Tag Archives: leadership

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1 Leadership Lesson I Wish I Learned Sooner

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Recently, I was talking to a brand new church planter. He was excited, anticipating what lay ahead for him.

He asked me, “What is one thing you know now that you wished you would’ve known when you first planted a church?”

I had to think. There are lots of things I wish I would’ve known. I wish I would’ve taken to heart rhythms and pace personally. That I would’ve poured more into my soul than leadership insight, that I would’ve put more emphasis on individual conversations instead of big numbers.

After a minute, I said, “I wish I would’ve understood that when it looks like nothing is happening, that something is happening.”

I grew up in a farming community, and farmers understand that there are seasons to their planting and crops. There is a season of clearing away branches, dirt, and weeds. There is a season of prepping the soil. There is a season of planting, watering, fertilizing. There is a season of harvesting the crops and selling those crops, enjoying the harvest.

Then there is a season where the dirt sits.

I didn’t understand or appreciate the season where the dirt sits. I pushed and pushed so that ministry was a constant pursuit of up and to the right.

This is true in the church, church planting, leadership, and relationships.

There is a season in a marriage where you are digging in, working on emotional health, navigating your family of origin stories, and trying to move forward. This is uncomfortable work, but necessary for a marriage to fully bloom.

In leadership, you must spend seasons working on your character, who you are, and who you are becoming so that when you get there, you have the integrity to sustain the work.

In a team, you must spend the seasons growing together, learning how to work together so that you can work together when the storms hit your group and organization.

We all love the planting season, the growing season, the watching new things take off, but for those to happen, we must have the seasons where the dirt rests. You, as a leader, must have the seasons where you rest, so you are prepared for the hard seasons ahead.

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Five Things That Destroy Your Courage in Life

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To accomplish anything in life, you need courage.

You need the courage to get out of bed each morning and face the day. It takes courage to tell a boss, co-worker, spouse or friend what you need or want. It takes courage to lead anything forward. It takes courage to parent. It takes courage to quit a job and leave security to chase a dream.

But courage is easily lost. And when it’s lost, we miss out on new things, great things.

In their excellent book The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, the authors list five things that hold us back from having the courage to face the road ahead:

5 things that hold us back from having the courage to face the road ahead.

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1. Loyalties to people who may not believe you are doing the right thing. We often underestimate the power of people in our lives, especially people from our past. Teachers, parents, first bosses or coaches, guidance counselors, boyfriends, girlfriends; they all make an impact. They have said things that encouraged us and pushed us forward, but they have also said things that have cut us.

My guidance counselor in high school told me I wasn’t college material and I should give up that goal and get a job working with my hands. That has always rung in my head. I am constantly fighting the battle of feeling like I belong somewhere, or that I am smart enough to be sitting at a table.

Are the loyalties you have to people in your past holding you back in any way? Are there any messages ringing in your head that are keeping you from reaching for a dream?

2. Fear of incompetence. Nobody wants to look dumb, unprepared or not up to the task. Failure paralyzes so many of us.

The reality is, anything new will be a learning curve. Asking for help is difficult for many of us, but is the only way to new things.

If you knew all that you needed to know to reach that future goal or dream, you’d probably be there by now. But you aren’t.

If it’s helpful, make a list of things that you don’t know, do you know anyone who is an expert in those things? Podcasts you can listen to? Books or blogs you can read? Make an effort to grow and fight that fear of incompetence.

Now, this list will be helpful, make a list of things that could go wrong if you had the courage you needed. What is the worse thing that could happen? The irony of this list is that the worst thing that could happen is rarely horrible.

Five Things That Destroy Your Courage in Life

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3. Uncertainty about taking the right path. Going closely with the fear of incompetence is the deciding on the right way forward. The reality of having courage is that you might take one step forward and three steps back, four steps to the right and then you’ll be on the right path.

That’s okay.

Your life isn’t over. And you aren’t too old to start over or brush off the dirt and move forward.

4. Fear of loss. The reality of anything new, any new dream or goal brings about change.

Change always involves a loss.

Sometimes that loss is good and dead weight that needs to let go of in your life, but often that loss will hurt.

If you’re a leader, you know that any change you make will bring loss because everyone won’t move forward with you. That is difficult for you and those around you.

Life and leadership are about learning to grieve the losses along the way so you can keep moving forward.

