Posted on Thursday, August 10, 2017

Notes from Bill Hybels on “The Kind of Leadership our World Needs” @ the Leadership Summit

by Joshua Reich

I’m at the leadership summit with the team from Revolution Church. This is by far the best leadership conference of the year. This is my 14th summit and every year, God stretches me and challenges me. 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.

I love how every year Bill Hybels starts the summit by reminding us of the stakes of leadership. Such a needed, yearly reminder.

Here are some takeaways from the first session with Bill Hybels:

There is great power in believing in the possibility of leadership in people.
Someone believed in you as a leader before you ever led anything. They saw something in you.

Who saw leadership in you before you saw it in you? @BillHybels #GLS17

There is so much power in expressing your belief in other people.
There is so much power when we encourage younger leaders.

Our world has a civility problem, and it needs leaders to change the course of our world. @BillHybels #GLS17

How do leaders lead in an era of divisiveness and disrespect? The solution has to begin with me as a leader.
All I can control is me and how I ask those around me to live and work.

10 rules for respect & civility every leader must obey. @billhybels #GLS17

10 rules for respect every leader must obey

Leaders set the example of how to differ with others without demonizing them.
Leaders must set the example of how to have spirited conversations without drawing blood.
Leaders must not interrupt others who are talking and must not dominate the conversation.
Leaders must set the example of limiting their volume levels and refuse to use belittling words.
Leaders must set the example of being courteous in word and deed.
Leaders must never stereotype.
Leaders must apologize when they’re wrong.
Leaders must form opinions carefully and stay open minded if better information comes along.
Leaders must set the example of showing up when they say they will show up.
Leaders must set rules of respect and enforce them relentlessly.

Civility code

We will greet each other and acknowledge each other.
We will say please and thank you.
We will treat each other with respect.
We will be direct, sensitive and honest.
We will address incivility whenever it occurs.

Leadership succession

How to set up your church for success by thinking through succession. @BillHybels #GLS17

Questions about succession:

Who will make the decision on succession? Who has the final decision power?
When will the decision be made? When will the succession happen?
How will this transition be led?

Learnings on Succession:

Lessons on leadership succession from @BillHybels #GLS17

Doing the hard work up front, really helps.
If a succession plan is long and complicated enough, it will motivate every leader to want to move on. Don’t let it drag on.
A long plan can make a drag on the vision of an organization.
Asking leaders to live in limbo can be very disruptive to a leadership team and staff.
It’s hard and complicated and it gets delicate.
As difficult as it is to build a high performing organization, it is harder to transition one.
Begin understanding that everything you lead and do is a season.
Is God writing an ending to your current season or role?

Challenges for leaders:

Spend 15 minutes each morning, read and reflect on your life, your leadership, your character, faith and family. Leaders who crash squeeze reflection time out of their life.
Make this the year of the grander vision. Choose an organization in your area that is doing great things and get behind them. At a certain point, mere financial success should bore you.
Measure the health of the culture of your organization. The culture will only be as healthy as the top leader wants it to be.
Do you have a personal betterment plan for your leadership in the coming year? How will you grow as a leader? Take responsibility for growing as a leader.
Are you leading on the home front as well as you are at work? The scorecard in people’s minds is money, but that is not what lasts.

5 leadership challenges for every leader from @BillHybels #GLS17

Posted on Thursday, August 3, 2017

The Halfway Point of the Year & the Top 10 Posts of July

by Joshua Reich

It’s the middle of summer.

In Tucson, where I live, the monsoon’s are in full swing and school is back in session.

The year is more than halfway over.

Hopefully you are closer to the goals you set at the start of the year.

If not, don’t fear.

The year isn’t over and it isn’t too late to hit restart and try again.

In case you missed them, here are the top 10 posts of the month of July. Hopefully, they are encouraging to you but also help you reach the goals you have as a leader and a person. Thanks for reading!

Posted on Friday, April 28, 2017

Links for Leaders 4/28/17

by Joshua Reich

It’s the weekend. The perfect time to grab a cup of coffee and catch up on some reading. Here are 6 articles & podcasts I came across this week that I found helpful as a leader and parent and hope you do as well.

