Leading By Example…

While virtually every post I’ve entered so far has included at least one example of the leadership topic I’ve emphasized, I wanted to be explicit today about the importance of leading by example. We can say or write anything we want about  leadership, but unless we are doing it ourselves others will rightly label us with the “H” word–hypocrite. While none of us is 100% consistent in everything we say and do, the more consistency we live between our words and actions the more effective our leadership will be, and the more influence we will have not only with those we lead directly, but those around us who are impacted by our leadership.

I’ve been watching about an hour of the Olympics coverage each day since this past Friday, and one of the truths that has been brought home to me by these mostly young athletes is their absolute commitment to attain their goals. No one could call them hypocrites when it comes to the discipline needed to become effective in their chosen field, or in their willingness to do whatever it takes to win. The challenge becomes the win at any cost mentality they have developed can and has resulted in some athletes using performance enhancing drugs, or questionable or unallowable decision-making or equipment. As with every good or even great opportunity leaders have–and whatever anyone says, Olympic athletes are leaders at least in their chosen fields of endeavor–sometimes the thought is that the ends justify the means.

This thought has led many leaders to forget the example they are setting along the journey in order to get to their desired destination ahead of others, or with greater success than others. We have seen this path taken by leaders in every field of endeavor: business, sports, the church, education, you name it and someone who everyone thought was a great example turns out to be a cheat, a liar, or a phony. As leaders we must make certain that we use appropriate means to attain our ends. I remember more than thirty years ago while sitting in a preaching class at Princeton Seminary, when the professor said, “You can attract a crowd by preaching in your underwear, but the question is, ‘What will you do next Sunday?'”

Shortcuts are always a temptation on the road to success as leaders. While all of us ought to find the easiest and best way to do anything required in our particular field of leadership, sometimes the easiest and best way is still hard. After more than thirty years in the ministry, I still haven’t found an easier way to develop my relationship with God than to invest at least an hour a day in prayer and Bible reading. I’ve tried easier ways, faster ways, but in the end I always come back to the truth that no relationship is built easily or without an investment of significant time.

Think about your primary area of leadership. What kind of example are you setting when it comes to character, behavior, to living through best practices in your field of endeavor? Are you taking shortcuts that will eventually turn out to be anything but shortcuts, because they will compromise your integrity? One of the easiest ways for an Olympic athlete to be disqualified from a competition is to stray off the prescribed course for the event. Whether it’s moving outside of one’s lane, or missing a required element, or using an improper technique disqualification means that years, and in some cases decades of training are wasted.

I don’t want to take anything away from the achievement of earning an Olympic gold medal–or any Olympic medal for that matter–but the stakes are often much higher in your leadership and mine. If you or I stray off the course families will be ruined, businesses may be destroyed, and churches may lose their ability to speak truth and love into a community. All this and more make it vital that we learn the best way to lead in our areas starting with modeling character and integrity, and then learning or developing best practices, and then modeling them in our own lives. As we set the example, we also set the tone of what is and isn’t acceptable in our organization’s culture, which makes all the difference over time, because our organization’s culture provides the arena in which all that we do gets carried out, and sets the boundaries of acceptability and victory. More on that tomorrow.

Here’s to leading better by setting the right example in every area of our lives and leadership–today!

Practicing What I Preach…

One of the most challenging tasks for any of us as leaders is to do what we say leaders ought to do, or in other words to practice what we preach. As we read anyone’s book or post on leadership it’s easy to think, “Wow! It sounds like he (or she) has it all together!” Sometimes reading a leadership book or attending a leadership seminar can be discouraging for that very reason. We get a lot of great information, and it seems like the person offering it is already doing it, and it’s one more thing to add to our to do lists that we aren’t yet doing.

I write that to say I have already written several posts about margin and rest, about the need to step away from our work to be renewed and refreshed. It’s easy to write about such matters, but for me it’s the hardest area of leadership to practice. Over this past weekend, I had the opportunity for a time of rest and renewal with my brothers, Tom and Kenn. We were all going to the Pirate game on Sunday. I knew I was going to do it. It had been on my calendar since January. The challenge was how much work would I mix in with the rest? How soon could I leave for the game, which didn’t start until 1:35 pm, when we had three morning worship services at 8:30, 10:00 and 11:30 am? Mark, our discipleship pastor was preaching, so I wasn’t needed at worship for that. Since it was the first weekend of the month, we celebrated the Lord’s Supper, and I typically lead that when I’m not preaching and am at worship. But I didn’t need to do that. I spoke with Mark earlier in the week and told him the situation. He said he would be glad to lead the whole service, so I didn’t need to be there.

