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When a leader determines a course of action is no longer working leadership begins in earnest. What is the next step? Is it to continue, assuming the lack of effectiveness is temporary, a storm to be weathered? Or is it to shift gears and move in another direction? Leadership is taking action in such moments, knowing that certainty won’t come until farther down the road. To carry our analogy if we down shift and we are at the base of a hill, we have chosen well. We will have more power to ascend the challenge. On the other hand, if we shift into a higher gear at the base of the hill, we’ll run out of steam before reaching the top.

For those of you who aren’t acquainted with standard transmissions, and the impact of shifting to a lower or higher gear, the point is sometimes when we face a challenge we need to dig in and put more energy to overcome it. At other times we need to change direction and move away as fast as we can. The higher gear gives us speed, while the lower gear gives us power. When facing such moments, leaders tend to shift gears based on their “guts” or their experiences, or their knowledge, and each must be consulted at such moments. My natural tendency is not to seek the advice of others, because I am a natural leader. I have been a leader since childhood. The truth, though, is even if I’m not going to follow the advice of others in my organization, I am better equipped to determine whether to move away or to dig in when I have consulted those around me.

John Maxwell has often reminded us the old saying, “It’s lonely at the top,” was never spoken of a true leader. He points out we must make decisions at times from the isolation of our position as leaders, but most often if we are at the “top” it is because we have ascended the hill or mountain with a team. Isolated leadership is becoming more and more a relic, like cars with standard transmissions. Even so, as leaders we must still make hard calls at times, which no one else can make. That’s part of the definition of leadership.

So, what hills are you facing right now? What systems are accomplishing results you don’t want? What people are no longer adding value to your organization’s effectiveness? Where are you in a rut in your leadership that is impacting your bottom line personally or corporately? These are difficult questions to ask, and yet if we don’t ask them we won’t know when we need to shift gears. We won’t know when it’s time to dig in or turn in the opposite direction and step on the gas. As I remind us often, Socrates was on target when he said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” The unexamined life also leads to ruts, to loss of momentum, to ineffectiveness, because no method endures forever.

The rapidly of change in every area of our culture makes it more essential than ever to be examining both our personal and corporate actions, habits, systems and processes, and to take appropriate action when we start to lose momentum. Knowing which action to take will always be a bit of art as well as a science, and gathering input from those around us who have proven themselves trustable and astute will benefit us greatly. But at the end of the day each leader must still determine when it’s time to shift gears and move in another direction. The good news/bad news of that is once we’ve done so it won’t be long until we must do it again. After all, as the conditions of the “road” change, we must “shift” again.

Here’s to leading better by determining whether to shift and in which direction–today!

In continuing this week’s focus on what I would tell my twenty year old self about leadership, if I had the opportunity to go back and do it all again, today’s point is: Whatever You Are–Be All In! As a follower of Jesus, I’m reminded that in the Book of Revelation, Jesus told a church located in the city of Laodicea He preferred they would be either hot or cold, but because they were lukewarm and neither hot nor cold He was going to spit them out of His mouth. What a clear reminder Jesus offered: Go all in or be all out, but don’t go halfway.

I’m reminded of the saying I learned from many years of working with folks in recovery from alcohol and other drug addiction: Half measures availed nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon. Halfway doesn’t get us there. Half in doesn’t move us to action. We must make a full commitment as leaders in order to be taken seriously and in order to move others to action. I’m not talking about passion alone, but I am talking about passion. Our hearts have to be motivated if our heads and bodies are to follow. That’s true of others’ heads and bodies as well.

Last night I had the opportunity to speak at the leadership academy of a larger church in the area. Over the past couple weeks, as I thought and prayed about what to say in a two hour talk, which would likely be a once in a lifetime opportunity, what would be the most helpful thing I could say? I made three points and the first one was be all in. I realized with the opportunity to speak to younger leaders, the question of what I would tell my twenty year old self was extremely relevant. They were for the most part twenty and thirty year olds. Therefore, my opportunity was to help them include intentionality in their leadership that I had sometimes missed. Being all in with what we are is so important.

