Category: Leading through the Church

Have you heard the old saying, “When you’re up to your neck in alligators, it’s hard to remember your purpose was to drain the swamp.”? As leaders we’re always at least up to our knees in alligators, so before we start each day, we better get out the drawings for the plan to drain the swamp. We can call it casting vision, or focusing on our mission, but whatever we call it knowing what we’re doing and why we’re doing it is crucial to accomplishing anything worthwhile over time. If we don’t remember we came to drain the swamp, we’ll eventually occupy all our time with fighting alligators.

Yes, we must fight the alligators, or at least redirect the alligators to a location where they won’t be able to destroy us before we get the swamp drained, but if all we do is fight alligators, we never drain the swamp and the alligators habitat remains conducive for their growth and multiplication. The challenge is a live alligator seems so much more urgent that a rising swamp–in the moment. We’ve all experienced the tyranny of the urgent. We know that many times we tackle the urgent whether it’s important or not, while leaving the important but not urgent matters of life undone. We all know the long-term impact of doing so, and yet the urgent is so…urgent.

How do we keep draining the swamp the focus of our pursuit with everything life throws at us? I already mentioned it in passing: we start the day by looking at the plans and strategy for draining the swamp. Last week, I started again, again, at making certain I start my day with planning with looking at the plans and strategy for draining the swamp. I still faced some alligators, but when I did, I realized the ones I needed to let swim by and the ones that were getting in the way of draining the swamp. I also passed a couple of them on to others–I delegated. Again, we know what we need to do, at least if we’re leaders we know what we need to do. We need to remind ourselves to keep doing it. So often even when we know that failing to plan is planning to fail, we keep looking for some silver bullet that will kill the alligators and help drain the swamp with one shot.

There is no silver bullet.

Now that we have that out of the way, we can get back to the seemingly mundane task of looking at the plans for draining the swamp, and the reasons the swamp needs draining in the first place. After all, even draining the swamp may not be the most important task we face, so we better make sure it is. After all, having an effective plan to accomplish something we ought not to be pursuing in the first place isn’t helpful either. As I sat down to review my plans for draining the swamp last week, I realized that part of the process must be maintaining some daily practices I had been letting slide: prayer, exercise, studying Spanish, and journaling to name a few. Your daily practices may be different, but when I include those four into my morning routine I find that my head clears and I am able to attend to the day’s work much more effectively.

After that I need to look at the plans and select a few key actions that are going to contribute to it, not just a handful of items I can put on my to do list, and feel good about when I check them off as being done. While, I may have a few items I must do today either personally or in my work, those are not the key action items that will move me toward draining the swamp. As I work on the few key items and check them off, I know my plan is moving closer to being accomplished. As I say, we all know this, but taking the time to put it in print has been helpful to me. I hope it is also helpful to you.

Have you looked at the plans yet today? Have you established those few items that will make the biggest difference to accomplishing it? Have you determined which alligators you’re going to fight today, and which ones you’re either going to let lie, or pass on to someone else? How we answer these questions will determine whether the end of the day will find us closer to a drained swamp, or just tired.

Here’s to leading better by taking the time to look at the plans–today!

I’m in the middle of reading Craig Groeschel’s new book Divine Direction. While I generally wait until I’ve completed a book for writing a post related to it I found one of his illustrations so compelling I thought I would share it today. Here it is: Little acts of discipline make big impacts over time. Groeschel points out that he hates flossing. Nevertheless, he flosses every night. Why? Because that simple, little commitment impacts many others. While he does a bit of exaggerating to make his point, Groescehl lists a string of impacts related to either flossing or not flossing.

He points out that when he flosses before bed it helps him commit to other small, yet important actions, such as getting enough sleep, reading his Bible and praying, and working out regularly. These habits work together to help provide an overall sense of well-being that make him more effective at work, which means he comes home on time in the evening, which means his wife loves him, and that’s why they have six children. You see the exaggeration, and yet his point is important. Flossing is not a fun activity for many of us, but a commitment to do it daily helps to reinforce the truth of the importance of small commitments done over time impacting larger commitments.