We have worship on Saturday evening and three worship services on Sunday, so the truth was I could attend the Saturday evening service just because I wanted to worship with the New Life family, and then take Sunday off to be with my brothers. There was no good reason I had to be at worship at all on Sunday. Yet, I struggled with taking the morning off to be with Tom and Kenn. Why was it such a big deal for me? Trust and control? Did I not trust the team could handle things in my absence? Of course, not! After all, I go away several times a year and I’m not even in town on those weekends. Everything goes great in those times. Guilt? People might wonder why the lead pastor wasn’t at worship if he weren’t away? Possibly. But the church isn’t about Chris Marshall, it’s about Jesus Christ. With our full and part-time staff growing to nearly twenty people, I’m just one piece in the overall leadership at New Life. Part of my work as lead pastor is to show the rest of the leadership team that while we need each other, we must all take time to rest and renew. The best way for me to do that this past weekend was to be with my brothers.

It took me until after worship on Saturday night to tell Mark and Brad, our worship pastor, that I wouldn’t be there on Sunday. Mark smiled broadly, shook my hand and said, “That’s a really good decision.” Brad said, “Great. We have this.”

Maybe you’ve never struggled with practicing what you preach in the area of taking time away, but I’m guessing you struggle with it in some area of your life. How do you let go of whatever it is, or hold on as the case may be? It really does come down to trust versus control. Do you trust your other leaders? Do you believe the business can operate for a day without your input in a certain area? Do you know you need training in a certain area, but worry that you’ll look like you aren’t a great leader if you admit holes in your leadership? Do you think you can’t take any time away from leading, because too much will fall through the cracks? These are legitimate questions. Over time, as you develop other leaders who lead the other leaders and workers or volunteers in your organization, the time comes to let go and let them do what they’re equipped to do.

After all, we’re all temporary in our positions, right? If you don’t believe me, ask yourself, “Who will be doing what I’m doing fifty years from now? It will likely be far less than fifty years from now, but I wanted to make sure we covered anyone who’s really young and thinks you will be around forever. the best leaders recognize we need to equip other leaders around us and then empower them to lead by taking our hands off the controls and giving them the opportunity. That’s a big part of practicing what we preach when it comes to leading, because every good leader says, “I’m equipping the team to take over when I’m not here.” Believing it by stepping away from time to time and letting them do it is one test of practicing what we preach. (I went to breakfast with my brothers and to the game. We had a great time, and church went well. One step forward in practicing what I preach!)

Here’s to leading better, by taking one, tangible step in practicing what we preach, by giving someone else the opportunity to lead–today!

I Can’t Get Them To Do Anything…

Yesterday, when I was talking about leading through others, I mentioned that sometimes leaders take control because we say, “I can’t get them to do anything.” The them may be the members of the church family we serve, or the shop we oversee, or the non-profit we manage. Whomever the “them” is, I once heard an extremely helpful comment from Craig Groeschel when it comes to this kind of thinking. He said, “While we often say, ‘Our people won’t do this,’ the truth is we ought to say, ‘We haven’t led our people to do this yet.'” That statement makes all the difference.

After all, when we say the problem is the people we’re leading, we leading have no recourse. If it’s their fault, then all we can do is hope or pray they will eventually see the light, or change, so that they will do what we want them to do. The first problem may be what I just said: we can’t get “them” to do what “we” want them to do. I always say, “There is no they, only we.” As soon as we start to think of others as “them” or as “those people,” we do at least two things that make leadership impossible: 1) we identify them as the enemy, or at the very least the opposition; and 2) we remove our responsibility for leadership in the situation.

Once I realize that the people of New Life have not yet adopted a specific behavior or action that will benefit them and advance the Kingdom of God,  I always find it much easier to lead them. The key is as a pastor, and I would contend as any type of leader, my goal ought never be to advance my cause or my goals alone. My goal must be to help those for whom I have the responsibility of leadership to grow, to gain, to move forward in whatever endeavor we are undertaking. For example, if I would say, “I can’t get our people to greet new guests before worship,” I’m identifying “them” as the problem, and I’m also assuming that “they” are purposefully failing to welcome others who visit New Life for the first time.

I already see such people as guests rather than visitors, which means I’m expecting them, hoping they come, and preparing for their arrival. New Life’s leadership invests significant energy to make sure we have a welcoming environment, by providing a Welcome Center for guests, by providing hot coffee, cold water and some snacks, and by welcoming guests ourselves. The next step as leaders is for us to make certain the folks of New Life understand how important it is for them to welcome guests.

We have become quite intentional in doing this over the years. We make a point in our new members’ classes to ask folks what kind of welcome they received when they first came to New Life. Thankfully, most of them tell us they felt quite welcomed. When they do, we say, “That’s because our members know how important it is to welcome guests. It’s hard to come to a church for the first time, especially if you haven’t been part of a church in your prior experience.” We remind those who are becoming new members that it’s their responsibility to welcome guests, so our guests will have they same positive experience they had when they first came to New Life.

