18/08/2026
Important leadership truth from Phil Cooke!
When the Mission Becomes About You —
Anthony Fauci’s COVID diaries offer a cautionary lesson for every leader who starts believing the attention is about them.
Leadership gets dangerous when you become fascinated with your own importance. Anthony Fauci’s COVID-era diaries offer an interesting case study, because whatever you think about Fauci, the pandemic, politics, or the government’s response, some entries are startling.
At one point he wrote, “I am the most famous and talked about person in the country.”
That kind of diary entry is something you’d expect from a teenager, not someone who’s now 85 years old.
To be fair, Fauci sometimes expressed discomfort with the attention. But he certainly noticed it. In fact, he kept a running account of press coverage about himself, and this may be more revealing than any single quote.
That should make every leader think.
Success creates attention, and attention can quietly distort our perspective. Invitations increase. People laugh harder at our jokes. Assistants start protecting our schedules. Strangers recognize us. Social media numbers climb. Eventually, we can begin to measure the mission’s importance by the attention we receive.
That’s where leaders get into trouble.
The best leaders I’ve known keep bringing the conversation back to the mission. They understand that applause is temporary and celebrity is especially dangerous because it convinces us that visibility equals significance.
Christian leaders should be particularly alert.
John the Baptist had enormous influence. Crowds followed him. People traveled into the wilderness just to hear him preach. Then Jesus arrived, and John said something that should probably be framed on the wall of every pastor, ministry executive, author, speaker, and Christian celebrity:
“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
That’s leadership.
If your organization is succeeding, enjoy it. Be grateful when people recognize your contribution. Accept the compliment.
Then get back to work.
Because the moment the leader becomes more interesting than the mission, something has gone terribly wrong. —Phil Cooke