5. Not having the stomach for the hard parts of the journey. I once heard someone say that “everything great is uphill.” Probably both ways!

But it will be hard.

You will hit moments where your passion is gone, your energy is zapped, and you wonder if you can make it.

It is at this point that most people get off the dream train.

This is why I think it is so crucial for you to feel a sense of calling, purpose or meaning to what you are going after. Merely liking a challenge or thinking this is the next step for you will not get you through the hard parts.

Five Things That Destroy Your Courage in Leadership

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You will not experience all five of these today or maybe ever. There will be one that will keep you from reaching the peak of your life. It is important to know which one it is for you so you are able to see it coming a mile away and learn how to combat it.

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How to Build Loyalty on Your Team

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I hear from a lot of pastors, and their complaints are often the same: a staff member or volunteer that isn’t fully bought into the vision or bought into the team. Team members who are off doing their own thing instead of the job the team is doing. Backbiting, gossip, half-heartedness about the mission and where things are going.

All of this comes back to loyalty.

The reality is though; everyone shouldn’t be on your team.

Some people are a good fit for a season but don’t belong on your team forever (whether you realize that or they do), some think they should work at a church when they shouldn’t, and sometimes out of frustration or weariness, pastors think of quitting their teams.

What many leaders fail to realize is that loyalty, camaraderie is not built quickly and it isn’t built around the mission of the church as much as it is built around relationships.

Loyalty isn’t built around the mission of the church as much as it is built around relationships.

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A few years ago, we were interviewing a pastor to join our team, and after interacting with our staff and elders I asked him for his thoughts, and his first response surprised me. He said, “Each of those people would run through a wall for you.”

The reason that surprised me is that I’m not naturally a relational leader. It is something I have had to work at and create systems to make it happen.

But he was right. It also dawned on me; I would run through a wall for them. And they knew that.

As I reflected on that, I realized there were some things I did to create that.

5 ways to build loyalty on your team.

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1. Be loyal to your team. It’s sad that this is on the list, but I think this is one reason pastors fail to have loyalty on their team and it is because they aren’t loyal to the people on their team.

This took me a while to figure out.

Leaders expect people to follow, bosses expect people to do what they’re told, so they don’t spend a lot of time thinking about loyalty or being loyal to those people.

Some of this comes from past hurts, broken trust or not expecting people to stay, which is a big one in the church world.

2. Explain what you mean by loyalty. Leaders and churches are always throwing around words thinking everyone thinks the same thing. Churches are notorious for this, especially when they say, “Church is a family,” but everyone has a different definition of that.

Same goes with loyalty.

When you say loyalty, what does that mean?

For our team it means: always make everyone on the team look good, have each other’s backs and don’t surprise anyone.

In public (and private) make the other team members look good. Meaning, don’t put them down, don’t gossip, don’t say, “I knew that wouldn’t work.” Have their backs.

And don’t surprise them. I tell my team, if you surprise me, I can’t help you. If something is going wrong, don’t wait, tell me. Let me help you get in front of it.

3. Invest in their life. This is still one of my most significant growth areas but is crucial for loyalty. This is how people feel valued by you as the leader.

How’s their life going? Personal goals? How’s their marriage and parenting? Do you have things you can be praying for them about that aren’t related to their work?

I now spend the first part of my one-on-one times with my team checking in on their lives.

4. Invest in their leadership. Are they growing as a leader because they are on your team? Many staff members in churches would say no to that question, and that is a problem.

Invest in them through books, podcasts, blog posts. Take them to training events that you attend. Pay for coaching and conferences for them to grow as leaders and in their craft. Expose them to new ways of thinking, new ways of doing things. Encourage them to seek out growth opportunities.

5. Give them gifts of thanks and affirmation. When was the last time you said thanks to a team member for something? Or gave them a gift?

This goes a long way to building loyalty on your team and showing care for them.

This is similar to the love languages, but know what affirms them, and what makes them feel appreciated.

Do you know what motivates your team?

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Steve Stroope says that each of us is motivated by ten things: Money, private thanks, public thanks, more responsibility, input, access, empowerment, significance, knowledge, and tools.

The problem for many leaders is they don’t know what motivates their team or they think everyone is motivated the same way or they think what drives them as a leader is what motivates their whole team.

The ten things that motivate everyone to accomplish things.

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You should what motivates each of your team members from the list above. Each one is valid and vital. Unfortunately, in the church world is motivated by money is seen as a bad thing, but it doesn’t have to be.