When I see a first time guest or guest family standing in the gathering area before worship with no one speaking to them, I find a person our couple who are part of the church family and ask them to introduce themselves to the new people. Occasionally, these folks come back to me and say, “Thanks for giving me the opportunity to get to know these new folks.” I always thank them for taking the opportunity. At times I will remind folks in a message how important it is to welcome new folks, because it might be the reason someone who doesn’t know Jesus comes back and eventually does come to know him.

Over time this has developed a culture of welcome. That doesn’t mean everyone welcomes others, but many of our people do. I can’t say, “Our people won’t welcome other people,” and we have done a great deal to make certain that welcoming other people has become the priority it needs to be. You may think this is a small matter. Most of the things our people won’t do are small matters. Over time as we coach, encourage, and challenge our folks to move toward the behaviors and actions that will benefit them and the company, the church or organization, we will realize that when given good reasons and good examples most folks are willing to adopt new behaviors that will move them and everyone else toward the accomplishment of the goals we have set as leaders. The key is to remember it is our task as leaders to move those we lead toward behaviors and actions that will benefit us all rather than defaulting to the statement, “Our people won’t…”

Here’s to leading better by encouraging, modeling and challenging those we lead to move forward in behaviors and actions that are good for us all–today!

Leading Through Others

Today my focus is on leaders of leaders or leading through others. That means I’m focusing on pastors, managers, and anyone who needs to get things done through someone else rather than doing it himself or herself. One of the reasons churches and businesses stall in their growth is the leaders are unwilling to move from hands-on leadership to leading through others. Hands-on leadership is often much more personally gratifying than leading through others, which is one of the reasons leaders are unwilling to give it up. In addition, when we lead through others it means giving up control, which is never easy to do.

The reality is unless we move from hands-on leadership to leading through others we will put a “lid” on the growth of our church or business. One of the interesting points about leading through others is the Apostle Paul wrote about it nearly 2,000 years ago in his letter to the church at Ephesus. In chapter 4 of that letter he tells us that Jesus gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to “…equip the saints for the works of ministry.” In other words, the leaders are not to do the works of ministry, but to equip the members of the church family to do the works of ministry. Nearly every pastor I have ever met is well-acquainted with this strategy for carrying out the church’s ministry, but many find themselves overwhelmed with the doing of the works of ministry.

Sometimes such pastors “can’t get others to do anything.” In other cases it’s that they don’t want to give up the control of various aspects of ministry to others, or they don’t think they have time to equip others to do the ministry, or they knowingly or unknowingly don’t want to give up the sense of importance or affirmation that comes with doing the ministry. While I don’t have as much experience in the business world as in the church, I have seen many business leaders and managers who have the same philosophies when it comes to an unwillingness to empowering others to lead or at least to do the work of the business they were hired to do. We’ve all heard the old adage, “If you want the job done right–do it yourself!”

That’s the challenge: we think that we will do the job right and others won’t. The truth is nearly everyone else will do the job differently than we will do it. When I give up control of a task to someone else, the other person won’t do it exactly the way I would do it. When I give up control of leading or managing a certain area of the ministry or business or a certain group of people, the new leader or manager won’t lead or manage exactly the way I would do it. That can be frightening, particularly if you are the one who started the business or the church as is true in my case. The reality is until we learn to lead through others, we will put a lid on our church or business, or whatever type of organization we lead.

What I have learned over the fifteen years I have been the founding and lead pastor of New Life is: When we use God’s means to accomplish God’s plans amazing results follow. Once again, the same is true in a business. After all, God’s means are valid in all areas of life, and a business can certainly carry out God’s plans when the business’ reason for being is to provide a product or service that benefits and blesses others.

Let me give a specific example of what it looks like to lead through others at New Life. Over the past three years, we have moved from a full-time staff of four or five, to a full-time staff of ten people. What that means is in every area of ministry, we have someone who is responsible to equip and lead others to do ministry. Before that, I had a much more hands-on role both in equipping others for ministry and in doing ministry. If a pastoral emergency came up, such as an emergency hospital visit, I would do it, or one of the elders if I were not available. Now, our Care Pastor, Pastor Jayne, has a team of folks who carry out various roles including emergency visitation, and our ability to carry out ministry has multiplied. Pastor Jayne has equipped several dozen people for various types of pastoral ministry, and is equipping more all the time. The doesn’t mean she or I never make a pastoral call. What it means is such calls don’t depend on us, and aren’t limited to our ability to make them. The positive is that many more people get their care needs met, and the church is more effective in this area than ever before.

The challenge for me is leading through others means I don’t always know what is happening–I lose control. I’m also not the one who represents Jesus to others in the situation, so I lose that feeling of importance and value that comes in such situations–until I remember that the key is for the people in need to experience Jesus’ presence and ministry through someone not necessarily through me. This ability to reach others in Jesus’ name has been multiplied through worship, children’s ministry, youth ministry, in the administrative area, and in virtually every area of the church’s life and worship, because we have committed to leading through others as the Apostle Paul challenged us to do 2,000 years ago.

