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Great Leaders Navigate Conflict & Personalities

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There are a lot of books and articles that talk about the difference between a leader and a follower. The same can be said for the difference between a mediocre, good and great leader.

Things like vision, strategy, recruiting, decision making are all things that make the list.

But I think there is a skill that sets certain leaders apart.

The ability to navigate personalities. 

Great leaders navigate personalities.

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For a pastor, the personalities they encounter in committee or staff meetings is just like a meeting at any company. You have people who are older, younger, want the church to reach more families, more singles, more empty nesters. There are people who have been in a number of churches, have only been to this church.

One of the dynamics I’ve seen in churches is that the passion level goes up because people give to the church; are married to someone who leads an area that needs more money, time or attention; or you encounter the person who started the ministry that you are talking about killing or cutting the budget of.

When trying to resolve conflict or working towards a decision, a great leader understands the dynamics in the room. Things like:

  1. What does each person hope to accomplish?
  2. What will each person try to get in the result: comfort, control, approval or power?
  3. Why are they advocating for something?
Struggling to navigate personalities & conflict at church?

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Let’s look at each one:

1. What does each person hope to accomplish? Each person, including the leader is trying to accomplish something in a conversation, conflict resolution or decision making process. Some times they are good things and some times they are selfish things. It is important to understand what they are. Once you know a person’s goal, you are able to either help get there or at least understand why they are advocating for something.

Great leaders navigate conflict.

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2. What will each person try to get in the result: comfort, control, approval or power? These are the four idol of the hearts that Tim Chester says we are all prone to have (usually one is dominant). This idol will pop its head up in conversations and cause people to either push for something too quickly, make people fearful and hesitant or cause people to be compliant to avoid more conflict.

3. Why are they advocating for something? What happens in many churches is that people in a decision making meeting see themselves not as leaders but as advocates. That is not leadership. No one in a meeting should be advocating for kids ministry, student ministry, women’s ministry, traditional worship or anything else. The moment you notice advocates, you need to coach them to understand their role or remove them. This often happens in a budget meeting. Once you know why someone is advocating for something, you are able to navigate through the conversation.

Leaders are not advocates.

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Your Marriage Matters More than You Think

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Marriage Matters

It is easy to read a book on marriage, teach a class, preach a sermon series on marriage. Chide the men, challenge the women and then go home and be in a miserable or at best, mediocre marriage.

In fact, lots of pastors do this.

Every time I teach on marriage at a pastor’s conference I’ll talk with countless leaders who confess their marriage isn’t working and don’t know what to do about it. They struggle in silence because, “how can a pastor admit weakness in marriage? How can a pastor struggle? If I get divorced I’ll lose my job.”

This is so sad to me.

I was asked after posting this why I care so much about marriages.

The reason is simple: you spend a lot of time in your marriage, the impact of your marriage is felt for generations (ask a child of divorced parents how it has affected their adult lives), and it is a picture of the gospel (Ephesians 5). A lot is riding on it.

Right before we got married, my mentor who did our wedding pulled me aside one day after class and told me something that has stuck with me:

The longer you pastor a church the more the marriages in that church will begin to look like yours. So, if you look around and see divorces, infidelity, miserable couples, you only have to look in the mirror to figure out why. But, if you pour time, energy and effort into your marriage, you will see the benefits in the people who attend your church.

Pastor, the marriages in your church will resemble yours.

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There is no man nor church in the world that can come to God in prayer, but by assistance of the Holy Spirit . . . If men did see their sins, yet without the help of the Spirit they would not pray . . . There is nothing but the Spirit that can lift up the soul or heart to God in prayer . . . The soul that rightly prays, it must be in and with the help and strength of the Spirit; because it is impossible that a man should express himself in prayer without it. He explains, O how great a task it is, for a poor soul that becomes sensible of sin and the wrath of God, to say in faith but this one word, “Father!” . . . O! says he, I dare not call him Father; and hence it is that the Spirit must be sent into the hearts of God’s people for this very thing, to cry Abba, Father: it being too great a work for any man to do knowingly and believingly without it.

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John Bunyan
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7 Leadership Lessons from Extreme Adventurers

What can leaders learn from athletes and adventurers that push themselves to the limit and beyond? Who climb the highest peaks on the planet and ski to the furthest reaches of the globe?

A lot.

Enter Alison Levine and her book On the Edge: The Art of High-Impact Leadership.