I found it hilarious, when Groeschel offered the string of events that came out of his deciding not to floss. After not flossing, he didn’t slip well, which meant he was too tired to get up to read his Bible or work out, which meant he decided to eat junk food through the day, because he wasn’t in good shape anyway. That all let to his not being able to focus at work, so he had to work late. That meant he decided to take a back road which was shorter and speed, in order to get home sooner. On the way a policeman waiting on the road saw the act of speeding and chased Groeschel, who decided to attempt to outrun the officer. This led to a roadblock of four police cars at his house. When he stopped at it the officers arrested him, booked him, took a mug shot of him that was posted all over social media and his life was ruined. Wow! That’s obviously an exaggeration to prove a point but what a point it proves.

The daily habits we develop over time, the small daily habits we develop over time, do contribute to the effectiveness of our leadership over time. If we don’t invest time and commitment to the small matters of life, we often don’t invest the time and commitment needed to succeed in the big ones. Groeschel points out that often when we become aware that we aren’t being effective we commit to several or a half dozen or even ten new habits that will overhaul our effectiveness. He suggest developing one new discipline each year, a small one and only one. He points out that in five years that would be five small habits over a decade ten and over a lifetime enough habits to transform us into the small percentage of folks who actually accomplish the small and big goals of our lives.

As I read Groeschel’s words I was convicted of how many times I have failed in the small disciplines, which have contributed to a lack of effectiveness in many other matters. So, last night I flossed my teeth…

Here’s to leading better by taking the time to act on one, small commitment–today!

As either Ben Franklin, or Robert Schuller or someone has said, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” Over the weekend, I sat down for my weekly review and I realized that while 2017 is off to one of the best starts ever when it comes to what I’m accomplishing that matters as a leader, my biggest weakness is still planning. I have been through most of Michael Hyatt’s material, which I recommend fully, and yet the challenge for me is still to take the time each day to plan my work and work my plan. My morning routine has become established in nearly every area, but the area of planning the day. I start with prayer, Bible reading and exercise. Then when I ought to move to planning, something happens: my thought is what happens is I decide I “know” what I’m going to do today so I don’t need to plan.

The truth is I do know what I’m going to do most days, and yet knowing what I’m going to do and setting forth a plan to do it can be the difference between the knowing and the doing for me. When I have my planner in front of me and I set for the three things I’m going to do in a given day, the likelihood I will accomplish those three tasks is much higher, but there’s something even more important that I miss when I don’t get out the planner: I connect those three tasks to the goals on which they’re based. The reason you and I need to plan daily is to ensure what we do ties in to our over all goals for the day, week, month and year.

When Ben or Robert or whoever it was said, “Failing to plan is planning to fail,” the idea my have simply been to have a to do list for the day in order to accomplish more work, but it likely meant much more. Not only do we need a plan for the day, but a plan for the week, month, year and for our lives. That’s what moves us beyond time management to life management. That’s where failing to plan is truly planning to fail. I will certainly accomplish something today, whether I take the plan or not, but will I accomplish the few things that will leverage my leadership to the highest degree possible? That’s the question each of us as leaders need to ask ourselves before we plunge into a day without an effective plan. Yes, we are all “busy,” but busy with what?

As I’ve written so often here, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” We may live unexamined lives in many different ways. One of them is to go through a “full” day knocking items off our to do list, which may be a real or imagined list, and then discovering after weeks, or months of such activity, we have done a lot, but our leadership isn’t more effective and our organization isn’t farther along the path of becoming what it was created to be and do. Activity is no assurance of productivity. That’s why we need a plan for the day, week, month, year and for our lives. I’m writing this as much to remind myself as to remind you.

Here’s to leading better by taking the time to have a plan not only for today but for our lives–today!