Whether you’re a pastor, a business leader, or a leader or manager of any type, here’s the question: What are you doing to equip others around you, so your ministry, business or cause may reach more people, may be more effective and may ultimate move forward the plan God has for you? The more authority you have in the organization, the more important it is for you to be championing leading through others. After all, if everything that gets done gets done through your hands-on leadership, you have become the lid for your organization’s health, growth and vitality.

Here’s to leading better, by equipping one more person to extend the influence of your ministry, business or organization–today!

The Three Things You Can Control–#3 Effort

As we conclude our brief series on the three things you can control as leaders: our allegiance, our attitude and our effort, we turn today to effort. Once we have determined who or what is going to receive our ultimate allegiance, and once we have determined the kind of attitude with which we are going to approach the situations we face in life, the final matter over which we always have control is our effort. How much effort are you and I going to put forth in the various tasks of life? We’re all familiar with the sport coaches who say that their players give “105%.” That’s statistically impossible. No one can give 105%, since 100% is the best possible effort. The truth is few of us give close to 100% effort in most of the tasks we engage in our lives.

Knowing I was going to be writing this post today, I have been taking an informal poll as I meet them by asking this question, “So far today, if you were to assign a percentage of effort you have put forth in your work, your relationships, and life in general what would it be? The answers I’ve received have been instructive. Most of the responses have been 80-85%. One person told me he had given 50% and another said he had given 9%. I was surprised by the 9% answer, because it came from someone I consider to be quite productive. He explained his answer by saying that his work was mainly sedentary, and he didn’t have to think that much in order to do it well.

What about you? If I asked, “What percentage of effort have you put forth so far today in going about life’s tasks and relationships?” What would you say? I’ve been reflecting on this a great deal in my life recently, because I’ve found myself not taking good care of myself in the area of physical care. I haven’t put much effort into exercise, or even selecting and eating the foods that will be beneficial to me. I did remove caffeine from my diet again a couple of weeks ago, but this past Saturday I succumbed to the temptation of an Almond Joy flavored coffee. It tasted good, but the following day, I experience one more caffeine withdrawal headache.

What does that have to do with controlling effort in my life? Everything! As leaders, we have the opportunity to set the example for others in the various areas of our lives that I wrote about during the Life Management series: rest, prayer, physical care, relationships, study, work and finances, when it comes to the amount of effort we commit. You may think it sounds strange to speak of extending effort in the area of rest, but let’s think about that for a moment. If you and I do not extend effort intentionally to stop our work, play, or whatever it is we’re doing to rest in adequate amounts, we won’t be able to be as effective in any other area of our lives as we could be. That means it does take effort to rest, and doing so is crucial.

In the same way we extend or fail to extend effort in each of the seven areas. When taken together the cumulative 100% effort we could give, makes all the difference in living and leading effectively. Perhaps none of us actually lives any day giving 100% effort, but the more intentional we become in extending effort in these important areas of our lives, the more effective we will become as leaders.

One more important question when considering this matter of effort is, “How do I know when I have given 100%?” The question will always be answered somewhat subjectively. After all, do any of us know our ultimate capacity in each of the seven areas? Would ten minutes of fervent prayer be a 100% effort, or would it be an hour? Would saving an extra $100 this month be 100% effort or would it be giving away an extra $200? At the end of the day only you can answer those questions for you, and only I can answer those questions for me. The key is that as we ask and respond to the questions in each area of our lives, we will become more intentional about extending the maximum amount of effort, and we will become more effective in life and leadership.

Why not take fifteen minutes right now to stop and evaluate your effort in each of the seven areas, and to set a new goal in each area that will push you to exert more effort? As we do that daily, or at least on a weekly basis, we’ll be examining our lives and making them more worth living, at least we will if we also act on those questions and responses. We know by now that the unexamined life is not worth living. That means taking the time to examine where we are and how we plan to move forward in any area, particularly in the area of effort, will make our lives not only more worth living, but also more effective in the living.

Here’s to leading better by examining our effort and extending more of it in the important areas of life–today!

The Three Things You Can Control–#2 Attitude

As we continue our Three Things You Can Control series, those three things being our allegiances, our attitudes and our efforts, today we turn to our attitude. Many years ago John Maxwell wrote a book about attitude. In it he said that our attitude determines our altitude. In other words, how “high” we go in life is dependent on our attitude. That’s because we can’t control what happens to us in life, but we can control what happens in us, how we respond to what happens.

We see this truth all the time when tragedy strikes a family, or a community or a nation. Some respond with fear, despair and desperation, while others respond with courage, hope, and determination. What’s the difference? At the base of it all the difference is attitude. Our allegiances certainly help in determining our attitude, but are also separate from them. I have seen folks who trust Jesus fall apart in certain situations, when others move resolutely forward. Once again, the difference is attitude. When any situation occurs we get to choose the attitude with which we respond.

