stays thin, turnover stays high, and execution stays inconsistent. The missing piece is often not another framework. It is the leader’s inner health. A company will not surpass its leadership, and the leader is often the cap on the company without realizing it.
In this episode, I sat down with Dr. Rob Reimer, founder of Renewal International and author of Soul Care and The Soul Care Leader, to define what soul care actually is and why it belongs in leadership strategy. This is not soft work. It is operational. When leaders ignore soul care, the business pays for it through defensiveness, filtered feedback, relational chaos, and teams that struggle from distrust and major disconnects in communication.
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Where to Find Dr. Reimer Online
What Rob Means by “Soul Care”
Rob frames soul care as alignment with the laws that govern the soul. He compares it to the law of gravity. You can choose to violate it, but you cannot avoid the consequences. In the same way, leaders can ignore the condition of their soul, but the outcomes will show up in predictable ways.
Soul care is not behavior modification. It is not a new set of leadership tactics. It is the inner alignment that makes healthy leadership possible, because leadership always exports what is happening inside the leader.
Why Soul Care Is Not Optional in Leadership
Rob put it plainly: it takes a healthy leader to lead a healthy organization. If a leader’s emotional and spiritual health is sitting at a three, the healthiest environment they can consistently create is a three. Leaders can demand higher performance, better communication, and stronger culture, but the organization will not outgrow the leader’s inner capacity.
This is where many teams misdiagnose the problem. They blame culture, communication, or “people issues,” while the real constraint is the leader’s internal health. When the leader changes, the ceiling changes.
The Hidden Costs: Trust Erodes, Feedback Gets Filtered, Execution Slows
When leaders are internally unhealthy, the damage is not always loud at first. It often shows up as a gradual breakdown in trust. People become cautious. They start managing the leader instead of partnering with the leader. They stop offering honest feedback because it does not feel safe.
That is an execution problem. Leaders cannot make good decisions without clean information. When feedback gets filtered, the leader loses visibility. The team learns to tell the leader what the leader wants to hear, not what the leader needs to hear.
Retention suffers in the same way. People do not usually leave because the work is hard. They leave because the environment feels unsafe, unstable, or disrespectful. Teams will tolerate pressure. They will not tolerate chronic relational chaos.
Overlooked Signals That the Leader Needs to Look Inward
Rob named one signal that shows up often in high-capacity leaders: elevated anger. It can look like irritation, aggravation, frustration, and a short fuse when outcomes do not go the leader’s way. Leaders feel blocked by people, process, or constraints they cannot control, and that pressure leaks into the atmosphere.
He also tied self-awareness to leadership effectiveness. When leaders lack self-awareness, they tend to lack awareness of others. That gap makes empathy harder, conflict resolution harder, and feedback harder. Over time, the leader becomes the bottleneck, even if the leader is talented and well-intentioned.
Insecurity and Defensiveness: The Trust Killer Most Leaders Miss
One of the strongest threads in this conversation was insecurity. Rob described defensiveness as a symptom of insecurity. Secure leaders do not need to defend themselves, because their worth is not on trial every time someone brings feedback.
This does not mean every piece of feedback is accurate. It means leaders must be secure enough to receive feedback without escalating, powering up, shutting down, or blaming. Insecurity makes responsibility feel dangerous. Security makes responsibility possible.
Rob also made a sharp point about shame. Shame tends to blame because it is not secure enough to take ownership. Leaders will blame God, blame others, or blame themselves, but blame keeps the leader stuck. Ownership is the way forward.
A Practical Process for Receiving Feedback Without Escalation
Rob shared a simple approach leaders can implement immediately.
First, decide ahead of time you will not defend yourself in the moment. If you know you are not secure enough to respond well, do not respond. Listen. Second, repeat back what you heard to confirm understanding. This is content listening. It keeps the conversation grounded in facts instead of assumptions.
Third, step away and process the feedback with God. Rob described returning to the Father, getting secure in God’s love, and asking, “Of what I heard, what is true?” When leaders do this, they can return to the conversation with humility and ownership instead of reaction and defensiveness.
Content Listening vs Emotional Listening
Rob also distinguished between content listening and emotional listening.
Content listening is hearing the facts. Emotional listening is recognizing the weight of the issue for the other person. Leaders do not have to agree with every opinion to honor the person. When people feel heard, they feel valued. When they feel valued, trust increases.
Trust changes the operating environment. It improves communication, reduces second-guessing, and increases follow-through. It also makes disagreement possible without disrespect. Leaders can disagree with honor and dignity, instead of stomping on someone’s concerns with volume, defensiveness, or dismissal.
Why Slowing Down Can Improve Buy-In and Execution
Many founders and high-drive leaders are wired for speed. They make decisions quickly and get impatient when others slow them down. Rob described how that impatience often comes from insecurity, not strength.
As leaders grow healthier, they learn to slow down their process enough to bring people along. That does not reduce productivity. It increases participation, ownership, and execution. A leader who is always out in front without followers is not leading. They are taking a walk.
Two Starting Practices for This Week
Rob gave two starting points that are simple and direct.
First, humility and feedback. People around you already see things you cannot see. If you have been dismissing feedback, defending, or ignoring, growth will stall until that changes. Second, security in Christ. Many leaders know God loves them, but they do not live like deeply loved children of God in real interactions. When that security becomes real, defensiveness loses its grip and responsibility becomes normal.
About Dr. Rob Reimer
Dr. Rob Reimer’s passion is to see the Kingdom of God advance through spiritual renewal. Rob began Renewal International to assist pastors, leaders, and churches globally to equip the people of God to live in freedom in Christ, and to walk in the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit.
Passionate about Jesus, personally transparent, and saturated in the Word, his books including Soul Care, River Dwellers, Spiritual Authority, Deep Faith, Pathways to the King, The Soul Care Leader, Calm in the Storm and The Tenderness of Jesus incorporate lessons God taught him over the years through life, marriage, and ministry. During conferences, Rob not only teaches these lessons, but provides activities for participants to begin working them into their lives. These transformative experiences challenge people to walk in the light with God and others and help people to practice hearing from God and accessing His power for ministry. Without Jesus, we have nothing to offer.
In addition to his work with Renewal International, Dr. Reimer has served as Professor of Pastoral Theology at Alliance University in NY, NY, and as the founding and lead pastor of a church in New England.
Explore more of Rob’s resources, view his itinerary, or invite him to speak at https://renewalinternational.org