Here are a few things I think pastors can learn from extreme adventurers:

1. Waiting on the fixed lines for too long can be dangerous and can jeopardize a summit bid. While climbing, you can run into traffic jams of other climbers and get stuck. Frostbite, loss of oxygen, tiredness, running out of food and water while you wait. All of these things can be a disaster while waiting. Churches often find themselves waiting to make a decision and miss an opportunity. Too many committees, teams, voices, people who need to say “yes” can all lead to a missed opportunity. While maybe not physical death like on Everest, it can lead to the death of your church.

Waiting in a church can kill your church. Be ready to make a decision.

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2. People often forget that the top is only the halfway point. The majority of deaths on big peaks occur after people have reached the summit, because they have used every ounce of energy they have to get to the top and have nothing left to get themselves back down. It is easy for churches and leaders to run hard through a season (say Christmas, Easter or the fall kick-0ff) and then immediately roll into the next season without catching their breath. You need to make sure you either break, slow down or leave something in the tank for the next season. It was mind blowing to me when I read this part of the book, that more people die on the way down because they pour everything into getting there.

3. A great fallacy regarding progress is that it is defined by constant forward motion in the same direction. We assume that any steps in the opposite direction take us further from our goal. Not true, sometimes we have to go backward in order to make progress. Leaders can get impatient and want to push through when their followers, churches or cultures are not ready to move forward. Sometimes, what seems like a waste of time or slowing down can actually be a good thing.

Sometimes you have to go backward to go forward.

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4. On the subject of recruiting talent: “Screen for aptitude, then hire for attitude.” Churches are horrible when it comes to hiring. The turnover of pastors is astounding, volunteers quit and burnout, people serve in the wrong roles. People take jobs at churches they don’t like, working for pastors they can’t stand. Building teams is something many pastors can do better at, because the team determines where the church ends up.

5. Leaders should never expect the people on their teams to take any risks that they would not be willing to take themselves. This is a basic leadership principle, but one that many forget. Leaders set the pace. They set what is okay, what is acceptable and what is not. Leaders should not have different rules. While there are some benefits and things that come with seniority, being the boss as opposed to being an intern, everyone pulls the weight.

6. People are more willing to risk their lives and well-being for people they know. Pastors struggle with friendships and building strong teams, but your effectiveness as a leader will come from how well you do both of these things. As a leader, your best friends don’t have to be the staff you work with, but you should spend time with them. You should know them and they should know you.

People are more willing to risk their lives and well-being for people they know.

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7. Landscapes can change in an instant. In extreme adventures like climbing Mt. Everest, this is incredibly true. The same is true for a church. A culture can change, you can get thrown out of the place you meet in, you can lose a number of members, the economy can tank and giving goes down. You can lose a staff member on short notice and in an instant, everything is different. While you don’t need solutions for every worst case scenario, you do need to be prepared for things changing without notice.

For more from her adventures, check out Alison’s Ted Talk below.

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Lies we Believe About Marriage

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Marriages are strong and marriages need work for all kinds of reasons. Sadly, few marriages got the distance and even fewer are happy. A lot of that has to do with expectations of marriage (before and during) but many of the issues in marriage stem from lies we believe about marriage.

7 lies people believe about marriage.

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Lie #1: My spouse will complete me. This is one we are fed from the time we start to notice the opposite sex. It is in movies, books, articles and deep down, we hope that we will find someone that will meet all our needs, be everything we want, but the reality is, no one can do that. It is not possible for someone to meet all your emotional, spiritual, and relational needs. There will always be a gap and this is why our spouse’s inability to meet all our needs points us to Jesus. On the flip side of this, we can’t meet our spouse’s every need, so we can’t save our spouse (as many try to). We can’t change them, we can encourage them, but we can’t make them do something, although many try.

A common lie about marriage many believe is their spouse will complete them.

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Lie #2: My happiness is my top priority. From our earliest age, many people are taught that they can win at everything, do whatever they want, get a trophy for showing up, so life becomes about my happiness and what I can get. This isn’t reality. This becomes a litmus test for how we feel about our marriage. In fact, the moment that we are unhappy we assume something is wrong. Something might be wrong but you might also be married. Marriage doesn’t always bring happiness but it does bring joy, which is very different but more important because joy is long lasting and not fleeting.

Being unhappy might not mean something wrong in your marriage, you might just be married.

