Empower Your Team

I follow a large number of blogs and came across this and was reminded about how true it is. I had a chance to interview Brad Lomenick who is the genius behind the Catalyst Conference and this guy oozes humility, leadership, creativity and loyalty. Everything I have heard about him is good and reveals his heart of loving God and serving others. Great example to look at.  During my interview with him on Backstage Leadership he talked about the need to empower those around you.  What blows my mind is that Catalyst is run by 10 full time paid staff people and the willingness of a mega amount of volunteers.  Brad has appeared to master the art of empowering others to greatness.

Couple things I have learned.  Empowerment is not just delegation.  It is not micro-management.  It is not public permission but private control.  It is not easy.  It may never be done like you would have done it.  It is necessary to be successful.  It is needed for a team to stay motivated.

Leaders: one of the key things you must ALWAYS do is empower your team. As I’ve learned over the years, most leaders at their core are control freaks, which is part of the reason they are successful. But we all must learn and recognize the need to empower those around us to succeed and do what they do well. Most leaders think they can do it all on their own, and many try, but ultimately in order to grow a successful organization that outlives the leader you have to empower those around you.

Here are a few thoughts on Empowering your Team:

1. Give them the opportunity to make decisions, and don’t second guess them. A lot of us as leaders are willing to allow our team members to make decisions, but want to step in as soon as we see something done differently than we would do. Don’t make that mistake. It is totally demoralizing to your team.

2. Assign them responsibility by them owning key projects from START to FINISH. So once we allow team members to make key decisions, now we have to allow them to own projects and feel the responsibility of completion.

3. Fight for them. Whether it’s standing up for them to your boss, or standing beside them and supporting them in a disagreement with a vendor, always take the stance of fighting for them and being willing to go to battle for them.

4. Encourage them. This is the one we so often forget. But can go the furthest in creating team chemistry, longevity, and commitment.

5. Counsel, coach and instruct. Not necessarily the same as encouragement. Great coaches do this well. They scream and you and make you better, while also putting their arm around you and giving you “ego biscuits” when needed. Two different parts of empowering, but both equally important. Instruction is key for releasing again and assigning more responsibility.

6. Overwhelm them. Not on a continual basis, but ultimately your team members should constantly feel a bit overwhelmed by the projects or assignments they are working on, not underwhelmed. Many of their projects should cause them to feel like they are not prepared or ready. If they feel underwhelmed, they will probably end up looking elsewhere for greater assignments and more responsibility.

If I…

Do you ever feel like it is all about you? I don’t know your situation or what it looks like but there have been times in my life where I have felt that it was all about me. My plan, my vision, my hopes, my dreams and yes even my will. Really? How stupid do I have to be to really actually believe that? Well as time has gone by I’ve realized…really stupid. I don’t know how it happened, not sure when it happened and it pains me to admit that it did happen, but at some point in my life, I actually began to think that God needed me to complete his vision and mission and plan and without me there was no possible way that it would be accomplished. I know your laughing and thinking who would ever think that? Me. For years in my life I allowed my pride to build up and think that I was more than what I really was and only till that was stripped away did I realize that the show goes on with or without me.

If I don’t attend this meeting. If I don’t speak this weekend. If I don’t do this wedding. If I don’t lead this team. If I don’t counsel this couple. If I don’t have this dinner. If I don’t answer this text. If I don’t write this blog. If I don’t attend sporting event. If I don’t volunteer for that ______________. If I don’t return that email. If I don’t miss every event. The words “IF I” dominated my thinking…not “IF GOD”…but “IF I”.

I have been learning that God can and will go on with or without me…but I also learned that I can not go on with out Him…and that has making all the difference in the world to me and my family.

What is your “IF I” statement that you can put in the place of mine?  Maybe yours are the same.  Reality is there comes a point when we realize that it is not all about us.  My advice is to learn that sooner than later.

Public Opinion 101

I have had some time to slow down and look at my life over the last couple months and for me to slow down is a rare thing.  I thrive on pressure situations and being in charge.  I thrive on pushing myself and pleasing others.  Pleasing others will ALWAYS get us into trouble and burn us out because the reward at the end is not fulfilling enough to sustain us.  Sure it feels like it is and will be while in the midst of the insanity but somewhere along the way you forget who you really are and why you really do what you do.  I am sure I am not alone in my feeling this way because no matter if it is ministry or business there is a constant battle of the rat race that surrounds us.  It slowly slips in and takes away valuable time away from God and our families until were standing there alone and questioning what happened.

I have learned that living my life in fear of what others think of me is no way to live at all.  Maybe you are there…right now. You are worn-out. You are weary. You have forgotten who you are because you have spent so much time trying to be something for someone else. I was worn-out.  I was weary.  I had forgotten who I was was.