That is not to say that each of us will always choose the same attitude in every situation, but over time our attitude grows and develops just as we grow and develop physically, emotionally and spiritually. The attitudes we “feed” grow stronger, and the attitudes we ignore grow weaker. That’s precisely why I say we can control our attitudes. For example, let’s say we live in a community that experiences devastating floods, and you and I lose our homes as a result. They are totally destroyed. How would we respond in that situation? Obviously, many variables determine how we would respond, but the three things we would be able to control in the situation would be our allegiance, our attitude and our effort.

If our allegiance was to our material goods, then such a loss would be absolutely devastating. If our attitude was one of despair, because we would lose everything, then we may not put much effort forward to move on with our lives. We may simply sit and grieve. On the other hand if our allegiance was to God in Jesus Christ, we would recognize that while we had lost every “thing” we own, we hadn’t lost anything of ultimate value. I’m not minimizing the inconvenience, the sense of personal devastation and loss, because in the flood we would surely have lost personal mementos of relationships we hold dear that could never be replaced. But at the end of the day our attitude would be one of hope. The reason I say that is because God gives us hope in such situations.

That attitude may not be the first one to surface. I have been through a number of devastating circumstances over the years, both personally and vicariously through the families I have served as a pastor. Depending on the depth of the loss, and the era in my life when the loss occurred, my first attitude may have been anger, or despair. But those have always been replaced by hope, gratitude, determination, and other attitudes that have permitted me to move forward. Even the great prophet, Elijah, succumbed to an attitude of despair when Queen Jezebel told him she was going to kill him. While that may seem rational, he had just experienced the greatest demonstration of God’s presence and power in his life just hours before. We would think Elijah would have heard Jezebel’s claim and laughed, or at the very least have responded with calm confidence that God would protect him.

Instead, Elijah ran. He ran for 40 days, and all that while he asked God to take his life. He forgot that because of his allegiance to the one, true and living God, he could face any threat with the assurance of ultimate victory, even if that victory meant an eternal one after this life ended. Elijah shows us what James told us about him in chapter 5 of his book: Elijah was a man like us. I’ve alway found great comfort in those words. Elijah wasn’t made out of some special genetic material. He was a common, ordinary man like us. He served an extraordinary God. His allegiance is what made him great. The same is true for each of us. As leaders we must always remember who we serve, then we will gain an ability to serve with humility, confidence, assurance and hope regardless of the situation.

So how is your attitude toward life in general and toward difficult times in particular? Do you see life as a long series of unwinnable obstacles, or as an experience set in front of us by God? Are you ready to face this day with confidence and hope, because you know God is leading you as you lead others? Or are you just hoping to get through the day? Whatever attitude you bring to this moment the good news is you can change it or keep it. It’s up to you, because we get to control our attitude.

Here’s to leading better by choosing attitudes that will overcome the obstacles we’ll face-today!

The Three Things You Can Control–#1 Allegiance

On Friday we started a four-part series titled: The Three Things You Can Control. I overviewed those three things on Friday: Our Allegiance, Our Attitude and Our Effort. Today, let’s take a deeper look at what it means that we can control our allegiance. First, some would say, “I don’t have one allegiance, I have many. At a certain level that is most certainly true. For example, I have allegiance to God, to my family, to the United States of America, to New Life Christian Christian ministries and so on. But at the deepest level, we all have one primary allegiance, and that primary allegiance determines how we respond in all our other areas of allegiance.

Jesus stated this clearly nearly 2,000 years ago when He said, “No one can serve two masters. You will love the one and hate the other, or be devoted to one and despise the others. You cannot serve both God and money.” Jesus didn’t say it was challenging to serve two masters or to have two ultimate allegiances, because ultimately we are servants of our ultimate allegiance. He said it is impossible to have two ultimate allegiances. How interesting that nearly 2,000 years ago Jesus saw that the two primary allegiances that would vie for our ultimate allegiance would be God and money.

Two millennia later that is still true. While a handful of folks may hold family as their ultimate allegiance, most people boil it down to whether they are going to pursue God first in their lives or money and material goods. As leaders, our primary allegiance determines everything about how we will go about our leadership. For example, if God is our master, our ultimate allegiance, then we will seek to understand what that means at the deepest level, so we will know how to live out the allegiance. If I am a follower of Jesus Christ, I will understand God quite differently than if I am a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist or a Hindu, for example. Jesus revealed God to be personal in a way no one else ever has. After all, He was and is God in the flesh. His teachings, while reflected in other religions, since truth is truth, are quite unique in their characteristics from the way they may be represented in other religions.

The point here is not to debate religious differences, but rather to say that what I believe about my ultimate allegiance will determine how I pursue my life and leadership. Since I follow Jesus, my leadership will always have a servant nature to it. Jesus told His followers that even He, who is the King of kings, and Lord of lords, came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. If I am going to lead as a follower of Jesus, then I will think of the needs of those I lead first, because I am their servant as well as their leader.

