One of my best friends when I was growing up had a streak of "wild and crazy" in him. You could also say that Bill was something of a pyromaniac. It's not that he set fires or that he loved to watch things burn ¿ not that. Bill liked to blow things up.

One summer he announced to me that he had built a cannon. I went by to see it. It was a length of pipe with a blunt plug screwed tightly onto one end. The other end was open. Drilled into the pipe near the plugged end was a small hole. Bill cut the heads of matches off hundreds of matches and packed them into one end of his cannon. Then he taped together a number of other match heads and pushed this fuse into the hole. He mounted this whole contraption onto half of a roller skate so that it actually resembled a cannon. Down the barrel of his cannon, Bill rolled a small egg. (Do not try this at home!)

Just as the maker of an airplane requires the services of some mindless oaf to test out his invention, my friend, Bill, asked me if I would hold the cannon as he lit the fuse. Just like the mindless oaf who climbs into the cockpit, I said, "Okay''. It was not until the war on terrorism that I realised what I had been holding in my hands some 45 years ago amounted to a bomb. I thank God it didn't blow my hands off.

When Bill and I got a bit older we each went off to serve in the military during the Vietnam War.

I became a neuropsychiatric technician for the Navy, and that's where I got my start in the field of clinical psychology. Bill walked point for the infantry in the jungles of Vietnam, and that sucked the bang out of him.

After the war was over for each of us, he passed me in the halls at a local college we were both attending, and he saw me reading my Bible. He said, "I wish I had something to believe in".

Something happens to people who continually draw fire. They get worn out if they don't get shot down.

Many people walk point in everyday life. They do it in various ways. They might be the first one into the challenge of a new business venture. They might be the one who blows the whistle on waste and mismanagement. They might become outspoken for quality in marriage, in their churches or in their government programmes.

They speak the truth as they see it instead of making nice. These people are change makers, and they come into situations to identify how something can be done better, but those already there frequently feel defensive, uncertain, or confused, and they normally resist change.

What makes the situation more complicated is that some change makers are caustic in their directness; while walking point, they draw fire needlessly. Either way, though, change makers are like Biblical prophets who draw fire in their respective communities because of what they do and say.

Just like Bill, these people get the bang sucked out of them. In the classic example of this, Ezekiel, immediately following one of his greatest successes, felt drained and discouraged. He began to isolate from others and then he became suicidal. Psychologists reading the Biblical account recognise the symptoms of depression, and just like Ezekiel, executives tasked with the leadership of change and progress, can become depressed, even when it might seem they are experiencing great success.

When this happens, one feels so badly one is apt to give in completely.

After having stood up for the truth as one knows it, and after reaffirming that it was right to do so and communicating clearly into the situation, it often seems to the person walking point as if people have misunderstood his or her motives, become confused by the message, and felt threatened by one's strategies.

The goodness of fit that drove the change maker to act in the first place suddenly shrinks so tight that everyone fidgets in discomfort. It feels awkward. Although change gains momentum, the change maker becomes a scratch where people no longer itch.

That is when the change maker, tattered and wounded, often wonders why he or she ever wanted to walk point in the first place.

That is when such executives often find themselves wishing they had something to believe in, some new project, some new opportunity, another company, another vision, or at least someone to talk with who understands what they are going through. These days such people often find that kind of help in the services of an executive coach, and the most effective coaches are also those who have experience as therapists and counsellors and can understand basic relational dynamics and strategies of self-regulation.