What I missed when I was going through my twenties was a 100% all in commitment to being a pastor. I came to the ministry grudgingly. I didn’t want to be a pastor, but God called me to it. I said, “Yes,” to the call after five years of seeking to avoid it during my late teens and early twenties. Instead of embracing the vocation fully, I sort of half raised my hand in saying, “Yes.” I went to seminary, and did better than average, but not my best. I worked in a couple of churches as a student pastor and exceeded the churches’ expectations, but not my own. I was always wondering whether there was another opportunity, a better opportunity.

I realize you may not be a pastor, but if you’re a leader you can certainly identify with the idea of being all in or not in what you are, and I make a point of saying what you are rather than just what you do, because while leadership is something we do, being a leader is what we are. You may be a CEO or a teacher, or a parent, and those are all tasks we do, but they are something we are, before they are something we do, at least they ought to be if we’re all in. If I had it all to do over again, if I could go back to my twenties and relive that decade, I would be all in. What a difference it would have made if I had woken up daily and taken discipline seriously every day (see yesterday’s post), and jumped into being a pastor with both feet rather than wondering whether I ought to have been a lawyer or a chiropractor or a doctor or a… so many other possibilities.

I’m not saying that in the best of scenarios we don’t at times think about the grass being greener on the other side of the fence. I’m saying if we invest our lives leading on the side of the fence we find ourselves, we will be so much more productive, effective and at the end of the day so much happier. I’ve always experienced happiness as a by-product rather than a destination. I find myself being happy when I’m all in with just about anything. Whether it’s my work, or a relationship, or even watching a television program investing myself fully makes the experience more enjoyable and I feel happier as a result.

So what about you? Are you all in right now in whatever area or areas you lead? Do you wake up fully invested in whatever it is you are called or have chosen to be? What single step would it take for you to be more fully invested, to be all in? These are vital questions, because while we don’t get to be our twenty year old self again, unless you happen to be in your twenties right now, we can be the best self we are right now, by being all in. If we can’t be all in then we ought to get out and jump into something else. I know that’s a post for another day, but the one action that has made the biggest difference in my being all in was to take a great step of faith (which some would call a great step of stupid) and leave a comfortable position with an assured future to step out in total uncertainty to follow what I was sure God was calling me to do, and to do it at the age of 41 when I had the responsibility of a wife and young family in addition to myself.

Being all in isn’t always a safe situation, but it provides motivation, clarity and a call to action that being lukewarm will never provide. If your leadership is in a rut, perhaps it’s time to ask yourself some of the tough questions in the previous paragraph and get back to being all in.

Here’s to leading better by being all in–today!

In their podcast on leadership titled 5 Leadership Questions Barnabas Piper and Todd Adkins interviewed leaders across the spectrum of life and asked them five different questions listeners would find helpful. One of those questions was usually: What would you tell your twenty year old self? Being that I will be turning 60 in June, the Lord willing, I have been asking myself that question often. This week I’m going to address three responses to the question. Here’s the first and most important: I would tell my twenty year old self to take discipline seriously daily.

Taking discipline seriously daily includes making discipline a central reality in one’s daily life. I have always taken discipline seriously, at least since I started playing organized sports. In order to become good at anything requires discipline. While dictionary definitions of discipline include punishment, instruction, a field of study, training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character, control gained by enforcing behavior or order, self-control and more, a simple and helpful definition of discipline as I’m using it here is any practice, repeated consistently, which brings mastery in an area of life. I learned discipline in organized sports because I wanted to be able to catch a fly ball, make a foul shot, carry a football without fumbling and so on. I practiced the same action over and over and over again in each sport so it would become “natural.” Isn’t that an interesting idea: practicing something that is unnatural at first so that over time it becomes natural?