On the other hand if money is my ultimate allegiance, then I will pursue my life in a different way. The “bottom line” will be my bottom line. I will always be thinking about how I can produce more income, more product, more material goods, and I will count my success or failure in life based on whether I have the most. We may not be that crass about it on the surface, but if our ultimate allegiance is the bottom line we will put things before people, while if Jesus is our bottom line, we will put people before things.

You may be thinking, but what about atheists, who serve no god, and also don’t seem to pursue money? Such folks exist to be sure. Their number is in question, because when a person claims not to believe in God, that person’s ultimate faith is by definition in the material world. Such folks may align themselves with a pursuit of what is best for them, or best for others, or they may not have a particular concern about ultimate allegiances, since they don’t believe in anything ultimate.

My goal here is to help us understand that we have control of only three things in our lives, and the first is our allegiance. We get to decide whether we will devote our lives to God, to our families, to the pursuit of well, or even to pursue nothing as our ultimate allegiance. We can certainly change our allegiances over time, but only when we are intentional about determining our ultimate allegiance and then aligning the rest of our lives to pursue it will we ever be strong leaders. The greatest leaders in human history have had a clear vision of what they made their ultimate allegiance. They pursued it, because they thought it was best for them, and often, because they thought it would be best for everyone else, too.

Once we determine our allegiance and align our lives to its pursuit we can become effective leaders, and only then. People who are drifting through life from one allegiance to another, or without any particular allegiance may well be happy, many are. They won’t be leaders. So, what is it you are seeking to lead? Is it just your own life? Is it your family? Your company? Your church? Your cause? Whatever it is, when you stop and take the time to get crystal clear about your ultimate allegiance, you will be able to align all your subordinate allegiances to pursue that ultimate allegiance and your leadership we become exponentially more effective.

Here’s to leading better by making certain we define our ultimate allegiance and pursue it diligently–today!

The Three Things You Can Control

One of the biggest challenges for leaders is understanding what we can control and what we can’t. After 59 years on the planet, reading many leadership books, attending decades of schooling in and out of the classroom, and seeking to live my life fully for the vast majority of those 59 years, I’ve boiled what we can control down to three things: Our Allegiance, Our Attitude, and Our Effort. Today, we’ll focus on the overall idea of these three areas being the only matters within our control. Then on Monday, we’ll pick up with a focus on Our Allegiance; Tuesday we’ll focus on Our Attitude, and we’ll finish this little series of posts on Wednesday by focusing on Our Effort.

Here’s why I believe the three areas listed above are the only areas of life we control. While we may think we can control many other areas of life, when we examine them we find either that we can’t control them, or they fall into one of the three areas. For example, we may think we can control other people, specifically our spouses, children, parents, co-workers–particularly if they are employees, or others in our spheres of influence. The truth is we may be able to control others’ behaviors while they’re in our presence or under the influence of the paychecks we provide them, but we can’t ultimately control them if they decide to take control of their own allegiances, attitudes and efforts.

We may think we control how much money we make, or how much resource we have available to us to live our lives or carry out our work. In the short-term that may be true. But as great economic downturns throughout history have demonstrated worldly wealth can be so uncertain.  What we can control when it comes to our personal resources is our allegiance to them–whether we control them or they control us, our attitude toward them–whether they’re tools or traps, and our effort in attaining them.

We may think we have control of our time. We can sit down at the start of a day, week, month, or year and plan the course we will take for each of those units of time. Not only can we do that, if we want our lives to matter as much as possible, we must do that. What we cannot do is control whether what we have planned will happen. It is true that when we have a plan, we have a much greater probability of attaining what we set out to do than if we don’t, but we can’t even control with absolute certainty whether we’ll make it through this day. Every day folks with great plans have heart attacks, get hit by busses, and find themselves impacted by random occurrences they could neither have foreseen nor controlled.

By now you’re probably seeing we have far less control in our lives than we think. I’m not making this case in order to depress us, or to tell us we can’t lead effectively, because we never know what’s going to happen next. We must lead more effectively precisely because we don’t know what is going to happen next. When we have our allegiances set on the right people and causes, when we have our attitudes aligned with our life purpose, and when we give the maximum effort to the areas of life that matter most, we’ll experience both success and significance. As you’ll see on Monday through Wednesday, as we focus on allegiance, attitude and effort, controlling these three is the leader’s basic task.

When our plans don’t work the way they thought we would, we must remember why we were living out the plan in the first place, which leads us back to allegiance. When others make purposeful attempts to upset our plans, or just blunder into our plans without an idea in the world of what they’re doing, our attitudes will make all the difference to whether we maintain our leadership or not. When roadblocks come up along the path our plan is taking us, as they surely will, our effort will make all the difference. We do control our allegiance, our attitude, and our effort. The more we focus on them, the more the rest of our lives will be ordered and effective–if not controlled–in the direction our leadership is focused.