Leadership guru, John Maxwell, often quotes the leadership proverb: “He who thinks he is leading but has nobody following is only taking a walk.” When it comes to getting buy-in (and thus followers) for our vision, new initiatives, new products, etc… we need to remember the Three “I’s of Buy-in: Inform, Inspire, Invite. I was talking with a colleague the other day about a recent initiative we had taken at the church, which had received tremendous buy-in and participation. He said, “You informed them clearly, you inspired them passionately and you invited them to participate.”

As he spoke the words, I remembered his dad setting for those three “i’s” years ago. I had forgotten the message, but continued to use the process. How vital it is for us as  leaders to inform people clearly when we have a new idea or a new image for communicating our vision, or for rolling out a new initiative or product. One of the most challenging aspects about our new ideas is we have already bought into them. We typically have a clear idea of what we are thinking and want to do, so we can assume everyone else will be at the same place we are. This is impossible, because they haven’t been on board with the process of formulating the idea and perhaps the plan to make it a reality as we have.

The first step, then, is to inform people of what it is we are planning to do, or what new idea we want them to consider. In order for anyone to buy in to what we are proposing, he or she must first understand what it is we are proposing.

The next step is to inspire others to participate. If informing is telling them what we want to do, inspiring requires telling them why. Why is it important for them to participate in our vision, or why is this new initiative worthy of our pursuit, or why will this new product be of value to consumers and to our bottom line? If people don’t understand why they’re doing something, they may do it, but they’ll never do it with passion. As leaders, we may have leverage over others and be able to force them to participate in our vision or to produce the new widget we think is going to transform society, but if they don’t understand why, if they aren’t inspired as we are, they won’t become raving fans themselves.

I have always had an easy time promoting anything in which I believe fervently. Just last week I was talking with someone about my Fit Bit and how it has made a major impact on my overall health in just a little more than a month. After about three minutes the person said, “Wow! You really believe in that thing don’t you?” The short answer was, “Yes.” We all know the difference between being dragged along, or forced to participate in the organization’s latest idea or product roll-out and when we’re actually on board with the idea or product, and want to use it ourselves.

While leaders often think it’s enough to inform and inspire others to gain buy-in, even in the corporate setting where the line workers “have to” be on board, the final “i”–invite–is so important. When we invite people to participate in whatever it is that we know will move our organization to the next level, we appeal to their right to choose. When we say, “You will…” even if we have the right to command the person’s action, we will never get the same response as when we ask, “Will you…?” When a person has the opportunity to choose to buy in to whatever it is we’re presenting to them, she is much more likely to do it whole-heartedly.

At the end of the day, when we inform, inspire and invite the probability of others actually following our leadership increases dramatically. The next time you have a great new idea or initiative to present to your followers remember to inform, invite and inspire them.

Here’s to leading better by informing, inviting and inspiring others–today!

This week we’re going to take a quick review of how you are doing with caring for the three components of your life as a human being: body, soul, and spirit. We’ve made it through the first month of 2017, and while many may have made resolutions, and some of us made new commitments, it’s always good to check and see where we stand with them. After all, the unexamined life is not worth living. As leaders, self-care or self-leadership is one of the most important aspects of our leadership, if not the most important.

Let’s start with the area that’s often the easiest to gauge from a standpoint of progress: our bodies. Did you set any goals for taking care of yourself physically? If so, was it a weight goal, an exercise goal, a commitment to rest more, to eat better? Did you write the goals or plans down, and if you have how often do you look at them? I ask all these questions, because as I stand at the brink of 60 years of living, I’ve finally realized that while may favorite quote about the importance of examining our lives is true, equally important is recording our progress or lack thereof, so we may move forward after our examinations.

I set a number of goals for myself in the physical area. Back in late August, 2016 I committed to lose 32 pounds by the end of January, which would mean I would weigh 190. I also set the goal of eating Paleo 90% of the time (if you’re not sure what that means, it’s a “hunter-gatherer” diet, consisting of vegetables, fruit and meat.) I set an exercise goal of six days of exercise each week, consisting of 20-30 minute workouts I set the goal of sleeping 7-8 hours each night and to taking a 20 minute nap each afternoon. Those goals were quite specific and somewhat ambitious.  I share them with you, simply as an example of specific goals in the physical area, which if followed would have led me to a healthier, more effective life overall.

