Leadership Is A Relationship

One of my professors at seminary used to say that he loved the students at our school, because they would all “charge hell with a water gun”. He meant it as a complement.  I had many classmates who were passionate and eager to make a difference in the world. They were willing to go wherever and do whatever to make lives better. There were others, however, who were simply eager to be in charge.

Many people want to lead, but struggle once they are in a position of leadership. A DailyMail.com article found that nearly 40% of the highest paid CEO’s in America had faced action due to poor performance in the past 20 years.1 These leaders were the best and the brightest, and were paid incredible money to bring success to their companies. This trend doesn’t exist only in the highest profile jobs. Leadership breakdowns happen everywhere. While there are a lot of different reasons that  leaders  fail, one that seems to show up again and again is when leaders fail to recognize the relational component of leadership. Leadership is a relationship, and when it’s not treated as one, it’s doomed to fail.  Here are a couple of relational truths that will make you a better leader:

Leadership Means Leading People

There are a ton of great leadership theories. Many great leaders have written books about how they turned around their companies or improved their churches or schools. While these stories are powerful, they can not be blindly applied to every situation. Leadership means leading people. You must meet your people where they are, and to do that you have to take the time to get to know them. What works in one context or setting may not work in another. Knowing how to relate with those you work with will help you understand how to lead them.

Have Honest Expectations

No one’s perfect. You are not and neither are the people you lead. There’s nothing wrong with casting an incredible vision for your company or church, one that seems almost impossible. It’s something else entirely to demand the impossible from your staff or employees. Unrealistic expectations erode confidence and will eventually cause those who work for you to quit or rebel. Be ambitious but honest in your expectations.

Always Leave Your Door Open

A work place is only relational if communication can flow both ways. If you only talk to (or at) your employees, they will soon believe that you don’t care about them and only see them as a means to an end. Be open for feedback. Take time to hear people out. Listening to critiques or the other side of the argument doesn’t make you weak. After you have heard someone out, you may choose to continue on with your opinion, but occasionally you may gain insight that you didn’t have before, allowing you to change direction and be more effective.

Leadership is a relationship, and if you fail to recognize that, your leadership will likely fail as well. Respect and take care of the people who follow you, not only will you win as a leader, but you will be winning in life. 

1-http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2405299/Americas-highest-paid-CEOs-fired-fined-bailed-out.html

How To Take Care of Your Most Valuable Asset

I enjoy cooking and playing around in the kitchen. We have a new knife in our home (a very generous wedding gift), and I adore it. It is balanced and razor sharp. I am constantly looking for things to chop, dice, or julienne. Most people think that the sharper a knife is, the more dangerous it is. That's not actually true.  More accidents happen with dull knives than with sharp ones. The duller the knife, the more pressure you have to exert. More exertion increases the chances of the knife slipping and cutting you. The author of the book  Ecclesiastes wrote that this is true not only of knives, but of life itself. He wrote, “If the iron is blunt, and one does not sharpen the edge, he must use more strength, but wisdom helps one to succeed.” (Ecclesiastes 10:10) Sharpening a knife is like taking time to work on me. Stephen Covey calls this process “sharpening the saw”. Staying “sharp” makes us more effective at home, work, and with friends. Here are a couple of ways to stay sharp:

Make Time To Read

Reading is a chance to open ourselves up to other thoughts and perspectives. All your reading doesn’t have to be related to your job. Read a novel. Check out a collection of poetry that you have been curious about. Subscribe to a blog. There are tons of valuable voices out there that can help you grow and see the world in a new way.

Make Time To Pray

For Christians, it's easy for prayer to be something that we talk about but rarely do. Prayer reminds me that I’m not alone in the challenges I am facing. It connects me to a God who loves me and cares about the details of my day. Prayer allows me to focus on the fact that there is a bigger purpose and plan to my life. Ancient writer and prophet Jeremiah, reminded his nation of that fact. He told them that God had a good future in mind for them. His plans would offer them hope for their future (Jeremiah 29:11).  We often need to be reminded of that as well.

Make Time For Silence And Solitude

Take a walk and leave your ear buds at home. Shut out all the sounds that can clutter your day. Sometimes you need to be alone to give your brain a chance to re-calibrate itself. Taking a break from the hectic pace of life, even for just a few minutes, can improve your mental clarity. It allows you to see that the things that seemed so important a few minutes ago, might not be as critical as you had imagined (Did I just get into an argument about mashed potatoes?!). Getting away and getting quiet is like adjusting the valve on a pressure cooker. We are able to relax and release some of the stress and pressure that have been building up. Less stress means that you are less likely to do or say something that you will regret later.

Your relationships and work are important to you. So, cut out time in your day to take care of yourself. The sharper you are the more success you will have. 

Photo Courtesy of  Death To Stock Photo

"Sharpening the Saw" is one of Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People from the book by the same title. It is possibly the greatest book on leadership and personal growth in existence. Seriously, go read it.