• Tired of performing
• Tired of persuading
• Tired of impressing
• Tired of posing
• Tired of faking
• Tired from my past
• Tired of fighting for approval
• Tired of trying to make up for mistakes
• Tired of proving myself
• Tired of not being seen for who I really was

When you become so tired your natural inclination is to try harder only to find yourself more tired.  At least that was the cycle and struggle for me.  In that time I forgot who I am in Christ.  I lived so much for the opinion of others that I lost sight of God’s opinion of me:

• My past is forgiven
• My future is secure
• I am loved for who I am
• My true self is all God desires
• My mistakes are wiped clean
• My performance doesn’t earn God’s love
• Who I am is impressive enough

I have loved this time away to slow down and to realize who I am.  I dream again.  I laugh again.  I believe again.  To finally get to the point in my life that other people’s opinions of me doesn’t matter is a great place.  That doesn’t mean I won’t listen and learn from others and take criticism in stride but I am convinced more than ever that your never as bad as people say you are and your never as good as people say you are.  Being content in what I was created for has been a humbling journey but one I would not change for anything.

“People” People

Teddy Roosevelt said, “The most important single ingredient in the formula of success in leadership is knowing how to get along with people.”  Were told in Proverbs 27 to be diligent to know those around us.  I learned in college the 10 ideas to becoming a “people” person and since it was a Baptist school at the time, all of the ideas start with the letter “R”.

.

.

1. REACH out to people.
2. REMEMBER a person’s name.
3. RECOGNIZE a person’s potential.
4. REQUEST information about them.
5. Be RESPECTFUL.
6. RELATE on their level.
7. Be RELIABLE.
8. Give REASSURANCE to people.
9. Be a RESOURCE for people.
10. REQUEST their help.

As I read through that list I thought there is at least one missing.  RESPOND.  People want to know just as much about you as you do about them.  There is a certain level of transparency that is required of a leader if the people they lead are to trust them.  There is a level of understanding that people need to have that lets them know you are just like them.

When you ask good questions you will see what they really care about.  You’ll find out about their future dreams and goals.  You’ll find out about what they cry about or what they sing and laugh about.  To do this you must become a good listener and when the time is right you must become a good responder.

There are at least 10 things to discover about someone in order to have a better understanding of them and this is a two way street.

1. Their background
2. Their present situation or station in life
3. Their personality
4. Their spiritual gift (s)
5. Their natural abilities
6. Their dreams for the future
7. Their hurts -past and present
8. Their joys -past and present
9. Their priorities
10. Their key influencers as well as who their friends are

Remember as a leader “you must care more about who they are than what they do.” -Perry Noble. You can have good people skills and not be a good leader, but you cannot be a good leader without good people skills.

As a leader use your head to gain knowledge of people.  As a leader use your heart to demonstrate a concern for people.  As a leader use your hands to help people.  As a leader use your life to connect with people.

People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.  Everybody wants to be someone.  Everyone needs someone.  Take the time to discover the potential that others do not see in themselves and point it out to them.  Be real with people and let them into your life.

Idea Factory

“I wish I had thought of that.”  ”I had this idea.” “I just had this thought but I forgot it.”  ”I thought of that first.” I thought, I thought, I thought.  Ever say one of those statements?  Ever get frustrated when a thought passes in and out of your mind before you can write it down or act on it?  I used to, now I have an app on my iphone that allows me to capture those thoughts but that is not the point of this blog post.  When I think of a leader I immediately think, thinker, dreamer, vision caster, dream setter and idea generator.  Leaders must be thinkers if they are going to survive in leading others.  It is said that managers spend 70% of their day thinking about today where leaders spend 70% of their day thinking about tomorrow.  Leaders think potential and what if and how can it be done?  Leaders constantly ask questions inspiring those around them to dream and think potential as well.

Here are a couple thoughts on leadership.

1. Leaders think BIG.  Visionaries have the potential to see what others don’t.  They also have the ability to communicate that vision clearly and compel others to rally around the vision.
2. Leaders think details.  How to get from point A to point B.
3. Leaders think continually.  More importantly they listen continually.
4. Leaders think bottom line.
5. Leaders think improvement.
6. Leaders think innovation.  How can we make it right, better or more inspiring?  How can others be as passionate about this as we are.

Ya Ya Sisterhood Conflict

Conflict sucks!  It just does.  Nobody likes to deal with it and yet it is always around us.  Causing us to face it, deal with it, grow from it and challenge others with it.  I remember as a kid I learned to shut people out and just not talk about it, that turned out to not be a healthy solution, who knew?  I’m learning to talk through my feelings now which feels very Ya Ya Sisterhood to me but it is critical to help avoid mass conflict.  Reading through a Perry Noble blog I came across some interesting thoughts.  Most of this is his but some of it is mine.  Enjoy.