At the end of January I weight 189 pounds. I am eating Paleo about 85% of the time. I’ve exercised an average of 5 days per week according to the standards I set, have slept a little less than seven hours each night, and have taken a nap on average 5 days each week. The result of accomplishing the goals to the degree I have is my energy level is higher than it’s been in a long time, and my overall sense of well-being is also high. Little things, such as tying my shoes, are much easier now than they were back in August, too.

Did you set any goals at the start of the year, or perhaps last year? Have you looked at them recently?  Have you hit your targets or are you on your way to hitting them? If you have hit a target, is your goal to maintain in that area or to reach a new one? These are vital questions, and even more vital is committing to attain them, because when our bodies are functioning effectively our leadership is better.

I understand that some of us have ailments, which make the kind of goals I mention above unrealistic, but most of us have far more control over our physical well-being than we exercise. Wherever we are today, we will lead more effectively as we set and work toward accomplishing goals in the physical area of our lives, because our bodies impact our overall performance as leaders far more than we often realize.

Here’s to leading better, by taking the time to reflect on our physical well-being, the goals we established to become healthier, and then adjusting and acting on the results of that reflection-today!

As a leader, what do you think about helping other leaders? This is big deal in our world today. At one extreme, are those who say, “If I help someone else leader better, then she may take my job someday.” At the other extreme are those who say, “I rising tide raises all the ships. Therefore, when I help someone else lead better, we all benefit.” Who’s right? I come down on the side of the continuum that says we’re all better off when we help each other become better leaders.  Yes, I’m a church leader, so my goal may be different than a business owner, because my goal is for everyone to know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. I want to see as many pastors and church leaders as possible become effective in achieving that common goal.

At the same time, I’ve known pastors who didn’t want to share their best practices with “the competition,” who they saw as the church down the street. In every sphere of human endeavor some of us are more collaborative and others are more competitive.  As leaders, our natural bent in one of those two directions will influence whether we want to help other leaders or not. An additional factor is the overall culture of the business or organization of which we’re a part. Some cultures produce a climate of secrecy and hierarchy, which means knowledge and skill are power. In that kind of culture collaboration will be viewed more negatively than in a culture where opens and teamwork are emphasized.

In my experience, the more I help other leaders lead effectively, the more I learn about leadership, the better leader I become and the more effective the organization I lead becomes. One of the realities all of us face when we consider this question is the radical shift we’re seeing in leadership styles among generations. Baby Boomers inherited rigid hierarchical structures in business, church and society as a whole. The Gen Xers and Millennials are much more collaborative and cooperative. Millennials in particular want to see the church as a family, and perhaps even their work places. They have never known a time when information was secret. The information age accelerated by the internet age means instant access to information: best practices, leadership studies, etc.

Those of us who are older, and who may well be in positions of leadership need to understand that one day someone else will be in our positions. Most likely those someones will be younger than we are, perhaps significantly so. Our best hope of impacting the future as leaders is to invest in future leaders. That means we will become the mentors for the next generation of leaders, and not necessarily in the areas of best practices, policies and procedures and the like, although that will be part of it. Our more significant contributions will likely be in helping future leaders understand their personal and our corporate “why” than the hows and whats. Again, it won’t be either or when it comes to what we share, but helping those who are younger than us learn to lead from “why” will be a great contribution.

If you think passing on leadership will make you obsolete, I understand the train of thought, but have come to realize whether we want to pass on leadership or not, one day we will. I encourage all of us to do it willingly, because what I have seen is those who are most willing to help others become more effective leaders, become the most valuable leaders in their situation. Working yourself out of a job by equipping others, is one of the best ways to make sure you’ll always have work!

Here’s to leading better by helping someone else lead better–today!