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Lie #3: There is only one right person for me to marry. This is born in fairy tales that somehow there is one person on the planet for you to marry and if you marry the wrong person the entire axis of the universe will be thrown off. Few people say this, but many people subtlety believe it before and after they get married. They put enormous pressure on “finding God’s perfect person for them” that they are paralyzed from experiencing community and relationships. After they get married, couples struggle when hard times hit and they wonder if they married the wrong person. First off, how arrogant do you have to be to think you could marry the wrong person and start a cosmic destruction? This also gets into figuring out God’s will (which is another post but I think we put too much pressure “God’s perfect will” for our lives). Let me say, there are so many things you can do for God that instead of sitting around wondering if it is God’s perfect will, you should just start doing something.

Instead of wondering if it is God’s perfect will, you should just start doing something.

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Lie #4: What I do on my own time won’t affect my marriage. This gets at the selfishness many people feel in their lives. The idea that once you get married, you still stay a single person, you just happened to be married now. This is why many couples keep separate bank accounts, their own calendars and “do their own thing.” The reality around separate bank accounts is that you are always keeping one foot out the door, not letting go of some trust issue in your past. And, if you don’t trust your spouse to share a bank account, there is a deeper issue that needs work, the bank account isn’t the issue. The reality is, how you spend your time, money, how you think about yourself, whether you protect yourself to stay pure in your marriage has an enormous impact on your marriage.

Everything you do affects your marriage. For good or bad.

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Lie #5: A great marriage doesn’t take work. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this after a sermon or counseling a couple and every time it is heart breaking. Often, we look at couples who are happy, handling the ups and downs of life well and wonder how they did it. Like seeing the success of Steve Jobs without any of the struggles. Idealizing marriage can be like that. It takes work. It is hard. In fact, I would say there is not a great marriage on the planet that was not filled with seasons of difficulties.

All great marriages have experienced difficult seasons.

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Lie #6: My past has no impact on my marriage. This is one I encounter a lot in premarital counseling. The thinking that your past relationships, porn addiction in college, the father issues you have not dealt with yet, the divorce your parents went through or you went through; that those things will have no bearing or minimal impact on your present and future marriage. Not true. All those things have an enormous impact on how you see yourself and your spouse. If you are a woman and all your life men have broken promises and used you, that is exactly what you will expect your husband to do. If you grow up and are abused and see sex as something dirty or something that is a way to live out selfishness instead of a place to give and serve your spouse, that will have an enormous impact. Lastly, most of what people do in a marriage is either a reaction against what their parents did or what they saw their parents do. It is what we know, so until we see that, see it for what it is, evaluate if that is healthy and then deal with it, we will continue the cycle of the past.

Most people in marriage react against what their parents did.

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Most people in marriage mindlessly do what their parents did because that’s what they know.

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Lie #7: You can’t choose who you love. Typically when someone tells me this lie they have already sinned or are about to. It is often used to excuse why they are getting divorced or committing adultery. Yet, when we take this lie to its fullest extent, we would never want someone to love us this way. We wouldn’t want our spouse, kids or Jesus to show us love only when they feel like it. Yet, for many couples this is how they live their married life. The reality, the truth is that many days you will wake up in marriage and have to choose to love your spouse because they will not be lovely, they will not be easy to love, there will be a big piece of you that does not want to love them because you want to be selfish, you want them to stop doing something or at the very least, you want life to be easier. But love is a choice followed by an emotion.

Love is a choice followed by an emotion, an act of the will.

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While there are many more, these are just a few I’ve encountered that bring a lot of hurt and damage.

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I See You Tried

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In marriage it is easy to focus on the negative things your spouse does. They didn’t pick up their clothes, they don’t pursue you, they don’t cook the food you like, the whine or complain “about everything.” The list goes on and on. Yet, celebrating when your spouse tries is a secret to a strong marriage.

Think about the last time your spouse put forth effort. Did they clean up the kitchen? Put their clothes or tools away? Did they take a shower and look nice for you? Did they bring home a gift? Pick up groceries without being asked?

What did your spouse do that you can celebrate?

Instead of saying, “Why didn’t you do ___?”

You could say, “Thanks for trying, for putting for effort.”

Celebrate when your spouse puts forth effort.

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Could they do more?

Yes.

But chances are they won’t if you don’t celebrate what they are doing.

Your attitude and reaction to your spouse has nothing to do with your spouse and everything to do with you.

