Monthly Archives: August 2016

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Bill Hybels on “The Lenses of Leadership” from Leadership Summit 2016

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leadership

I’m at the leadership summit with the team from Revolution Church. This is by far the best leadership conference of the year. So much wisdom and inspiration wrapped up into two days. I always blog my notes, so if you can’t attend or missed something, I’ve got you covered.

In session 1 Bill Hybels talked about The Lenses of Leadership. He had 4 different lenses on stage, that represented how leaders look at the world around them and the organization/team they lead: the passionate  leader, shattered lenses (which shows a leader who doesn’t know what could exist), performance lenses, and lenses with a review mirror to see what is behind you (legacy lens of leadership).

Here are some takeaways:

  • Armed with enough humility can learn from anyone and that is an enormous key to leadership.
  • Leadership is leading people from here to there.
Leadership is leading people from ‘here’ to ‘there.’ @BillHybels

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  • Leadership is moving people, energizing people.
  • Leadership is moving people to a preferred future.
  • For team members to pay the price to go from here to there, they will have to feed off the passion of their leader.
  • The highest inspiration for team members is to work for and around a passion filled leader. This is more important than money, benefits and everything else.

How does a leader get passionate?

  • Passion is derived from mountains of a beautiful dream or the depths of frustration that is going terribly wrong.
  • Have you encountered something that frustrates you? That you can’t stand anymore? That’s your dream.
  • Question to consider: How full is your passion bucket?
  • Question to consider: Whose job is it to keep your passion bucket full?

Shattered people lenses

  • Many leaders have shattered lenses who don’t know how to be emotionally healthy and creating a healthy team.
  • An organization will only be as healthy as the top leader wants it to be.
An organization will only be as healthy as the top leaders wants it to be. @BillHybels

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  • The leader can choose if the culture will be high functioning and caring.
  • Religion is all the things you do to appease a God you know you’ve disappointed.
  • What this world needs is not more pastors of churches but pastors who lead their businesses, schools and the military well.
  • The job of the leader is to destroy transactional noise. The talk that keeps people from performing well and kills morale. Transactional noise is when someone who is a jerk and gets promoted and people are mad (water cooler talk).
  • Leaders need to develop the skill of talent observation. 

The Performance Lens

  • Speed of the leader, speed of the team.
  • The leader must help the team maximize team performance.
The leader must help the team maximize team performance. @BillHybels

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  • A leader must lay out challenges and goals.
  • Team members always want to know what the leader thinks of how they are doing.
  • Don’t have too many goals because it will lead you to work in ways you aren’t proud.
  • You also can’t simply be faithful to your calling and have no goals. That’s laziness.
  • Are you thriving, healthy or underperforming as a team or organization?
Are you thriving, healthy or underperforming as a team or organization? @BillHybels

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  • It is cruel and unusual punishment for a leader not telling his team how they are doing.
It is cruel and unusual punishment for a leader not telling his team how they are doing. @BillHybels

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The Legacy Lens

  • What people remember about you when you are gone. Everyone will leave a leadership legacy.
  • Leadership is not about time, it is about energy. It is about where you spend your energy (what you think about, focus, decision making).
Leadership is not about time, it is about energy. @BillHybels

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  • Leadership can become a legal drug that other things will have a hard time competing against.
  • God never intended for our vocations to crowd out other parts of our lives.
  • When you look into the rearview mirror, do you like the legacy you are leaving behind?
When you look into the rearview mirror, do you like the legacy you are leaving behind? @BillHybels

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  • Legacies can change in an instant with a simple choice.
  • Leadership matters and it matters disproportionately.
  • Question to consider: How do you need to get better? How do you need to grow as a leader?
  • Question to consider: What is your passion? What is your dream? Are you feeding your passion? Are you keeping your vision bucket full?
  • Question to consider: How many of you have shattered people lenses? Do you know what a healthy team culture looks like? Feels like?
  • Question to consider: Do you need to slow your organization or team down? Do you let your team and organization flounder? Do people know what hill to climb? Does your team know if they’re winning?
  • Question to consider: Is your legacy one you are proud of? One your kids and spouse will be proud of?
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How to Have Energy for Your Spouse When Your Kids Exhaust You

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spouse

All parents run into this. They want to spend time with their kids. They want to spend time with their spouse. They want to have friends, hobbies and a life. Yet when you have kids, you find yourself exhausted at the end of the day.

Katie and I often get asked how to have energy for your spouse at the end of the day when your kids exhaust you. Here are some of our thoughts:

4 ways to have energy for your spouse at the end of the day.