During the month of January, we have been participating in a daily prayer emphasis at New Life Christian Ministries, the church I serve as lead pastor. I bring that up here, because all leaders have a “center” from which we lead. While not all leaders are men or women of faith, you know I come from that perspective and I wanted to talk about the impact this emphasis has had on my leadership, because I believe it is a transferable experience, and I want to commend it to you.

The process for the daily prayer has been simple. Each weekend our messages have focused on prayer, and each day Monday-Saturday we have opened the church building from 6:30-7:30 and invited folks to join us for a time of prayer. The response has been encouraging. Anywhere from 15-30 people have gathered each morning for the past three weeks, and after a brief time of welcome, reading a short Scripture and singing a song of praise, we have broken into small groups of three or four people and prayed together using prompts from a prayer guide I developed.

The results for me personally as a leader have been powerful. One of the most obvious impacts on me is the overall sense of well-being I’ve experienced throughout each day of the month. I start my days with my own time of prayer, and then go to the church and join with others for more prayer. After that, whatever I face my attitude is more positive and my commitment to work through each situation deeper. My tendency when challenges come up is to stop and turn to prayer, and those times of pause to gain insights from God have resulted in better decisions, and better follow through.

The benefit of joining with others from the church to prayer has also been deepened interpersonal relationships, and a greater sense of esprit de corps among us. The focused prayer guide has also helped us to literally be on the same page when it comes to New Life’s mission, and to focus our heads, hearts and hands in the same direction to fulfilling it. While some of this may not be directly transferable to a business setting, even a personal time of prayer, meditation, and reflection each day would result in some of these benefits, which is why I commend it to you.

Could you gather two or three others from your leadership team, or from the factory floor on a daily basis for that time of prayer, meditation and reflection, and would that impact your team’s overall attitude and commitment to the mission of the organization? Only you can answer that question, but I know it has had tremendous impact in ours.

While it is difficult to determine the exact correlation between the daily prayer times and the metrics of the organization, we have had the highest attended weekend worship services in the church’s history during January, which isn’t typically a time to see that kind of response. So far all indicators are more positive than at this time last year, and many by a great deal. In addition, when I have had the opportunity to speak on the weekends, I have had a more powerful sense of God’s presence in me than ever. Again, this may not be part of your worldview, but it has definitely been part of my experience, and I commend the principle of emphasizing the core or driving reality reality behind your organization in a concerted way as a means of leading more effectively.

Here’s to leading better by investing time to pray, meditate and reflect individually and together–today!

As we draw our segment on personality style and leadership to a close today we focus on the fourth set of paired traits in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: Judging-Perceiving. (If you’ve missed the three previous posts, we covered Introversion-Extroversion; Sensing-Intuition; and Thinking-Feeling.) Of the four pairs of traits, the final one is the least apparent from the names. When you read the words “judging” and “perceiving,” it would be challenging to understand what the traits mean. In reality, the two words are intended to tell us more about how we order our lives, how we take the information we have received and considered and apply it in our daily experience.

The “judging” person approaches life with a more ordered and orderly style. Planning and organizing are likely to come more naturally for the “J.” J’s typically aren’t thrilled with surprises. They prefer routine. This is in contract with the “P” who approaches life from a more spontaneous angle. P’s tend to take life as it comes, and enjoy the surprises life throws our way. While each of these paired opposites relate to one another on a continuum, leads can gain a great deal of insight into other leaders, employees or volunteers, and family members and friends when we are aware of the differences.

One of the most important aspects of our personalities to remember is unless we give intentional thought to the reality of personality distinctions, we will tend to assume everyone approaches the world the way we do. As an ENFP, I find it challenging to create and follow a schedule. Perhaps a better word than challenging is boring. I find it boring to be “locked in” to a particular schedule, and to daily routine. That is not an excuse, although we can easily take our personality traits and use them as excuses. I am a leader, and I am an ENFP. That means when it comes to planning and organization, I am not a natural. Yet I serve as the lead pastor of a church with hundreds of participants and nearly twenty full and part-time employees. That means I need to know the strengths and short-comings of my personality style and lead accordingly.

