By Larry Lundstrom
When career survival becomes the objective, we may be asking the wrong questions about work, leadership, and where we belong.
I’ve been thinking about how much the modern workplace resembles Squid Game. Not necessarily because someone is intentionally trying to eliminate us, although some organizational cultures certainly make you wonder, but because so many talented people seem to be living with the quiet anxiety that one wrong move, one disagreement, or one unexpected leadership decision could change everything they’ve worked toward.
It’s an interesting contradiction. We’ve spent decades celebrating innovation, courageous leadership, disruption, and the importance of challenging conventional thinking. Organizations recruit people for their experience, creativity, and ability to solve problems, yet those same qualities can become uncomfortable when they challenge an established way of doing things. We tell people to think differently, but sometimes what we actually want is for them to think differently within a very narrow set of acceptable boundaries.
And people notice. They become more cautious about what they say, how they say it, and whom they say it to. Conversations that should produce better ideas become exercises in reading the room. Instead of considering what might be possible, we’re calculating what might be safe. Before long, talented people who once brought tremendous energy to their work begin operating from a place of self-preservation.
That’s a remarkable amount of human potential to leave sitting on the sidelines.
Of course, there’s another side to this conversation. Not every difficult leader is a bad leader, and not every organization that challenges us is unhealthy. Sometimes the tension exposes something in us that needs attention. Our impatience, our pride, our inability to listen, or our tendency to confuse conviction with being right. I’ve certainly had moments when my passion for an idea got ahead of my ability to bring people along. Experience doesn’t excuse us from growing, and having the right answer doesn’t automatically mean we’ve approached the conversation the right way.
But neither should a difficult season convince us that everything we’ve learned, built, and contributed has somehow lost its value.
I think that’s where many people find themselves today. They’re caught somewhere between the responsibility to provide for their families and the desire to find meaningful work. They know what they’re capable of contributing, but the uncertainty of the job market makes them reluctant to imagine anything beyond their immediate circumstances. Mortgages still need to be paid. Health insurance matters. Children need stability. Spouses deserve more than another optimistic speech about the next big opportunity.
These are real pressures, and pretending otherwise isn’t faith. It’s denial.
Yet I’ve noticed something about fear. It rarely announces itself as fear. More often, it arrives disguised as practicality, convincing us that the wisest thing we can do is keep our heads down, avoid uncomfortable conversations, and hold tightly to whatever security we think we still possess. Sometimes that instinct is appropriate. Other times it slowly begins to determine the size of our future.
And when that happens, we can become so focused on keeping our place that we stop asking whether it’s even the place where we’re meant to be.
One of the things I’ve come to appreciate through years of working with leaders, churches, entrepreneurs, and organizations around the world is that opportunity rarely develops in isolation. It tends to emerge through relationships, shared problems, unexpected conversations, and people who recognize something in one another worth building upon. Some of the most meaningful work I’ve been privileged to participate in didn’t begin with a formal application or a carefully constructed career plan. It began because people connected around a mission, trusted one another enough to explore an idea, and were willing to see what might be possible.
That’s something we tend to forget when uncertainty begins narrowing our attention.
We retreat. We spend too much time looking at job listings, reconsidering conversations, wondering what we could have done differently, and imagining outcomes that haven’t happened. Meanwhile, there are people in our lives who would welcome a conversation, offer perspective, introduce us to someone interesting, or simply remind us that our world is considerably larger than the organization we just left or the position we’re afraid of losing.
Perhaps one of the healthiest things we can do in those moments is put down the phone long enough to stop scrolling, then pick it back up and actually call someone.
Not necessarily to ask for a job. Just to reconnect.
Ask what they’re building, what challenges they’re facing, and where they’re seeing opportunities. Be curious about their lives rather than immediately presenting your own needs. Encourage someone whose work you admire. Introduce two people who ought to know each other. Offer what you know to someone who could genuinely benefit from it.
There’s something profoundly restorative about discovering that we still have something valuable to give, particularly when circumstances have left us questioning our worth.
As a follower of Jesus, I also find myself returning to the distinction between pursuing security and living faithfully. Scripture never promises that obedience will produce a comfortable career or protect us from disappointing leadership decisions. In fact, much of the biblical narrative suggests the opposite. But it continually calls us away from allowing fear to determine our obedience, our generosity, or our willingness to trust God with what comes next.
Jesus’ words in Matthew 6 about worry are especially challenging when financial uncertainty is staring us in the face. He doesn’t dismiss our need for food, clothing, or provision. He knows those needs are real. His challenge is that we not allow our anxiety about tomorrow to consume our faithfulness today.
I don’t think that means we sit around waiting for God to deliver a job offer. I think it means we pray, seek counsel, examine our motives, take responsibility for what we can change, and remain willing to walk through doors we hadn’t previously considered.
There’s a humility required in all of this. We may discover that our next opportunity doesn’t look like our previous one. The title might be different. The industry might be unfamiliar. The organization may be smaller, or the mission may call upon abilities we’ve barely had an opportunity to use. We may even find ourselves building something rather than joining something already established.
That’s not necessarily a step backward.
One of the questions I’ve been wrestling with is whether we’ve become too conditioned to measure professional success by the organizations that choose us, rather than the contribution we’re actually created and equipped to make. Certainly, employment decisions matter, and we should take them seriously. But no executive team, search committee, board, or hiring manager has the authority to determine the full measure of a person’s calling or potential.
They can decide whether we’re a fit for their organization. That’s an entirely different matter.
And perhaps that’s the question worth spending more time exploring. Not simply who will hire me, but where can I genuinely thrive? Where will my experience be useful, my weaknesses be challenged constructively, and my contributions help other people succeed? Where can I work alongside people whose character I respect, whose mission I believe in, and whose leadership makes the people around them better?
Those are more demanding questions than simply searching for the next available position. They require us to be honest about what energizes us, where we’ve struggled, and what kind of environment brings out both our strengths and our best character.
They also require patience, something that’s difficult to practice when the financial clock is ticking.
I don’t have a tidy formula for navigating that tension, and I’m not particularly interested in pretending that every career disruption is some beautifully disguised blessing. Some losses are painful. Some decisions are unfair. Some seasons require difficult adjustments, hard conversations at home, and a willingness to confront things about ourselves we’d rather avoid.
But I do believe there is a difference between walking through uncertainty and surrendering our lives to it.
We were not created merely to survive another round of organizational politics, economic volatility, or somebody else’s expectations. We were created for relationships, for meaningful contribution, for loving our neighbors, for stewarding what God has entrusted to us, and for participating in work that extends beyond our own advancement.
Which is why I keep coming back to the importance of people.
When the pressure builds, breathe long enough to remember what matters. Reach out to the people who know you, including those who will tell you the truth rather than simply what you want to hear. Listen carefully. Encourage generously. Be willing to learn from where things went wrong without allowing those experiences to become the entire story of who you are.
And ask God for the wisdom to distinguish between a door that needs more patience and one you may need to stop trying to force open.
I suspect many of us are discovering that the next chapter of our lives won’t come from winning the game we’ve been playing. It may come from realizing there are entirely different places where our gifts, relationships, experience, and faith can produce something far more meaningful.
Maybe that’s what we should be looking for.
Not another round to survive, but somewhere worth investing our lives.
Somewhere we can thrive.
Larry Lundstrom
CLLCTV.org — Innovation, Leadership & Growth