Loyalty, when done correctly not only strengthens the church but is a benefit to everyone on the team. It shows the value of each person and how God has wired them and makes them want to show up for work!

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The Tension of Leadership

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Leaders live in two worlds:  the one of reality, where their church or organization is, and the other is the one that is not yet, the world they are moving towards as a church.

The two worlds of leaders.

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To lead well, leaders must live where their churches are, and they must lead them to where they are going. Which means they must have a firm grasp on reality and the present, as well as where they are going. Too many pastors seem to coast into the future, not sure where they are going, not sure how they will get there.

It is easy to spend too much time in either the present or the future and miss out. You can get too far ahead of your church which means you will have a difficult time getting into the future. You can spend too much time in the present and not see a vision for where you are going and get stuck in the details of just doing church.

It is a balance. It is the tension of leadership.

Many times pastors can lead churches that no longer exist. If a church grew at one point and reached 500 but has now dropped down to 150 on a Sunday, many pastors will continue as if that church is 500.

But the church has changed now.

The reality that pastors must walk with, especially because many people in their church will think their church is still what it was.

It is crucial for a leader to pull back and get “on the balcony” of their church to see what is going on and understand where they are and where they need to go.

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Links for Leaders 11/16/18

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It’s the weekend…finally.

And since it’s the weekend, it’s the perfect time to catch up on some reading. Below, you’ll find some articles I came across this week that I found helpful as a leader and parent and hope you do as well.

Recently, God has been teaching me a lot about grieving losses in life and leadership. All of us have experienced loss and come up against the limits in life, whether in a relationship, a dream, finances, health, but how we deal with them and move forward determines so much for us. Many of us get stuck. Recently, I came across a great quote that helped me understand this even more and what it takes to move forward.

Before diving into those, in case you missed them this week. Here are the top 3 posts on my blog this week that I hope you find helpful:

Now, here’s what I found helpful:

Christmas is almost here, and I hope you are preparing for it as a church. Tony Morgan’s company has helped a lot of churches, and they have two posts you should read: 3 strategies to leverage Christmas for reaching new people and three next step ideas for annual Christmas attendees. Don’t miss the opportunity of Christmas!

We’ve adopted twice, and adoption is beautiful, challenging, amazing and tragic all at once. Many times, you feel like you are fighting for the heart of your adopted child (or any child for that matter). This post from parent cue was so encouraging to me, and if you’re a parent (adoptive or not), I think it will encourage you.

I get asked a lot about the books I read and how I find good books. One way is to see what other leaders I respect are learning. Brian Dodd is always posting great books, and he lays out 19 books leaders should read ing 2019. I’ve read a few of these but look forward to diving into a few others on this list.

If you’re a pastor or been in church for any length of time, you know the drill at church, so it is easy to forget what it feels like to be a guest. The emotions a guest has the fears, the thoughts. This post from Rich Birch was so helpful to me, and a great reminder of what people feel when they walk into your church on a Sunday morning.

The holidays are almost here (I can’t believe that Thanksgiving is next week!), so it is important to decide as a family, individual, couple, what pace you will keep over the next month so that you aren’t too tired. Here are 10 great tips from parent cue.

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3 Questions to Ask About Your Critics

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Criticism is a fact of life and leadership.

Thom Rainer said, “If you are not being criticized, you are not leading.”

If you are not being criticized, you are not leading. -Thom Rainer

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While some leaders enjoy criticism, most do not. There is also the question of, should you listen to your critics? I mean, if they are against you, can they show you anything?

The to those questions is, maybe and yes.

The reality is, you can’t not listen to your critics because you hear them. You can’t drown out their voices because they exist.

While there are many questions, you should ask of your critics to discern if you should listen to them. Here are three questions I’ve found helpful:

3 surprising questions to ask of your critics.

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1. What does this person stand to lose if my vision gets fulfilled? The reason criticism happens is you are proposing a change. That’s what leadership, vision, and direction do. They change things. They push the status quo. When you have a goal or dream, you are saying something needs to be different.

It’s interesting in the book of Nehemiah, that as he is rebuilding the wall, his most prominent critics stand to lose the most. For your critics, it could be financial, influence, a change in a relationship, but as a leader, when you experience criticism, you must figure out what that person is losing or stands to lose. Almost always, not always, but almost always they stand to lose something, so they are criticizing to keep things as they are.