You choose your reaction to your spouse, your spouse has no control over your reaction.

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I know, what they did determines your reaction. You can overlook something. You can be disappointed with something. You can cheer something on.

It is your choice.

I remember when we first started doing regular date nights. I was not good at planning them. The romantic in every guy seems to go out the window the moment they get married. Yet, Katie cheered on my effort. I even remember her saying once, “I see you tried. Thanks.” She wasn’t be sarcastic, but she was noticing the effort I put in to pursue her.

What did your spouse do today that you can celebrate instead of pointing out fault? Did they do it exactly how you wanted it done? Maybe not, but they did try. 

Celebrate that.

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Keeping People is Easier than Finding People

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There is an idea in business that marketers know well: it is cheaper to keep customers than it is to find new ones. The same goes for employees. It is cheaper to keep employees than to find new ones and train them.

Recently, the church I lead changed banks. The reason was simple: we didn’t get good service at our bank. They made mistakes and things that should’ve been easy were difficult and time consuming.

So we switched.

When we went to close the accounts, the manager came over and said how sorry he was to see us go and if anything changed he’d love to have our business back.

All I could think of was, you had our business. You lost our business.

As soon as he was done saying that and we were closing the account we were told there would be a $10 closing fee.

A fee to close the account.

When we asked the teller if they could waive it, she said no.

We’ll never go back to that bank.

While churches don’t have customers, they have congregants, members or parishioners (insert whatever your tradition calls them). I think churches could benefit from some business thinking on this.

Too many churches think that people will just stay at their church, but that is not reality. For the most part, Americans have a number of options when it comes to religion. Not just other churches, but sleeping in, being outside, kids sports.

I’m not saying a church should create a loyalty program with benefits like Amazon does with Prime, but churches can and should strive for loyalty.

Here are some questions I think churches and leaders should think through:

  1. What can we do that no one else can do? When churches lose loyalty, it is because they don’t know what they are great at. Companies that have strong loyalty, know what they are good at.
  2. How can we create ownership and identity in our church? Strong company loyalty also comes with a cult following. Take Apple, a hipster coffee place or Amazon. They have created ownership where their customers will not think about going somewhere else. Your church can and should be the same way.
  3. How can we focus on the “customer?” I’m blown away by the extent that companies like Google and Amazon go to making the user a priority. Google seems to hate other businesses and is in business solely for the user experience. Churches should have that same focus and passion, in it for the people.

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How to Think of Blog Posts

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I always get asked, “Where do you get your ideas for blog posts?”

Blog posts like sermon ideas, article or book ideas are everywhere. They are in conversations, quotes, questions, your devotions and prayer time.

Here are a few places I find them:

  1. A question I have or someone else has. My opinion has always been, if one person has a question, others have the same question.
  2. Conversations after a sermon or in a missional community. 
  3. Book quotes. This is a great way to get a blog post. When a book or  quote makes you think of something, write it down. Many of my posts start that way.
  4. Other blog posts. Maybe you read something that makes you want to respond because you disagree, or you think you could write it better. Go through you old posts from time to time to see if you’d update something or if you can write something that is more helpful.

If none of those work, try these ideas from Ready to Be a Thought Leader?: How to Increase Your Influence, Impact, and Success: at the end of the day or each week, could you set aside fifteen minutes to write down the highlights of what happened? What were the painful moments, the funny experiences, or the most challenging decisions you made? Here are a few more questions: What have I learned from this experience? What did I do well? What could I have done differently? Is there a universal lesson here that others could apply?

If you put these into practice, you will always have ideas for sermons, blog posts and books.

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How to Set Yourself Apart

Denise Brosseau new book Ready to Be a Thought Leader?: How to Increase Your Influence, Impact, and Success was a book I wasn’t sure I would like or find relevant, but I had a few guys recommend it to me. I’m so glad I read it. This book is for anyone who wants to create a niche, standout in some area of life or business and I found it incredibly helpful as I think about writing and leadership.