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1. Evaluate your schedule. Why are you tired? Why do you feel like you and your spouse don’t have enough time with each other? How many activities are you running your kids to? Often the reason that you are too tired for your spouse is because of the season you are in; other times it is simply your fault. Many times we don’t put our spouse in our schedule. I realize how unromantic that sounds, but I say this all the time: You have all the time to do everything you want to do. And that includes time with your spouse. If you want to have time to be with them, put it in your calendar. Date nights don’t just happen. Conversations don’t just happen.

If you want to spend time with your spouse, you need to schedule it.

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2. Decide ahead of time what the night will look like. At some point in the day, Katie and I will have a conversation in person, on the phone or over text that goes like this: “What do you want tonight to look like?”

Ask your spouse, “What do you want tonight to look like?”

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This helps to set clear expectations for the night. Do you need time to talk, time alone, to watch TV, be quiet, take a walk? Is your spouse in the mood for sex? Having those conversations ahead of time helps to keep feelings from getting hurt.

The other side of this is that it helps you both to prepare. If you are tired but your spouse wants to talk or have sex, knowing that ahead of time helps you gear up for the evening.

3. Communicate to your kids your expectations for them. In the same way that you and your spouse need to be on the same page, you and your kids need to be on the same page. Your kids need to know that time as a couple is the most important thing in your family. Remember, one day your kids will move out, so your marriage matters more than your relationship with your kids. Make sure they know what the expectations are for the evening. This will take time, but it is crucial. One of the ways you create security for your kids is by communicating the security of your marriage.

One way you create security for your kids is by communicating the security of your marriage.

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4. Remove barriers. There are a lot of barriers to deepening your marriage relationship; some of them are ones you create, and others are ones that just happen. Many of the barriers that keep a couple from connecting has to do with electronics. I know some families put their phones in a basket at night or have a no electronics policy at dinner. Get rid of the things that are keeping you from connecting as a couple.

Are you letting electronics come between you and your spouse?

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How to be Thankful as a Leader

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thankful

Most of the time on blogs like mine or other leadership and ministry blogs you read about how tough ministry is, how difficult people can be and how hard it is to be a leader. All those things are true.

At the same time, if you are a leader, especially if you are a pastor, you have a lot to be thankful for. At the same time, as a follower of Jesus, growing in your thankfulness is a sign of your faith but also of your maturity. I know for me, when I am pessimistic, only seeing what isn’t working or how things aren’t what I want them to be, it makes me a poor leader, a poor husband and father, and honestly, a poor human.

So I sat down in the middle of a pity party, when things didn’t go how I wanted them to go at church and someone was mad at me, and wrote out things I should be thankful for. For you this list might be different, but here’s what came to mind for me:

How to be thankful as a pastor.

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1. My church still exists. This might seem like a weird one, but on a weekly basis I hear about another church that closed their doors. When we moved to Tucson and started Revolution church, there was a window of three years where over 20 churches were planted in Tucson (of which we were one), and only three of those are still going (of which we are one). Why? That’s God’s grace towards us.

The fact that your church exists is a sign of God’s grace towards you.

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2. I get to use my gifts. Most pastors overlook this gift. If you ask most people what their gifts, talents and passions are, they don’t know. They don’t know how God has wired them, the talents they have, how their family of origin and story have gone into making them who they are and the passions they have, but many pastors do. They get out of bed with a burning passion to see something happen for God. That isn’t a small thing.

If you know why you are on this earth, you are in the minority.

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3. My marriage. If you’re a pastor, your wife deserves more credit than you do. She endures more than you do. I know, I know. Your life is so hard as a leader, the stress, the pain, the emotional side of ministry. I get it. Yet it is nowhere near as difficult as the role your wife plays. While you can bury yourself in work and ministry as a way of letting off steam, she doesn’t have that opportunity. She endures more than you do, and you should tell her thanks. She takes the brunt of your emotional roller coaster, she walks on egg shells around you sometimes, she hears people talk behind your back, she sees the glares you don’t see, she hears what things are said about your kids that you don’t hear, she worries about you in ways you don’t understand. And yet she has stuck with you. She is your biggest cheerleader, your biggest prayer warrior.

A pastor’s wife often endures more than a pastor does.

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Protect your wife to your church. Speak highly of her always, on stage and off. I talk about Katie in such a way that I want to communicate, if you speak badly about my wife, stab her in the back, you get papa bear, and you don’t want that. Too many pastors are weak when it comes to their wives and how they defend them in their church. Sadly, you have to do this because people can be mean.