Why?

People don’t like to lose what they have. People don’t want to lose the comfort of something. Now, this doesn’t make you as a leader right or make your vision right, but it is an essential piece of information.

2. Does this person care about me and want the best for me? Picture this, someone gives you feedback or criticism and then says, “I’m only telling you this because I love you.” That might be true, but that’s also why there are two parts to this question. Does the person who is criticizing me care/love me and want the best for me? Wanting the best for someone is different than wanting them to succeed.

Asking if they want the best for me questions if they are in my corner and if they have a vested interest in me or the things I care about accomplishing. Many of your critics do not have a vested interest in something. If you’re a pastor, think about the number of critics you have had that have left your church. They didn’t have a vested interest in that; they just wanted to complain. If they had a vested interest, they would stay to work through the difficulty to see something great come about in your church.

Now, this doesn’t mean you don’t’ listen to someone; it just means how much weight you give to it.

3. Is this person projecting any of their fears, failures or story onto me? This last one is important because much of the criticism you get comes from the stories of the person giving the criticism. Whether it is a fear they have, a failure they’ve experienced or the narrative fo their family of origin. You can’t always discern this, but if you can, you can at least have a conversation with the critic about what the issue is. Often, the problem is not what they are criticizing, and often, they are not angry at you.

I remember taking a counseling class and the teacher said, “when people get angry at the church, often there is an authority figure in their life (boss, spouse, parent) that they are angry at, but they can’t do anything about it or feel powerless, so they take their anger and hurt out on the closest authroity figure, which is the church or the pastor.” This has proven correct time and again. Each time I meet with someone who is leaving our church, half the meeting is about a relationship in their life they are angry about or feel powerless to do anything about. The church is just getting the brunt of it. This is an excellent opportunity for you to pastor someone if they are open to it.

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232 Leadership Quotes from the 2018 Leadership Summit

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Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit. To capture what I’m learning and to help you grow as a leader, I always share my notes from each session, so be sure to check back after each session and bookmark them for future use.

Below, you will find all the posts from all the sessions I attended this year. Thanks for reading along!

  1. 32 Leadership Quotes from Craig Groeschel on what it means to be a leader people love to follow.
  2. 16 Leadership Quotes from Angela Ahrendts on how empathy is an essential quality to great leadership.
  3. 14 Leadership Quotes from Juliet Funt on legacy.
  4. 20 Leadership Quotes from Strive Masiyiwa on what it means to be a leader who perseveres to fight for the future of our world.
  5. 11 Leadership Quotes from T.D. Jakes.
  6. 26 Leadership Quotes from Carla Harris on how to achieve your potential and become the leader you were created to be.
  7. 10 Leadership Quotes from Danny Meyer on creating a customer-focused culture, which churches can always grow in.
  8. 23 Leadership Quotes from Danielle Strickland on men and women in the workplace (and church) and looked at the challenges associated with power dynamics in organizational culture.
  9. 21 Leadership Quotes from John Maxwell on how to maximize your impact as a high-character leader in our world today.
  10. 12 Leadership Quotes from Rasmus Ankersen on the mindset cultivated by successful brands to create sustainable success in our organizations.
  11. 8 Leadership Quotes from David Livermore on how leaders can relate effectively to diverse situations.
  12. 16 Leadership Quotes from Sheila Heen on how to navigate difficult conversations on our teams.
  13. 23 Leadership Quotes from Erwin McManus on what it means to lead a life that matters and how great leaders intentionally build the future.
  14. My 5 biggest takeaways from the summit.

 

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2018 Leadership Summit – 23 Leadership Quotes from Erwin McManus

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Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit. This year, there is a shadow hanging over the summit as I outlined here, but I’m still trusting that it will have some incredibly helpful content, just like in past years. To capture what I’m learning and to help you grow as a leader, I always share my notes from each session, so be sure to check back after each session and bookmark them for future use.

The second session of the second day featured a talk by Erwin McManus. He looked at what it means to lead a life that matters and how great leaders intentionally build the future.