Why Leaders Fail: And Two Things You Can Do To Avoid It

A DailyMail.com article found that nearly 40% of the highest paid CEO’s in America had faced action due to poor performance in the past 20 years. These leaders were the best and the brightest, and were paid incredible amounts of money to bring success to their companies. This trend doesn’t only exist only in the highest profile jobs. Leadership breakdowns happen everywhere. While there are a lot of different factors that can cause leaders to fail, one that seems to show up again and again is when leaders fail to recognize the relational component of leadership. Leadership is a relationship, and when it’s not treated as one, it’s doomed to fail. Being a good leader means being committed to relational health. Here are a couple of relational reminders that will make you a better leader:

Have Honest Expectations

No one’s perfect. You are not and neither are the people you lead. There’s nothing wrong with casting an incredible vision for your company or church, one that seems almost impossible. It’s something else entirely to demand the impossible from your staff or employees. Unrealistic expectations and demands erode confidence and will eventually cause those who work for you to quit or rebel. Be ambitious but honest in your expectations.

Always Leave Your Door Open

Relationships are only relational if communication can flow both ways. If you only talk to (or at) your employees, they will soon believe that you don’t care about them and think that you only see them as a means to an end (which hopefully isn't true).  Be open for feedback. Take time to hear people out. Listening to critiques or the other side of an argument doesn’t make you weak. After you have heard someone out, you may choose to still stay the course, but occasionally you may gain insight that you didn’t have before, allowing you to change direction and be more effective.

Leadership is a relationship, and if you fail to recognize that, your leadership will likely fail as well. Respect and take care of the people who follow you, not only will you be winning as a leader, but you will be winning in life. 

The DailyMail.com article that I referenced above can be found here

Photo courtesy of Death To Stock Photo

Friday Finds - September 12

This week's Finds are all in video form! It's been a long week, kick off your shoes, curl up with your laptop and be inspired by some truly amazing leaders!

N.T. Wright should be mandatory reading for all Christians. He is intelligent, compassionate, and is able to write and speak in ways that are guaranteed to make you think.

          N.T. Wright - Look at Jesus

Miroslav Volf has spoken more passionately and with greater conviction about forgiveness than any theologian on the planet. His incredible book , Exclusion and Embrace is one of the best on forgiveness ever written.

          Miroslav Volf on Forgiveness

It’s hard to imagine a better coach or more powerful leader than John Wooden. His TedTalk is one I return to often. It is worth every second of your time….

          John Wooden - The Difference Between Success and Winning

Have a great weekend!!!!!

Photo courtesy of Death To Stock Photo

Honest But Uncomfortable Definitions: Meekness

Meekness:  

Strength restrained. People who possess this character attribute are committed to gentleness and quietness. As opposed to those who are loud, showy, and arrogant whose only strength is often in their loud words, the meek possess a strength that is much deeper and is often expressed in sacrificial love for other people. Most often found in the people you don’t ever really notice.

As you can imagine, meek people don’t seem to get very far in our world. Those who are meek are often overlooked, ignored, and at times, walked on. It doesn’t make sense to be meek. But, Jesus’ way of doing things didn’t make a lot of sense either. Unlike Harvard University, a Fortune 500 company, or professional football teams who are looking for the best and brightest, the strongest and the fastest, Jesus said that His followers would be made up of the weakest and poorest. The last person you would pick for your team would likely be Jesus’ first pick.

Imagine this, you are in charge of selecting a person for a very special assignment.  The assignment: to free over one million men, women, and children from slavery. The candidate will lead those people across miles of hazardous terrain to a place where they can live in peace. It must also be noted that other people currently live at that location. They are strong, well-fed, and live in well-defended cities. Your candidate must lead his unarmed former slaves to a military victory against them.

What sort of possible candidates would come to your mind?? It would need to be someone incredibly courageous, with the ability to motivate people with their eloquent words. It would be important that they also have military and leadership experience. Who would you choose? George Washington? Napoleon? Iron Man?

How about a gentle-natured shepherd with a speech impediment?

That’s who God selected.

 A writer of the Torah described him like this:

“Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all the people who were on the face of the earth.”                                                    

                                                                -Numbers 12:3

Moses wasn’t just a little quiet and slightly gentle. He was the most gentle and quiet man on the planet! God often selects meek people to change the world. A couple of thousand years later, Jesus would say it like this:

               

            “God blesses those who are gentle and lowly, for the whole earth will belong to them.”

                                                                                -Matthew 5:5

Although meekness rarely seems to get you ahead in this world, it does seem to matter greatly to God. God likes underdogs. So, if you are feeling trampled on and overlooked today, don’t get discouraged! God may be preparing to you change the world!

Friday Finds- May 9

Woo-Hoo!!!! It's Friday! Time to find something worth your time on the internet....

