One of the most important qualities of effective leaders, is the ability to address change. Change is a given in life, and the only things that don’t change are dead. While some personalities are more open to change than others, even those of us who like change, generally are more open to changes we consider positive and under our control.
I’ve decided to make a format change to my blog effective today, to see how you all do with change! It’s a minor change, but one I’ve realized is necessary if I’m going to live by my own leadership advice in the area of margin, and also provide you with quality posts over time. Not too many folks post to their blogs seven days a week, 365 days a year. I thought I was going to be one of them. The challenge is my weekends are the fullest time of the week, and Friday is supposed to be my Sabbath. That means if I’m going to have something of value to offer you in every post, I need to stop writing on the weekends, and focus on making Monday-Friday as helpful as possible for you.
I know my readership isn’t high at this moment, but believe the content will help you be and become better leaders over time. That means you’ll be receiving 25o posts per year: 5 posts each week for 50 weeks each year. We’ll rest on the weekends, and two weeks each year. I’m considering getting guest bloggers for the two weeks off each year, so you won’t come here and find nothing. Maybe some of you would consider writing a guest post once or twice a year?
Back to the importance of being able to change in order to be a great leader. Adaptability is one of the most important assets of a leader. While planning is vital, the challenge is that life tends to change our plans and change them often. I’ve been reading a great book Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy Seals LEAD and WIN. The authors make it clear than planning and execution are keys in leading and winning. They also point out that part of planning for them was to anticipate the changes that could happen to their plans. Anticipating change is the best way to lead through change. We can’t always anticipate a particular change, but we can certainly anticipate that there WILL be change.
As noted above, sometimes we see change as positive and at other times as negative. The truth is in a particular moment we can’t always know whether a change is positive or negative. I’ve noticed that many of the changes I would have called negative at the time, have actually defined me as a person. For example, one day many years ago when Kenn, my younger brother and I were at basketball practice at school, he was poked in the eye. The poke resulted in a torn cornea for Kenn. That was certainly a negative and unwelcome change at the moment. Kenn was taken to the hospital and scheduled for surgery the next day.
That night, our pastor and I visited Kenn at the hospital. Before we left, the pastor asked Kenn, “Do you mind if I pray and ask God to heal your eye?” How could you turn down a request like that?
Kenn said, “It couldn’t hurt, right?” More than right! the next morning when the doctor came in and removed the patch from Kenn’s eye to examine it before the operation, the eye was completely healed. The doctor was amazed. Kenn was happy. I was overwhelmed. I didn’t thing God was still in the healing “business.” I thought that was for long ago and far away. I went to our pastor and asked him to explain. After a couple of hours of working our way through the Book of Acts, I was convinced that my perspective of God’s activity through the Holy Spirit being a thing of the past was mistaken. I would soon find how mistaken, as God called me to ministry as an outgrowth of that new-found understanding!
Everyone would agree that Kenn having his cornea torn was a negative experience, and yet as a result of it I ended up discerning God’s call for my entire adult life. That’s amazing. Change is inevitable, and while we may think we know which changes are good for us, being prepared for them when they come, and turning to God in the midst of each one is the best way to discover how He can use any change we experience to advance His work among us.
The next time you experience change whether small or great, consider that God can use it in ways that you may not have considered. Lean into Him and let Him use the change to His glory and your blessing. As you do you will undoubtedly come to see change not only as the inevitable reality it is, but often the door to new opportunities to learn, love and lead in Jesus’ name.
Here’s to leading better by leaning into change–today!
(See you Monday!)