4. My kids. The same goes for your kids. It is hard being a pastor’s kid. Way harder than being a pastor, so don’t put it in the same category. Don’t put more pressure on them than is already on them. When someone says in disbelief, “I can’t believe your kid jumped off the stage and over the communion table” (true story in the Reich family), shake your head, laugh and say, “What did you expect a five year old boy to do? Did he clear the table?” He did and didn’t get hurt.

I am my biggest protector of my kids. I want them to enjoy being kids. I want them to enjoy being a pastor’s kid as much as they can. When people try to put something on them that I think is unfair, I fight to take that expectation away.

5. My team. I’m thankful for my team. Most leaders are visionary, hard driving, goal setting people, which makes us difficult to be around and be friends with. The fact that people endure you as a leader is something to be thankful for. They help you, mold you and make things better. Sadly, most leaders don’t like their teams, which is the fault of the leader. You get what you allow or create.

6. I’m not 300 pounds anymore. I’m thankful for my health. When we started our church I weighed almost 300 pounds, and in the first 18 months I lost 130 pounds and have kept it off. I know it sounds silly to be thankful for your health and very cliche, but if you’re healthy, that’s a gift from God. Not everyone is.

7. God loves me. Lastly, if you are a follower of Jesus, God loves you, and because of His love for you He sent his Son Jesus to die in your place so that you could have a relationship with Him. Never get far from this truth and reality as a pastor.

7 things I’m thankful for as a pastor. What are you thankful for?

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But what do you do when it is hard to be thankful and ministry is hard? That happens.

One thing that was helpful was something I came across in Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth, where the author said to give yourself 24 hours to mope, throw a pity party and then get back on the horse and lead.

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The Tragic Story of a Hurting Pastor’s Wife & 5 Other Posts I Read this Week that You Should Read

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Here are 6 posts I came across this week that challenged my thinking or helped me as a leader, pastor, husband and father. I hope they help you too:

  1. 9 Insights about Adult Learning Every Pastor Should Know by Charles Stone
  2. 10 Prices You Must be Willing to Pay to be a Great Leader by Brian Dodd
  3. What is the one thing the local church must get right in the 21st century? by Mark Dever
  4. The Tragic Story of a Hurting Pastor’s Wife by Thom Rainer
  5. Sin, Discipline, and Not Being the Next Pastor Who Falls by Erik Reed
  6. ‘I was wrong’ vs. ‘I made a mistake’ by Scott Cochrane
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Leaders Make Decisions Others Don’t

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leaders

While leadership is many things, vision casting, team building, strategic thinking, developing leaders, leadership can also be boiled down to one very important thing: decision making.

Now to be fair, all people, bosses, employees, volunteers, and pastors, make decisions in a church or organization. But one thing sets leaders apart: they make decisions others don’t.

Leaders are the ones who are faced with making decisions that will be unpopular, that will decide what is right and wrong in a church or organization, and that will affect others.

3 decisions leaders make that others don’t.

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Here are a few:

1. Vision decisions. It is the job of a leader to cast vision, to set direction for a preferred future. This is best done in teams, with the buy in of key leaders, but there are also times when a leader must say, “This is it; that is not it.” Vision divides, vision clarifies. Vision also unites. Vision says, “We’re going here, not there.” Vision says what the win is, which also means vision says what the loss is.

These can run up against “what has always been done”, what used to work, and sometimes what is still working but isn’t what needs to be done.

Vision also decides how resources are allocated, what money is spent on, what staff and volunteers are needed and not needed. This can be incredibly difficult.

Many people in leadership roles simply skip this. They don’t push to make a clarifying decision, which is still making a decision, but it is the one of least resistance.

2. Being willing to be unpopular. Ronald Heifetz says, “Exercising leadership might be best understood as disappointing people at a rate they can absorb.” This also means that as a leader, you must be willing to be unpopular with someone at some point. Now as a leader you don’t set out to make people mad or be a jerk (although some do), but sometimes that happens. It should never be a goal, though.

This means that to be a leader you must develop tough skin. You must develop clarity as to who you are, who you aren’t, where you want to go and where you don’t want to go. You must know which hills you will choose to die on, because you will die on those hills. Not every hill is worth dying on, but you must know which ones are.

Leaders know which hills are worth dying on.

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3. Decisions that affect others. The last thing that separates leaders is that they are willing to make decisions that affect not only themselves but others. These are the decisions that keep me up at night. Ones about hiring or firing, setting salaries, making budget decisions that will have an impact not only on the financial situation of someone else, but also their happiness if we stop doing something as a church that they love.

These are incredibly difficult, and too many pastors are unwilling to make these calls. They aren’t easy, but being a leader isn’t supposed to be easy.

These decisions, when taken together, are some of the things that make someone a leader. Are they willing to make decisions others are not willing to make?

3 decisions that set leaders apart.

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