Ever wonder what is holding you back in your life or leadership? Here are 7 things that if eliminated, will raise the lid of your life and leadership.

I always tell leaders and couples they need to find someone older, further down the road than they are and learn from them. Here’s a list of 22 things one pastor learned after 42 years in ministry. This is gold. Thanks for sharing Ron.

It is easy as a leader to keep running faster and faster and not deal with the things in your heart and soul. Chuck Lawless has 10 questions every leader should ask each week, that I found to be incredibly helpful.

As kids get older, they need certain adults in their life to help them grow and mature, not only as people, but as followers of Jesus. A parent plays a crucial role in this. Kara Powell shares some great insights on this podcast about who these adults are.

We all know that the best work is accomplished when we are able to focus and concentrate. We don’t have our best ideas when we are multi-tasking and running from one thing to the next, but we rarely make time or schedule time to focus. Here are 3 ideas from a great book called Deep Work that will help you with that.

If you’ve been a reader of this blog for any length of time, you know that I love books and think reading is the key to growth and success in life and leadership. But how important is reading? Does it really move the needle that much? Here’s the answer.

Posted on Friday, August 12, 2016

John Maxwell on “The One Thing to Get Right” from the Leadership Summit 2016

by Joshua Reich

I’m at the leadership summit with the team from Revolution Church. This is by far the best leadership conference of the year. This is my 13th summit and every year, God stretches me and challenges me. 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.

I was so excited when I saw that John Maxwell was going to be speaking at the summit. He has so much wisdom and insights into leadership (and is the king of one liners!). His talk was based on his new book Intentional Living: Choosing a Life That Matters.

Here are some takeaways:

The return is amazing when you pour into leaders.
Leaders add value to people.

Leaders add value to people. @JohnCMaxwell

Everything rises and falls on leadership. Leaders lift.
Before a leader can lead anyone, you have to find the person.
To turn something around, you have to become very intentional.

To turn something around, you have to become very intentional. @JohnCMaxwell

Leaders add value to people.
Adding value to people is the core of leadership.

Are you adding value to people or are you wanting people to add value to you? @JohnCMaxwell

There is a thin line between motivating people and manipulating people.
There are 3 questions followers ask leaders: Do you like me? Can you help me? Can I trust you?
People are asking will this leader add value to my life?
Everything worthwhile is uphill all the way.
The problem: people have uphill hopes and downhill habits.

The problem: people have uphill hopes and downhill habits. @JohnCMaxwell

The only way to make the change you need to change is to be intentional.
There is no thing like accidental achievement.
Intentional living is deliberate.
Selfishness and significance are incompatible.

Selfishness and significance are incompatible. @JohnCMaxwell

The problem is people don’t need their life, they accept their life.
Christ followers have to ask if they are going to spend their life connecting with people or correcting people.

5 ways to add value to people everyday.

5 Things to do Everyday to Add Value to People

To add value to people you must value people.
To add value to people you have to think of ways to add value to people. Who am I going to see today and how can I add value to them?
To add value to people you have to look for ways to add value to people.
To add value to people, you must go from knowing to doing. Ask at the end of the day, did I add value to people today?
To add value to people you must encourage others to add value to people.

Posted on Thursday, August 11, 2016

Jossy Chacko on “Unquestionable Ways to Expand Your Leadership Reach” from the Leadership Summit 2016

by Joshua Reich

I’m at the leadership summit with the team from Revolution Church. This is by far the best leadership conference of the year. This is my 13th summit and every year, God stretches me and challenges me. 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.

Jossy Chacko talked about Unquestionable Ways to Expand Your Leadership Reach and really made me want to read his book Madness!: One man’s crazy Idea to transform ASIA and beyond. He used Matthew 25 and the parable of the talents and how that applies to leaders and churches.

He talked about how to expand your leadership reach through enlarging your vision, empowering your people and embracing risk.

Here are some takeaways:

All of us have been trusted with something, how are we proving ourselves to be trusted with more?
Faithfulness is not sitting with what you have been given. Maintaining things is not God’s plan and God’s mission. Faithfulness is expanding.
Multiply the small things God has entrusted with you, He will give you more.