Here’s to leading better by controlling our allegiance, our attitude and our effort-today!

(Remember, no posts on Saturday or Sunday. Have a blessed weekend! Looking forward to being with you on Monday.)

Leading or Taking a Walk?

John Maxwell popularized this leadership proverb: He who thinks he is leading, but has no one following is only taking a walk.  So, are you leading or talking a walk? Whatever your leadership position, are there folks who are following you? If they are following you do you know why? Is it merely because you have the title of leader in their lives so they’re forced to follow you or pay the consequences? Do they follow you, because you have established a relationship with them that makes them want to follow you? Do they follow you, because you have sown into their lives and  they have seen growth in their lives because of you?

I know that was a lot of questions. Great leaders ask themselves a lot of questions, because reflecting on who we are, what we’re doing and why we’re doing it is a basic reality for us as leaders. After all the unexamined life is not worth living, right? When it comes to leading or taking a walk, we must look to see who is following and reflect on why they are or aren’t following us on a regular basis. One of the things I realized as a leader long ago is if I want folks to follow me then I must care about them, and care about their growth. After all, positional leadership, the leadership that comes with a title such as pastor, or manager, or crew chief is the lowest level of leadership, and if that’s the only reason people are following you, then you are basically taking a walk.

If people are going to follow us, because we care about them and are feeding into their lives, then we must actually care about them and be growing ourselves. It’s all too easy in the midst of considering the “bottom line,” to forget that a leader’s true bottom line is always more than the number of widgets produced, the number of dollars in the profit column, or even the number of souls saved. As leaders the way we care for those who are following us, or leading with us, and the way we model and encourage growth are more of a lasting bottom line, even if all we are thinking about is the business or church we lead. Let me explain: one day you and I won’t be leading or taking walks any more. Our tenure as leaders is finite. If the church, or company or organization is going to thrive after our leadership ends, then we must be developing other leaders who will take our place.

That will certainly mean developing other’s skills and abilities, but it means so much more than that. If we want folks to follow us-truly follow us-then they must know we care for them as people and not just as cogs in the wheels of the machine. They must also know we are invested in them as people. That means we care about the intangibles such as their integrity and character development as well as their skill and leadership development. It isn’t either/or when it comes to these matters but both/and. Caring about the whole person and how they are getting along in life as well as how they are getting along in their roles at work is key to ensuring you will be leading and not merely taking a walk.

We are in a time of rapid growth at New Life right now, and our staff has multiplied over the past several years. That makes it a challenge for me as the lead pastor to know everyone personally and to help with their overall development as people and leaders. The truth is my role is becoming more one of leading through other leaders than it ever has. Even so, I still want everyone on the staff team to know I am there if they need me, and that I care about them, their families and their growth.

As a leader of leaders one of the best ways for me to be leading instead of taking a walk is to ensure I am continuing to grow. As a pastor, I make sure my relationship with God is growing through a daily practice of prayer and Bible reading/study. I also continue to read books and watch and listen to videos and podcasts that will sharpen my leadership. I invest time in Nancy, because I must model what I expect when it comes to family. My season of life permits me more time for all of these things than when I was the dad of small children. I take the season of life each of our staff members is in at the moment into consideration when I think about what it means to lead in his or her life. All of these considerations are aspects of what it takes to be a leader, and to ensure that I don’t turn around one day to find no one is following.

I hope you are taking the necessary time to inspect your leadership on a regular basis. Sometimes it’s as simple as asking, “Is anyone following?” If so, “Why are they following?” If not, “Why not?” As we ask and address the answers to those questions our leadership impact will grow, if we’re honest with our answers, and if we truly care about being leaders who develop followers whose own lives are healthy and growing. That type of environment is one that fosters the development of other leaders, which is a key to leading well not only in our own lives, but in the generations after us as well.

Here’s to leading better by investing care and encouragement into those who are following us–today!

Going First at Changing Direction!

I concluded yesterday’s post by asking what a leader ought to do when he or she has gone first in developing or using a new tool or process and it turns out that the innovation really wasn’t effective. The short answer is go back to what you were doing, or do something different. One of the greatest roadblocks to leadership is a failure to admit when we’ve made a bad or at least a non-helpful decision or commitment. No one likes saying, “I was wrong,” but until we learn to do that as leaders we’ll never be as effective as we could be. Because we’re human beings, we make mistakes. Those of us who go first make more mistakes, because we don’t always have the benefit of other people’s experience to guide us. While certain base-level truths guide our general decisions and actions, we all face opportunities to innovate in our lives, whether at home, work, school, or play. As I said yesterday what separates leaders from the rest of folks is leaders go first.

