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Most leaders want to succeed.
That desire is natural: success often brings recognition, opportunity, and the reassuring sense that our work matters.
But success and achievement are not the same thing.
Confusing them can leave us chasing applause, approval, or someone else’s definition of a job well done.
Success is attributed by others. It is a conclusion people reach based on their perceptions and standards.
A supervisor may call a project successful because it improved a report, pleased a board, or made the organization look good. A colleague may define success by visibility, influence, or the number of compliments received.
None of those measures is necessarily wrong—but they are external, changeable, and beyond our complete control.
Achievement, by contrast, is measured by your goals and metrics.
It asks, “What did I set out to do?” What standards did I establish? Do they align with the organization’s mission and my own values? What evidence shows that I followed through?
Achievement is not dependent on whether anyone notices immediately. It is rooted in clear intentions, disciplined action, and honest evaluation.
This distinction is especially important for second-chair leaders and people in subordinate management roles. Sometimes you know you are contributing well when the first-chair leader, management team, or administration receives credit for what you helped accomplish.
Your work strengthens the organization’s reputation, solves a problem, develops others, or makes a leader look good. You may not receive public recognition, but that does not reduce the reality of the achievement.
That can be difficult for anyone who has learned to seek validation through being needed or praised.
Consider a people-pleasing pastor I knew. He had made meaningful strides in maturity and developed a higher level of differentiation.
In the past, a parishioner’s comment such as, “You know what you should do …” might have triggered defensiveness, anxiety, or a quick attempt to satisfy the speaker.
Over time, he got clearer about his motivations and learned to be more intrinsically directed in his goals. He learned to respond to what used to feel like criticism without becoming reactive. When a parishioner would say, “You know what you should do…” he would say, “Thank you for that. Let me think about it.”
At other times, when the moment called for more clarity, he could calmly ask, “Are you trying to tell me how to do my job?” Neither response was hostile. Both reflected a leader who could hear feedback without surrendering responsibility for his own judgment.
That is achievement: not the absence of criticism, but the capacity to stay grounded and self-regulated while receiving it.
Setting your own standards does not mean becoming unaccountable or dismissing input.
It means deciding in advance what faithful, effective work looks like. Define the outcomes that matter. Identify the behaviors you can control. Invite wise feedback, but do not allow every opinion to become your performance review.
Maya Angelou wrote, “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”
It also means remembering that excellence is not perfection.
Perfection demands flawless results and universal approval—neither of which is realistic.
Excellence asks for preparation, integrity, learning, and sustained effort. It leaves room for correction without turning every setback into a verdict on your worth.
When you focus on achievement, success often follows. Others eventually see the results: a healthier team, a better decision, a resolved conflict, a strengthened ministry, or a more capable organization.
But even when recognition is delayed or redirected, you can remain steady because your work has already met the standard you chose.
1) Write your own scorecard. Choose two to five measurable outcomes and behaviors that define a good week, month, or project.
2) Separate feedback from identity. Listen carefully to input, then decide what is useful without treating every opinion as a command.
3) Track progress privately. Keep a simple record of completed goals, lessons learned, and evidence of growth.
4) Practice shared credit. Contribute generously to the team’s results, even when someone else receives the public acknowledgment.
5) Review for excellence, not perfection. Ask whether you acted with preparation, integrity, and courage; then improve the next step.
External success can be gratifying and often seductive. Still, it is a poor foundation for a meaningful life or durable leadership. Achievement gives you something steadier: the confidence that you did the work, met the goal, and grew in the process.
Focus there. Let success be the byproduct, not the master.
Focus on achievement rather than externally validated “success.” Success will follow when others see your achievement.
To work more on achievement and focus less on success, commit to participating in the Leadership in Ministry (LIM) program of the Center for Lifelong Learning by registering for the workshop HERE.
LIM is a leadership development program for clergy, non-profit leaders, and other professionals. REGISTRATION FOR THE FALL SESSIONS IS NOW OPEN.
Israel Galindo directs the Leadership in Ministry program of the Center for Lifelong Learning. Previously, he was Associate Dean for Lifelong Learning at Columbia Theological Seminary.