How to Expand your Leadership Reach

Enlarge your vision.

Don’t play it safe.
Do you talk more about maintenance or multiplication of your vision?
When people hear your vision, they should know the size and scale of your God.

When people hear your vision, they should know the size and scale of your God. -Jossy Chacko

Trust what God has put in you, don’t listen to people who are against your vision or say it isn’t possible.
Enlarging your vision is about staying focused and allowing your horizon to get bigger.
If your vision is to keep what you have, you will miss the opportunities around you.

Empower Your People

Focus on building the character before you empower them.
People don’t fail because of lack of information but lack of character.
Empowerment has to be through relationship.
Agree on the right outcomes and systems.

Embrace risk

Risk and faith are the same thing.
Without risk (faith) it is impossible to please God.
Without risk, we move from pioneering to preserving.
See risk as your friend to love, not your enemy to be feared.
Fear is not from God, that’s from the devil.
Your vision needs to be hinged on the doors of risk.
See comfort and safety as your enemies.
Comfort, safety and risk cannot coexist.
If you don’t take that step of risk/faith, who will miss out?

Who is missing out because you aren’t taking that step of faith that God has called you to? -Jossy Chacko

To lead, you must increase your pain threshold.
Your leadership capacity is in direct relation to your pain threshold.

Your leadership capacity is in direct relation to your pain threshold. -Jossy Chacko

Next steps

Make a list of all the dreams and visions God has given to you.
Put a date you will complete them.
Put a name next to those dreams who will hold you accountable.

Posted on Thursday, August 11, 2016

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

by Joshua Reich

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

Posted on Monday, July 25, 2016

How to Not be so Serious (And Enjoy Summer Vacation)

by Joshua Reich

Most leaders are serious people. We are determined, goal oriented and focused, which means we often don’t know how to let go, have fun and laugh.

Summer is a great time to reorient ourselves as leaders and enjoy life.

So, leader to leader, here are some ways to enjoy life (this summer and into the future):

How to enjoy summer.

Do something spontaneous.
Laugh.
Watch a funny movie.
Read a novel that has nothing to do with leadership.
Sleep in.
Stay up late.
Eat ice cream late at night.
Take a last minute road trip.
Take a long walk.
Lie on the couch.
Make paper airplanes.
Build a Lego set with your kids.
Play a game with your kids.
Cook a meal you’ve wanted to try.
Splurge and go to that expensive restaurant.
Lie out in the sun and get a tan.
Collect sea shells at the beach.
Ride a roller coaster.
Take your spouse on a date.
Get a massage.

There are a bunch of ways you can enjoy life, so go do it!

Posted on Monday, May 16, 2016

When You Feel Hopeless as a Leader

by Joshua Reich

At some point as a leader, you will feel hopeless. As a pastor it will more than likely happen after the weekend. It is hard to keep hope alive all the time as a leader. I often read people on Twitter who are overly positive, and I wonder, “Are they really like that? Is life really that exciting for them all the time?” Then I feel like I’m doing something wrong as a leader because that isn’t me.

Should a leader be hope filled? Yes. A leader should carry the banner of hope and excitement. You are the main vision carrier of your church.

Will you always feel like doing that? Probably not. At some point you will feel like you have no hope and like you don’t want to go on.

So, what do you do then?

Here are some things I do when I feel hopeless:

5 things to do when you feel hopeless.

Pray. While this seems like the expected answer, it isn’t the easiest thing to do. Often as a leader, our last thought is to pray. We want to think, strategize, vent, read a book, figure out how to get out of this funk. Spend some quiet time with Jesus.
Talk to trusted friends. A leader needs people to vent to, people who can help to shoulder the weight, people who know the weight a leader carries.
Sleep. Much of the hopelessness we feel as leaders comes from the fact that we are tired and need rest.
Do something active or fun. This helps to balance out the chemicals in your body. Take a hike, workout, have sex with your spouse, play with your kids. Do something fun, something recharging.
Know that this won’t last forever. Hopelessness feels like the end of the world. That’s why we call it hopelessness. This won’t last forever. Tomorrow will come, another sermon will happen. This is a season that might last a day, a week or a month, but it is a season.