In leadership discipline is essential. So many thoughts, actions and habits of a leader start out being unnatural, but must become natural if a leader is to become great. For example, every leader must learn to care more about the mission or vision of the organization than about people’s opinions. This is not natural, particularly if we happen to be extroverts who want to have lots of friends. Yet, if we don’t learn to be guided by the mission of the organization, if we don’t discipline ourselves to that end, we will find ourselves drifting away from what is necessary to what is popular.

The key point I would make to my twenty year old self is discipline isn’t a habit to be picked up when it’s comfortable, or when there’s time, or if it fits into the newest season of my life with ease. Discipline must be practiced daily. I have never had trouble with discipline in any area of my life for a moment, or a week, or even for weeks. I have always taken discipline seriously, because I have recognized without discipline I will never make the unnatural natural in my life. Where I have fallen down over and over again when it comes to discipline is the daily aspect. All too often my pattern has been to achieve “mastery” in an area of life and then to assume that because it has become natural discipline is no longer necessary or at the very least I can slack off on my discipline in this area.

If we go back to the sports analogy, I mastered catching a baseball quite early. By the time I was eight years old, I could go to the practice of my brother, Tom’s team–he was fourteen years older than I and played on an adult team– go to the outfield and shag fly balls during batting practice with extreme skill for an eight year old. While many of Tom’s teammates would at first shout, “Get that little kid off the field.” Within a few minutes they would see that not only would I not get hurt by getting hit by a batted ball, I would catch anything that was hit near me. I was quite good for my age.

Quite good for my age. That’s a dangerous place to be for any of us, especially if we’re leaders. We can rely on our natural abilities, or our developed abilities instead of continuing to discipline ourselves and continuing to grow in our abilities. I was so good at the age of eight, I decided I was going to be the left fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates when I was an adult. It was a lofty aspiration. I don’t know whether it was something that could ever have become a reality. I do know this: I didn’t take discipline seriously daily in a way that would have given me the best opportunity to find out. While I would play baseball “often” during the summer months, I didn’t practice daily. I liked water skiing, and swimming, and exploring in the forest behind my house, and you get the idea. Every day was an adventure and every day was fun growing up in the little town of Gipsy, PA, but every day was not disciplined.

If you’re thinking, “Of course every day was not disciplined,” you’re missing the point: In order to excel over time in any area of life, we must discipline ourselves daily. I found out at the age of seventeen I couldn’t hit a ninety mile per hour fastball, and my hopes of playing left field for the Pirates were dashed. I didn’t go to a batting cage and practice daily to see whether I had the skill to hit a ninety mile per hour fastball over time. I faced one pitcher who threw the ball ninety miles per hour, failed miserably, and assumed there must be other ways to fulfill my dreams. That assumption has proven correct, but time and time again, I have failed to exercise the daily discipline that would have seen me become more effective in whatever area expertise I chose.

What area is your chosen area of expertise? As a leader what are the disciplines you must have in order to make unnatural aspects of your life natural, and equally as important to make the areas where you have always been a natural or have practiced to the point that something has become natural better? There was once a commercial emphasis the importance of diligent practice, and I have forgotten the originator of the commercial but the point has stay with me. The commercial showed an NFL receiver practicing a single pattern over and over again. At the end the narrator said, “The difference between an amateur and a professional is the amateur practices until he gets it right. The professional practices until he can’t get it wrong. That’s taken discipline seriously daily.

When you and I will do that in the key areas of our leadership, our leadership will be as effective as it can be. Then we keep practicing an it gets better! I would tell my twenty year old self to determine what is essential in my life and to practice those essentials daily, to tailor my schedule to those matters, to put them in the schedule first so the non-essentials couldn’t take up so much time. I’m not crying over spilled milk. I’m reminding myself that with whatever time I have left, and it could be much time or little, the practice of taking discipline seriously daily will allow me to continue to become a more effective leader. I’m also encouraging those of you who are in your twenties, thirties and beyond to take discipline seriously daily now, because as you do, you will become the best leader you can be over time. Your leadership will grow more and more effective. Your value will increase to yourself, to others around you and to your organization. It’s a simple matter, so simple, but not so easy to do.