When we have gone first and been correct often enough, people recognize us as leaders. The challenge then becomes our tendency to move toward one of two extremes. Those who have been successful in inventing or choosing the latest innovations often enough may go to the extreme of thinking they will always make the right choice. They become reckless in their approach to leadership. At the other extreme are those who have attained a certain level of success by going first, and then say, “I don’t want to lose what I’ve built. Therefore, I’m going to maintain what I have. No more innovations.” While people seldom move to the absolute end of either extreme along the spectrum of innovation and maintenance, we do face the danger as leaders that we will tend toward one extreme or the other.

I’m the kind of leader who likes to try new things. Thankfully, I’ve learned over time that “trying” new things all the time is a sure way to lose focus and eventually to lose my effectiveness as a leader. Thanks to John Ortberg, I learned the difference between trying and training a number of years ago. Training is any concerted effort continued over time that will empower us to do something we cannot do now at a point in the future. Trying, on the other hand may be nothing more than a half-hearted effort to do something new or different. As leaders, we cannot afford the luxury of trying every new idea that comes along. I did that too often in years past. Thankfully, I ordinarily saw the idea, process, tool or whatever wasn’t working, and was willing to say, “Enough of that.” While that was an important ability, it still frustrated those around me to no end. After all, who wants to follow a leader who is charging off in four different directions at once?

The key for all of us when it comes to innovation and adopting new ideas, models, and technologies is to consider the implications of the change before we “pull the trigger.” I’m one of those folks whose tendency when it comes to pulling the trigger is to follow the sequence: fire, ready, aim. As we all know the most effective sequence is ready, aim, fire. Over the years, I’ve been blessed to be surrounded by other leaders at New Life who were better at getting ready and aiming. They have helped me to see some of my great ideas, or more properly other people’s great ideas that I wanted to adopt, were indeed, great ideas but the timing wasn’t right for us to implement them. When I’ve listened, the results have been quite effective. At times, when I’ve pushed us forward, the results were also quite effective, because the idea was right for us, and God is gracious.

Far more often, though, when I have not listened to the counsel of those around me who are good at getting ready and aiming, I’ve found myself in the position of having to say, “That didn’t work. We need to go back to what we were doing.” Or “That didn’t work. We need to try something else.” Or “That didn’t work. Let’s just bag it.” None of those are good options, because they demonstrate an initial lack of leadership. The key in those moments is not to compound an initial lack of leadership with an ongoing lack of leadership by riding a dead horse, as my Dad would have put it.

Great leaders will surround themselves with people who fill in the areas where they are deficient. My deficiency is rarely an unwillingness to adopt an innovation that will improve our effectiveness. My deficiency is “firing” before I’ve taken time to get ready and aim. Thirty years of leading has given me more than enough evidence that such an approach is seldom effective. Thankfully, as I’ve grown older, I’ve matured and God has brought a team around me that has helped me become far better in preparing before firing.

While I could offer dozens of examples of how firing on a new idea or adopting someone else’s innovation backfired and led to my having to say, “Time out. That was a bad idea,” we had a recent victory at New Life that shows what happens when the team works together to make one of my “go first” ideas a major success. As I’ve mentioned in a couple of previous posts, this is the 15th anniversary year of New Life. Back in January, I told the staff we needed to take time to celebrate this milestone, because I’ve never been good at taking time to celebrate. I said that April, which is our actual anniversary would not be a good time to celebrate, because it’s too close to Easter, and if we wanted to do anything outside the weather would be iffy.

My idea was to have the celebration coincide with Independence Day weekend, and to have fireworks as the grand finale of the weekend. Fireworks are not new. In fact, they are ancient. What would be new, was a community fireworks display had not been done in Saxonburg for decades, if ever. Eventually, the weekend planning came together, and we thought of virtually every detail, and distributed responsibilities for each detail to a particular staff member and his or her team. (When I say “we” I mean our leadership team at New Life.) The result of months of getting ready and aiming on the part of many creative and dedicated people is that Independence Day weekend was an incredible celebration. More than 1,000 people participated on our property and around the community with the fireworks finale. People left that night saying, “Wow! That was great.” The key was we had several good ideas, that were different than we had done before, and we planned them over a period of six months. Attention to detail was left to those who love attending to details, and we even added a last minute mission dinner, which was my idea, that had enough planning to be effective, and the weekend was amazing.

If you are a leader who tends to fire before you get ready and aim, know that you will find it necessary to pull the plug on many of your ideas. In those instances, please, pull the plug. It will save you and everyone else a lot of additional grief. Better yet, build a team of people who will help you get ready and aim before you fire, a team who will help you see that not all of your great ideas are. Listen to them, but also listen to God for that rare time when your “crazy” idea is His idea. In those moments do everything you can to ensure that you have gotten ready and aimed, then fire. The principle that leaders go first is valid all the time. The better prepared we are before we go first, the less we will have to go first in saying, “I was wrong.” This is a time when I hope you will learn from my mistakes and successes, rather than having to make all the mistakes yourself.

Here’s to leading better by admitting when our ideas aren’t great, and by developing a team to ensure that our ideas are great before we implement them–today!