The following are some takeaways:

  1. The greatest battles we fight are within ourselves.
  2. We are afraid that we have something inside of us that will never be actualized.
  3. We’re haunted that we might never live up to what is inside of us.
  4. We know our life is supposed to matter and were scared it won’t.
  5. If you put your life in God’s hand, it will go further than you could ever go on your own.
  6. I’m amazed at how many people need permission to get started but no one needs permission to quit.
  7. You need to treat every moment and day as sacred and essential.
  8. Your freedom is on the other side of your fears. 
  9. The things of God can only be accessed if you will step through your fears.
  10. If you don’t deal with the paralyzing fear, you will never reach where you supposed to be.
  11. So many of us only have the structure to lead when the world is at peace and things are easy.
  12. Your greatness is on the other side of your pain. 
  13. What you fear has mastery over your life.
  14. What you fear establishes the boundaries of your freedom.
  15. A lot of think our pain is the boundary of our limitations. Our pain is the boundary of our greatness.
  16. We need to learn how to walk in our pain.
  17. If you aren’t alive before death, you will be afraid of death.
  18. For many people, their pain will define them.
  19. Your future is on the other side of your failures. 
  20. People always want to define us by our worst moments.
  21. God does not define you by your worst moments, he defines you by His best moments.
  22. We want God to meet us in our faith but He meets us in our faithfulness. 
  23. Your faith doesn’t make life easier, your faith makes you stronger.
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2018 Leadership Summit – 16 Leadership Quotes from Sheila Heen

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Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit. This year, there is a shadow hanging over the summit as I outlined here, but I’m still trusting that it will have some incredibly helpful content, just like in past years. To capture what I’m learning and to help you grow as a leader, I always share my notes from each session, so be sure to check back after each session and bookmark them for future use.

The first session of the second day featured a talk by Sheila Heen, who is the Founder of the Triad Consulting Group and on the Faculty of the Harvard Law School. Her talk focused on a process to navigate difficult conversations on our teams.

The following are some takeaways:

  1. To the extent that you have difficult conversations as a leader, it says that you care a lot about what you are doing and having the most significant impact you can and that you care a lot about the people you are doing it with.
  2. In difficult conversations, we have to look beyond what we’re saying and look at what is in our internal voice and what we’re feeling.
  3. Difficult conversations are when our internal voice is turned up too loudly.
  4. People’s internal voices are pre-occupied with predictable things every time.
  5. Every difficult conversation has the same underlying structure.
  6. The story in our head is driven by key questions: who’s right (What feels safe, what I can defend)? Who’s fault is it (the fault tells us who the problem is)? Why is the other person acting this way (what are their intentions, why are they being so difficult)?
  7. The more frustrated we are about the other person, the more likely we are to tell a negative story and think that something is wrong with them.
  8. By the time something becomes a difficult conversation, we have a business problem and how we each feel treated by the other.
  9. The deeper problem (how we treat each other) will come up another time.
  10. Identity is the story we tell about who we are and what the situation suggests about us: am I competent, am I worthy of love and respect?
  11. The first step to a difficult conversation is changing the story you’re telling in your head.
  12. Instead of asking who’s right, ask what we think this conversation is about.
  13. Instead of asking who’s fault is it, ask what did we do to contribute to this situation.
  14. Contribution can be reasonable things to do, they just didn’t help.
  15. Instead of asking why are they acting this way, to separate intentions from the impact.
  16. To influence other people, be open to influence yourself.
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2018 Leadership Summit – 8 Leadership Quotes from David Livermore

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Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit. This year, there is a shadow hanging over the summit as I outlined here, but I’m still trusting that it will have some incredibly helpful content, just like in past years. To capture what I’m learning and to help you grow as a leader, I always share my notes from each session, so be sure to check back after each session and bookmark them for future use.

The first session of the second day featured a talk by David Livermore. He’s the President of the Cultural Intelligence Center and a Best-selling Author. He shared research on how leaders can relate effectively to diverse situations. It was fascinating.

The following are some takeaways:

  1. It is our mistakes that help us improve as leaders far more than our successes.
  2. Cultural intelligence is the ability to work effectively together when people are from different cultural backgrounds.
  3. The number one characteristic of a culturally intelligent leader is their curiosity.
  4. Culturally intelligent leaders understand what makes people different.
  5. Leaders should fight against the fear to learn from others.
  6. Leaders need to channel their curiosity and what they’re learning and turn that into a strategy.
  7. Leaders need to understand the culture they’re from and how adaptable their culture at their company is to people outside of their culture.
  8. Diversity has the potential to lead to innovation and growth, but only if the leaders have a high cultural intelligence.