Here’s to leading better by taking discipline seriously daily–starting today!

As promised on Monday, today’s post focuses on creating a to do list that will help you get your goals done. Once again, I’ll be borrowing from Michael Hyatt.  I learned this “secret” from him: the key to effective to do lists is only including three significant tasks on your list in a given day. That’s right–three. My to do lists often had a couple dozen tasks on them before I went through Hyatt’s Free to Focus course. In that course he offers incredible ideas and actions for becoming more productive than ever. One of those actions is remembering that we can’t do several dozen things well in a given day. When our to do lists have dozens of tasks on them and we complete five or six, at the end of the day we will feel like failures even though we may have made significant progress or even completed an important goal.

The first time I heard him make that statement, I thought, “That’s right.” I nearly always felt like a failure at the end of a productive day, because my to do list didn’t seem to have a dent in it. The problem is our feelings of success and failure are often wrapped around the idea of finishing. If we finish the job we feel successful, but when we don’t finish we feel like failures. There’s so much that’s unhelpful and unhealthy about such an approach, as I know from decades of experiencing it. The most unhelpful aspect of getting halfway through a long to do list and feeling like a failure is it disregards that the day may have been extremely productive. For example, when I write a message for the weekend, put together a plan for a productive meeting for the next day and invest two to three hours in research for an upcoming workshop I’ll be leading that is a productive day. Yet, when my to do list had another ten or fifteen items on it that I didn’t even touch, I feel as if I failed.

What about you? How long are your to do lists? Another important question: Do your to do lists include tasks that are worthy of your efforts? Sometimes we clog our to do lists with insignificant tasks we can complete in fifteen or twenty minutes, simply because we want to have the sense of accomplishment that comes with checking an item off the list. As so many time management and life management experts remind us: we all need a to not do list, because one of the best uses of our time is to not do tasks that someone else could do, or that ought not to be done in the first place. Why not take some time today to consider whether you to do lists are helping you succeed or are contributing to your sense of failing? Why not ask yourself are the items on my to do list worthy of my pursuit? Do they contribute to the accomplishment of my major life/work goals? If the answer to those questions leaves you with a sense that you’re headed in the wrong direction, that will be time well invested, because you can make a course correction and get back on track. If, on the other hand, your answers tell you you’re already on track, then that’s time well invested as well.

Here’s to leading better by taking the time to develop to do lists that will foster your success and your completion of key goals over time–today!

As I mentioned on Monday, today we’re going to look at goal setting. Goal setting has never been one of my strengths. I’ve always been great at seeing the big picture and stepping out in faith to accomplish a big vision. What I haven’t been so great at is setting goals to break the vision down into more manageable chunks in order to see it become a reality. One of the most helpful processes I’ve found for setting goals has come from Michael Hyatt. While I’ve mentioned this in a previous post, repetition is the mother of learning, and while you may not need the reminder, I certainly do.

What Hyatt has done for us when it comes to goal setting is to take the old “SMART” goal acronym and made it “SMARTER.” While SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound; Hyatt has changed the original five aspects and added two additional ones. His “SMARTER” goals are specific, measurable, actionable, risky, time-bound, exciting and relevant. For me the two aspects of “SMARTER” goals that makes them more likely for me to achieve them are risky rather than reasonable, and exciting.

When a goal is reasonable, someone with my personality isn’t challenged to action, but risky adds the challenge. While a goal being reasonable is a helpful quality, because there’s no sense setting unreasonable goals, being reasonable isn’t something that motivates me as much as it being risky. A risky goal is challenging. By definition when something is risky it isn’t automatic. It will take great effort. For example, back in August of 2016 I set the risky goal of losing 32 pounds by the end of January. It was risky, because 32 pounds is a lot of weight. It wasn’t unreasonable, because it was only a little more than a pound per week which is quite reasonable. It was risky, though, because over the previous five months I had gained about fifteen pounds, so I wasn’t heading in the direction of losing 32.