  1. True thought leaders have expertise, passion, and a track record of changing the world. They become thought leaders when they rise above themselves by sharing their knowledge so that others can change the world, too. There are experts in every area of life, people that other leaders look to that are set apart by success, knowledge but also being able to make things simpler. They often figure things out others haven’t yet or put things in a way that everyone else says, “that’s so simple, why didn’t I think of that.”
  2. A thought leader is defined by her or his ability to galvanize others to think new thoughts, modify the way they have always done things, and embark on new behaviors, new paths, and new actions to transform the world. Thought leaders then create followings of their ideas. They become the person others talk about and say, “have you read so-and-so’s blog?” “Do you follow so-and-so on twitter?”
  3. Align your time, energy, and resources around one niche and you’ll open far more doors than if you focus in multiple unrelated arenas. This was one of my biggest takeaways as it pertains to my writing and speaking outside of Revolution. I’ve been too unfocused on that and need to narrow my focus. Really eye opening for me. 
  4. Great leaders invent the future they want. I don’t understand those who talk like there is nothing they can do about their future so all they can do is sit back and wait for it to happen, wait for someone to notice them or wait for someone to give them a free ride. That isn’t coming. If you want to do something, start doing it. I remember talking with someone who did not blog, wasn’t leading anything and they wanted to write bible study curriculum but they hoped someone would just sign them up to do that. Start doing what you want to be doing in 5 years. 
    Start doing what you want to be doing in 5 years.

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  5. Sheryl Sandberg, author of the bestseller Lean In and the COO of Facebook, argues, “Done is better than perfect.” It doesn’t have to be perfect, it needs to stop being put on hold though. 
  6. The best brand reputation for a thought leader is being knowable, likeable, and trustable, being someone who provides value to others. That last line is something I am zeroing in on in my leadership and writing. How can I be more helpful to someone else?

If you are looking to create a personal niche in writing or speaking or as an expert in something, this is a great book to pick up.

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How to Preach on Money

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Recently, I preached on money, giving and overall stewardship. I am always amazed at the response from pastor’s and people who attend church when it comes to the topic of money. They both have fears about it and often, they are unfounded. I think more pastors should talk about money and what the bible has to say about it. Not only for the health of their church, but for the spiritual health of their people.

Here’s 6 things to keep in mind for the next time you preach on money:

6 things to keep in mind when you preach on money.

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  1. People genuinely are interested in what the Bible has to say on money. People come to your church to hear what the Bible has to say. They drove there, probably looked at your website, they drove past a sign that said church, so they are expecting for you to open the Bible and read it. I think people want to know what God thinks about a whole host of things, money included. Why? Because very few people have strong financial knowledge. There are so many takes on it, ideas on what you should do, how to get out of debt, where you should invest that it becomes overwhelming and then people stick their head in the sand. Telling them what the Bible has to say is incredibly helpful and refreshing to them because it says more than “you should give to the church.” 
    People genuinely are interested in what the Bible has to say on money.

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  2. Get your financial house in order. Many pastors don’t talk about money because many pastors aren’t generous and don’t give. Generosity doesn’t come easy for me but preaching on what the Bible has to say about money has convicted my heart to grow in it. If a pastor doesn’t preach on money, generosity or stewardship of finances, it is usually because he isn’t doing well in those areas personally and that will affect the life of a church. Generous churches are led by generous leaders.
    Generous churches are led by generous leaders.

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    Be honest with your struggles if you have them. Talk about what you have learned and how God is continuing to grow you. People will resonate with that. Every time I talk about money I’ll hear people say over and over, “Thanks for being open about what is hard for you.”

  3. Make sure you don’t make promises God doesn’t make. Especially with passages like Malachi 3, it is easy to make promises God doesn’t make when it comes to money. Is God faithful? Yes. Does God bless people financially when they give? Yes. Are there lots of rich people who don’t give? Yes. Are God’s blessings to us always financial reimbursement? No. This is the one area that a lot of damage has been done in terms of preaching on money.
  4. Stewardship is more than money. While most pastors preach on money to get more people to give money, that isn’t the goal. The goal is to help people follow Jesus when it comes to stewardship and that includes money, but also includes how they use their time, house, car, retirement and steward their whole life. 
    Stewardship is more than money.

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  5. Don’t preach at someone and don’t angle a sermon for a raise. It is easy to angle your sermon for someone and that is never healthy. Don’t preach on money at someone who isn’t giving. Don’t preach to get a raise.
  6. Give clear and helpful next steps. You should  have clear next steps every week that you preach but money is incredibly important. Whether that is doing a 90 day giving challenge, a financial class like FPU or something else. Don’t just leave people hanging on this. Especially because as I said on point 1, people want to know how to handle money.
6 things to do the next time you preach on money.

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