Because of my personality, I am energized by interacting with others, and yet unless I invest the time in solitude for prayer and planning, my interaction will be of little value. I am also inclined to “go with my gut” because I am an intuitive feeler, and yet my gut isn’t always right. That means it’s important to gather useful metrics, and to seek the counsel of other staff members who are more inclined to look at the facts, analyze them and then consider a course of action. Neither approach is “right” or “wrong,” but they are quite different. The best leadership team’s will complement each other from a personality standpoint.

While four posts about the importance and nuances of personality differences and how they impact our leadership styles is barely scratching the surface of this important matter, I hope it has challenged you to dig into it, and do more research on your own. Better yet, if you’re an ENFP as I am, get someone on your team who is an ISTJ or INTJ to do it. It’ll be more fun for them! I enjoy learning about others’ personalities simply for the enjoyment of it, but to translate that into how to build more effective leadership teams, while interesting for a moment, is something I tend to lose interest with over time. That’s another reason it is vital for us as leaders not to bring people around us who are closely like us. It is the differences in us that bring the greatest effectiveness to our cause, provided of course, we agree on the cause. More about that on Wednesday.

Here’s to leading better by understanding one another’s personalities better, so we can work together more effectively–today!

As we continue discussing personality style and leadership, using the four paired opposites of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as our launching point: introversion-extroversion; intuition-sensing; thinking-feeling; and judging-perceiving today we look at thinking-feeling. This pair refers to how we tend to process the information we have received. While no one is either one or the other in any of these pairs, the dominant aspect colors how we respond. When it comes to thinking or feeling, the way we process information is from a primarily analytical perspective or primarily from our emotions.

I am a strong feeler when it comes to my natural tendency. I prefer to “go with my gut” when it comes to making decisions. When we’re calling/hiring a new staff member at New Life, I’m more concerned about how I feel about the person, what Bill Hybels will refer to as the chemistry, than I am about the persons qualifications. While this is neither right nor wrong, I have found over the years that my feelings can lead me astray. This is also true for those who are primarily thinkers when it comes to analyzing a situation. While it is good to consider the metrics, the numbers, of a a situation, at times one can think through the entire situation, make a decision based on the numbers and find out the decision was still wrong.

Thus, we find what is true of every set of paired opposites: one is not to be preferred over the other. They are simply different. The best case scenario comes when a leadership team is comprised of folks whose personalities cover all the perspectives. I have often said over the years, when Nancy and I are making a decision and we both agree, it is usually the right decision, because we come at life from totally opposite perspectives, she being an ISTJ and me being an ENFP. I also generally add, when we disagree about a decision Nancy is usually right, because she is the analytical one, the one who looks at the facts of the situation. The exception to this is when a decision can’t be made based on the facts alone. In those instances the intuitive feeling aspects of my personality come into play.

To be sure, everything can’t be boiled down to components of our personalities, when it comes to decision-making and other leadership tasks. Nancy and I have discovered that at times the Holy Spirit has guided us to decisions neither of us would have come to through our personalities. At times even with “all the facts,” we don’t have enough information to make a decision, because of intangibles involved. Yet, understanding our personalities and particularly the way we process information is quite helpful when it comes to leadership.

For example, when we’re in a leadership discussion and someone says, “I think we ought to do _____,” the question is “Is the person actually thinking at the moment or is it merely a feeling?” Nancy and I have learned to make sure when we say, “I think…” or “I feel…” that we are, indeed, either thinking or feeling. While it seems obvious, a great deal of confusion can result when a person who is naturally a feeler expresses a feeling as if it were an analytical evaluation. The opposite is true as well when a thinker says, “I feel…” and then expresses a well-thought out idea without an ounce of feeling.

As leaders the key is to understand one another’s personalities and then to let the strengths of those personalities produce a greater overall benefit for the organization. This takes time and energy, but produces tremendous benefits in the way of relational and organizational unity, as well as greater overall productivity for everyone.

Here’s to leading better by making sure we know when we’re leading through our minds or our hearts–today!