The goal was also exciting to me, because over the years I have weighed 190 pounds, which my 32 pound weight loss goal would have me weighing once ago. At that weight life is better. Exercise is easier, and simply walking around or bending over to tie my shoes is much simpler. I was looking forward to weighing 190 pounds, and the thought of clothes fitting better was an added incentive.

Let me explain the one other added letter in the “SMARTER” goal framework, the second “r”: relevant. Hyatt explains that a goal has to be relevant to the season of life we are in at the time. For example, losing 32 pounds was relevant for me, because I wasn’t going through any kind of situation or season that would have made it impossible. The reality is I did achieve the goal. By the end of January I weighed 189 pounds. Nothing encourages additional goal setting like succeeding at accomplishing a goal. The goal was part of an overall vision of becoming more effective in every area of my life and more engaged in serving Jesus. While I’ll be turning 60 in June of this year, I see this new decade as one in which I can be more effective than ever, so long as I engage it fully. Thus, the goal of weighing 190 pounds.

I’ve actually changed the goal to living in the range of 187-193 pounds, because I have lost weight in the past only to have it “return” over time. The six pound range is reasonable, but it’s also a bit risky for me, because I’ve seldom sustained such a range after attaining it. It’s also exciting to me because I know I’ll be more productive in that range over the long haul. It is certainly relevant for my season of life.

You may not need the elements of risk and excitement in order to attain or maintain your goals. SMART goals may work well for you. If your personality is more like mine, though and the elements of risk and excitement motivate you, you may well find adding that pair of traits to your goal setting will make the difference.

Here’s to leading better, by setting “SMARTER” goals–today!

Hi Everyone! I need to apologize for not returning to the blogosphere when I returned from Cuba last week. I came back to the states with a nasty cold or some type of upper respiratory gunk, which is no excuse for failing to post anything last week. It did get me down for a few days, and with the normal stack of work that piles up any time I take a week away, I failed to make Helping Leaders Lead Better a priority. So, as the title states: I’m very sorry. Please, forgive me.

This week we’re going to address an obvious weakness in my leadership, which we’ve addressed before, and which is a challenge for many of us. While some of us came out of the womb organized and able to set goals and make to do lists that give us the ability to achieve them, I’ve worked all my adult life on determining what is most important and then pursuing that. If setting priorities and goals and then developing the actions necessary to achieve them is not a challenge for you, I’d welcome a comment as to how you’ve succeeded in determining what needs to be accomplished and then to getting it done.

For the remainder of this post, I’m going to address keeping the main thing the main thing. Then on Wednesday we’ll look at setting goals and on Friday we’ll consider what kind of to do list will help us be the most productive. So, how do we keep the main thing the main thing? For starters, we have to know what the main thing is. In every type of endeavor there is a main thing. For me as the leader of a healthy, growing local church, the main thing is to help people who don’t now Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord come to know Him, and to help those who do to grow up and live as a committed follower of Jesus.

For you the main thing may be developing the next product for your company that will keep you or make you the leader in your specialty. If you lead a non-profit, the main thing may be an ideal, or a particular type of social action, or practical provision. As a leader, particularly if you are the CEO, the president, the lead pastor, or the one in charge, the main thing for you is to determine the main thing and state it clearly. Only then will you e ale to keep the main thing, the main thing.

I’m always amazed when I speak with another pastor and ask them what his or her main thing is, and don’t receive an answer. Or “I never rally thought about that.” Or “We’re so busy with survival, we don’t really have much time to create a vision of where we’re going, or of what’s the main thing.” I get it. I get it at least in this regard: daily life is so daily. It fills up with challenges, questions, routines and tasks that need to be accomplished, and they’re a lot easier, or urgent than sitting down and taking the time to consider the main thing. After all, if we stay busy all day we must be leading, right? Not necessarily. Busyness isn’t the same as carrying out the business in which we’re engaged. Our activity often produces more heat than light.