Just in time for Mother's Day! Kevin Durant's MVP acceptance speech was both humble and inspiring. The last two minutes were dedicated to his mom, who received a standing ovation after the talk.

Kevin Durant Accepts MVP Award

Travis Reed, over at The Work of the People creates amazing inspirational clips from some of today’s leading spiritual thinkers. Check out fellow UNC-Chapel Hill alum Erwin McManus as he talks about the importance of dreaming and taking risks:

Dream.Risk.Create

All Sons and Daughters have released a new album. If you haven't listened to All Sons and Daughters, it's time you did! It’s hard to find music that is both thoughtful and beautiful, and this duo combines both. Check them out here:

All Sons and Daughters

One of the foremost voices in leadership today, Michael Hyatt, talks about leadership and labradoodles, and it's well worth your time:

Michael Hyatt

Sharpening The Saw

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I’ll spend the first four sharpening the ax.”

                                                           -Abraham Lincoln

Leadership and management expert, Stephen Covey has taken Lincoln’s quote one step further. He believes that one of the essential habits of successful people is their ability to “sharpen the saw”. By this he means taking care of the tools or resources that we most often use during our daily activities. It makes whatever task we are attempting easier and more efficient. In life, your most valuable resource is you. You are the tool you use to accomplish the various challenges that you are faced with in your day. Most people rarely stop to think about how to take care of themselves, which leads to less efficiency and greater frustration in life. Here are a couple of thoughts about how take care of your most valuable resource:

Get To Sleep

Sleep is often the first casualty in our quest to become more productive and successful. It’s so easy to stay up an extra hour to finish that assignment or to wake up 30 minutes early to get a head start on the house. We can get away with neglecting sleep for a while, but eventually and inevitably it catches up to us. Our thinking becomes hazy and our emotions become unpredictable. Before long our body begins to physically shut down as well. If you want to take care of you, protect your sleep!

Get Creative

For most of us, our daily jobs don’t provide a creative outlet. If that’s the case, it’s critical that you make time to engage the creative parts of your brain. Paint, play music, landscape your yard, write, or do whatever you enjoy doing that stimulates your creativity. Engaging our creative impulses adds color to our life and reduces our stress. If you are thinking that you don’t have time for creative pursuits, then you need this outlet even more than most!

Get Alone

Even if you are an outgoing person who loves to surround themselves with people, you need some time alone. Time away from all of the distractions of life allows us to see the world in new ways. On an average day our brain is assaulted with all sorts of stimuli. There are people that need our attention and deadlines that need to be met. Music is playing everywhere we go. Horns blow on the roads and babies cry at home. Taking a few minutes to escape gives our minds a chance to sort themselves out. We are often able to prioritize the events of our day better after a break, which decreases our stress and adds much needed clarity to our day. So whether it’s a walk down the street or locking yourself in the bathroom for a few minutes, find some space to be alone today!

I hope you take time today to “sharpen the saw”, you are much too valuable a resource to be ignored!

Stephen Covey talks at length about Sharpening The Saw in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

How To Successfully Make Decisions

Posted by Michael

“The best companies don’t necessarily make right decisions all of the time, but they make clear decisions and get people rallied around them.”
                                                                -Patrick Lencioni

Whether you are running a company, your family, or just your own life, clarity makes all of the difference in the world. Clarity gives direction and relieves stress. It’s impossible to make the right decisions all of the time, which leaves us with two options: 1) Delay or make hazy/half-way decisions to avoid being wrong or 2) Make clear, honest decisions and give yourself the chance to be right. Bad decisions aren’t what normally derail us, it’s the lack of a decision that will bump us off the tracks. A couple of things to consider as you face the decisions in front of you:

Face your decisions one at a time

I know that you have a millions decisions and they all feel like they have to be made today, but you need to step back, take a deep breath, and say these words with me: “it’s not going to happen.”…at least not at this moment. What you can do this moment is make one decision. You can tackle one thing right now and put it behind you. That’s progress and that’s how mountains get moved, one rock at a time.

Remember that bad decisions are not the end.

Bad decisions are not fun. They have consequences for us, and oftentimes for the people we love. We want to make the best decisions we can, but we will never be perfect. Our destiny of imperfection is not a reason to avoid making decisions however. Making a bad decision isn’t the end of the road, no matter how painful it feels. We when find ourselves in a bad place, cursing ourselves for going left when we should have turned right, we simply need to stop, take a look at the landscape and make a new decision. Step by step we can get back to the direction we want to go in, and usually find something unexpected and good along the way. Most of the amazing discoveries in history have come on the coattails of a bad decision or misstep.

People don’t rally around perfection. They are drawn to authenticity and humility. So, make your decisions, and if they blow up, make some more. Make them the best you can, but make them regardless, you’ll find courage and increased confidence as you go.

Quotation from Patrick Lencioni's The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family: A Leadership Fable About Restoring Sanity To The Most Important Organization In Your Life.