5 ways to deal with hopelessness as a leader.

Posted on Monday, May 9, 2016

How to Recover from Preaching

by Joshua Reich

If I got to rank what I love about my job, preaching would be in the top two. I love the prep, working through a passage, a series, thinking through how to best present an idea, and praying about those who will be there, that God would work in their lives and draw them to Himself through my meager attempts at presenting His Word.

There is a downside to this love. It is what happens after preaching. The recovery.

I remember when Katie and I met with a doctor to talk about how to handle the adrenaline that goes with preaching, the emotional, relational and spiritual drain that it can be. (I’ve heard of pastors who sleep for days after preaching because their bodies can’t handle the adrenaline.) The doctor asked, “Is it like teaching a class?” It’s different for one reason – eternities hang in the balance. I heard one pastor describe preaching as “reaching into the road to hell and pulling people back.” (I realize there are some possible theological problems with that, but you get the point.)

The crash a pastor experiences the day after preaching can be brutal. Your whole body aches, your eyes hurt, you feel as low as you have felt all week. For me, I am often so stiff that I can’t bend down to pick something up off the floor after preaching.

So what do you do?

5 ways to recover from preaching.

Manage stress. Keep the day before and after preaching as stress free as possible. Don’t have meetings; stay focused on preaching and recovering.
Recharge. I do something that recharges me. Hiking, running, playing with my kids, reading a book, drinking coffee with Katie. Read something that recharges you or takes your mind off church. This can be a novel or a spiritual book that challenges your own heart and soul as a human.
Encouragement. Have some people who call/text to encourage you afterward. Have elders or friends check in with you to ask how they can pray for you, encourage you and let you know that they are lifting you and your family up in prayer.
Eating. Most pastors are notoriously poor eaters. What you eat before and after preaching is incredibly important. What you eat will make it easier or harder to preach, to sleep, to recover. Make sure you also drink enough water to stay hydrated.
Move forward. As quickly as possible, move on to next week. Regardless of how your weekend went, good or bad, the next weekend is coming very quickly. So move on. Don’t dwell on what happened (especially if it was bad). Celebrate what God did, learn from what you did poorly, but move on.

5 things to do this Monday if you are a pastor.

Posted on Monday, May 2, 2016

When your Church Should Move

by Joshua Reich

When it comes to real estate, the old cliche of location, location, location is king. Your location matters. There is a corner near my house that no matter what restaurant goes into that corner, it never survives. I’m sure you have something like that in your city.

The same is true for churches.

Location matters.

The location of your church is one of the most important decisions you make as a pastor.

Not only in terms of space and what kind of ministry you can do, but what and who is around you.

If you attend or lead a church, I want you to think for a minute about where your church is located and who is around that location. The people who live there, are they old or young? Hipster or middle age? Are they wealthy, middle class, below the poverty line, or a mixture? Think in terms of nationality and ethnic backgrounds.

It is easy to overlook this as a church and keep humming along.

A good missionary, though, thinks about who is around them.

Now the second question: Who are you as a church and as a leader best suited to reach?

This is a hard question and can feel like you are picking and choosing who to reach (which you aren’t). You are simply asking who you are as a leader and who your church is.

Often God lines up who we are with where we are.

I have a friend who planted a church in a bilingual community where almost everyone lives below the poverty line. Why? He grew up in a community like that and understood the struggles. I have another friend who planted in one of the most suburban places in America. Why? He grew up in one of the most suburban places in America and understood the idols and struggles of that community.

Here is the tricky part: What if who you are best suited to reach is not where your church is?

What if who you are best suited to reach is not where your church is?

This happens to older churches who watch a neighborhood change around them.

You have two options at this point: one, change things to reach those around you, or two, move to where those people and cultures live.

The question a leader and a church must answer is which path to take. Both can be right.

While this is something church planters and missionaries think through as they embark on their leadership, this is something churches and pastors must continually consider as their church grows and ages. This is being a good missionary as a leader, and as your city changes it will mean some changes to your church and maybe even some hard decisions.

Your church might be in the wrong location if…