Why not take some time right now and ask yourself, “What is the main thing for me as a leader?” The answer may be both personal and corporate, that is you may need to make or continue some personal priorities, which will allow you to be healthy enough to address the corporate main thing for which your responsible as a leader. If you ask, “What is my main thing?” from a corporate standpoint and you aren’t clear, it’s essential for you to take some time and get clear. After all, it’s awfully hard to get to your destination if you don’t know where that is. It doesn’t really matter that we’re making good time if we’re lost.

As you pause to reflect on your main thing, you may do well to bring some others in your organization on board as well. If you’re already clear about the main thing, ask the next level of leadership whether they are? What about those who are “on the floor,” if your in an assembly line business, or the members if you’re in a church or other type of voluntary organization? Can everyone state the main thing in a clear, concise way? When everyone’s on the same page about why we exist it’s considerably easier to start setting goals and moving toward attaining them. More about that on Wednesday and Friday!

Here’s to leading better by taking time to make sure we know what the main thing is, so we can keep it the main thing–today and tomorrow!

Hi Everyone! I’ll be off this week, because I’m on a mission trip. Pastors Brad, Alex and I from New Life will be teaching 150 indigenous missionaries and pastor from February 6-10, so please remember us in prayer.  I’ll resume regular posts on Monday, February 13th!

Hi Everyone! I’ll be off this week, because I’m on a mission trip. Pastors Brad, Alex and I from New Life will be teaching 150 indigenous missionaries and pastor from February 6-10, so please remember us in prayer.  I’ll resume regular posts on Monday, February 13th!

Hi Everyone! I’ll be off this week, because I’m on a mission trip. Pastors Brad, Alex and I from New Life will be teaching 150 indigenous missionaries and pastor from February 6-10, so please remember us in prayer.  I’ll resume regular posts on Monday, February 13th!

I’ll be out of town next week, working with a team of eight others, presenting leadership lessons to a group of Spanish-speaking pastors and missionaries. This will be my seventh trip of this kind over the past six years. Here are some takeaways I’ve received from the opportunity to lead in a different culture.

First, relationship is always the key to genuine leadership. Because I’ve been to the same place over the past several years, some of those attending the conferences from year-to-year remember me. Because I’ve taken the time to get to know their names, and to learn a bit about them, they know I care and I’m there for them. That opens their receptivity to hearing what I have to say wide. As the old cliche puts it, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

The next takeaway for me has been learning to communicate at least nominally in their language goes a long way to gaining credibility to lead. Americans are known for expecting everyone to speak English. Because I’ve invested the time to communicate possibly in Spanish, people take note. I haven’t done it so I’ll be credible, I’ve done it because I genuinely want to communicate with them in their own language, but an added benefit is they know I care enough about them to work at listening to them and speaking with them in Spanish.

Learning the subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle cultural differences between us, has been another benefit when it comes to being received as a leader.  We all find it easy to assume that our way is the “right” way, but as I’ve discovered in all my relationships over time, while sometimes a “right” way exists to say or do something, often my way is simply one way to say or do it. In learning the nuances of the culture and particular being able to joke with the folks in an appropriate way has opened the doors much wider for my leadership. When I make a mistake in this area, and cause offense, I’m often forgiven easily, because I have made is so clear that I’m doing my best to understand their language and culture. Instead of seeing my faux pas as insensitivity, they give me the benefit of the doubt and gently correct me.

While you may not be engaged in a cross-cultural leadership opportunity  in the near future, the truth is the generational differences in America are virtually a cultural gap. The principles of getting to know one another as people and friends, learning to communicate in the others’ “language,” and attempting to learn and understand the other’s cultural differences goes a long way to being welcomed and heard as a leader.

When do you have opportunities for cross-cultural or cross-generational experiences as a leader? How have you demonstrated your leadership by going the second mile in preparing for them and in using them to learn and grow as a leader? My hope is this post will motivate you to consider how you can invest yourself in being a bridge-builder as a leader and become a more effective leader int he process.

Here’s to leading better by engaging across cultural or generational boundaries in relational ways–today (or the next time you have the opportunity)!