1. The fight to keep people happy.  It’s not possible.  People will talk, complain, argue and fight.  So please HIM and not them.  The very people that you try to always make happy may actually be the very people who turn on you in the end.  Jesus never made everyone happy, I believe a group of people killed him because they were not happy with Him.  I have made a lot of people unhappy in my life.  My parents, my sibling, my wife, my kids, my boss, my friends and countless other people.  Happiness should not be our goal in life.
2. The fight to have all the answers. You don’t know it all.  You never will.  There is a reason you have a team around you.  ”Refusing to admit that you don’t know something isn’t showing your weakness…but rather revealing your pride.”  Sometimes others are not challenging authority or being unloyal, sometimes they are simply leaders, leading.  I can’t tell you how many times I have been wrong but argued my way out only to look stupid in the eyes of the other person.  I love Proverbs now more than ever because I see that those who appear to have all the answers look foolish, but those who are quiet actually come across looking wise.  I want to be known as someone who is wise.  So this is a fight that I am walking through.
3. The fight to be “well balanced.” Trust me you won’t.  Not possible.  Too much time is spent on perfecting weaknesses.  Find your strengths and spend a majority of your time on those.  There is a reason you are gifted in those areas.  Nobody is good at everything.  I can’t go up to a sound technician and tell them how to balance their mix.  They know more than me.  You sometimes have to focus only on what you are good at instead of everything.  Bring people along side of you who’s strengths are your weaknesses and as a team you will be complete.  Know what your weaknesses are and have accountability in your life to guard yourself from them.  Don’t try to balance everything.  It won’t happen.  You have to say NO to good things so you can say YES to the best things.  I have failed too many times in life on trying to balance everything.  Somebody or something will eventually fall.
4. The fight to have complete assurance that something will work out. Everything is an experiment.  We walk by FAITH and not by SIGHT.  Faith comes by HEARING the voice of God.  Not the voices of the mockers or the supporters and noot the voices in your head.  The voice of God.  Even then it takes faith.  God will show you what to do but it takes faith and faith is scary.  The key is understanding your not alone.  You will never be 100% about anything except for the security of your faith in Christ.  Even that will shake but not because of Christ, it’s because of us.

So confrontation can be messy when we try to win the fight.  It can be messy when we have an arrogance about us that we can’t be wrong or that we know more because we’ve don’t this longer.  I have been there to many times.  I always fail at confrontation and communication when:

• I don’t line up all the facts.
• When I encounter a person when I am angry.
• When I am vague about the problem.
• When I don’t get their side of the story.
• When I harbor a grudge and don’t forgive them.
• When I don’t give the other person a way out, to make it right.

All confrontations should be looking for a solution.  Sometimes the hardest person to confront is the person staring you back in the mirror.

15 Reasons We Don’t Lead Like Jesus

So I have been really digging into the life of Jesus and I have noticed how He related to His disciples.  I think understanding how He interacted with those men is crucial to understanding some key dynamics of leadership and how to lead a team.  Everyone wants to be known as a good leader but why are there so many bad leaders out there?  Why are there so many out there who don’t get the team dynamic or how to pour their life into a team?  I wish I had an answer because this would not just be a blog post but it would be a book.  Maybe I would see you at Barnes & Noble as I sign copies of your book, however I don’t have the answer and the reality is I would not consider myself a good leader…not yet.  So what did Jesus do that we could model in the teams that we lead?

1. He called them to be with Him and He called them with a purpose in mind.  He called them the way they were with all their faults and deficiencies.
2. He began to develop  them to reach their potential, even though they were far from being champions when He started with them.
3. He took them with Him on day to day activities.
4. He taught them.  At times he taught by simply asking them questions.
5. He game them ministry opportunities with clear assignments.  He gave them power.
6. He took the time to hear their reports and gave words of encouragement to them.  Told them to rest.
7. He answered their questions and their request for information.
8. He gave them assignments so He could do His ministry.
9. He let them get a close up view of who He was, letting them in on the inside.  Teams buy into the leader before the vision.
10. He intervened in their lives when He suspected problems.  He was close enough to them to know there was problems.
11. He corrected them when they were wrong.
12. He enjoyed fellowshiped with them.
13. He prayed for and with His disciples.
14. He dealt with their failures and restored them to service when the time was right.
15. He commissioned them and empower them to carry on the work He started.

When you look at who He had to work with it is amazing that the church exists today.

• Peter- impulsive, impatient and a denier.
• James and John- sons of thunder, judgmental, un-compassionate and inconsiderate.
• Thomas- was a doubter.
• Philip- was slow to understand and learn.
• Nathaniel- was questioning and cynical.
• Matthew- was a tax collector.
• Judas- was a schemer, betrayer and a thief.
• All of them were position conscious, not servants.  They were self-centered and thinking only of themselves, not ever of Jesus.  They did not know how to pray, did not know about the last days, did not understand the ministry of John the Baptist, did not know about the Holy Spirit, had little faith, were scripturally ignorant and were fearful and ran in the face of opposition.  As a group they fought with each other, they did not understand the big picture, they were afraid to ask questions, they argued whether Jesus would use an IPhone or a Blackberry, they bickered over the level of the sound system in the auditorium, who would get the biggest budget, who reserved the space first to do their program and who should be able to hire an assistant.

I think you get the point that the same arguments of then are the same arguments today of those we lead.  Maybe that is why we don’t lead like Jesus because all of that takes hard work.  Maybe we don’t lead like Jesus because we put so much hope in potential and when it doesn’t work out like we thought we just give up and stop leading and start doing.  Maybe we don’t lead like Jesus because we are not close enough to Him to know how to lead like that.  Maybe we don’t lead like Jesus because were not perfect.

Nobody will ever be the perfect leader, but just because we won’t be the perfect leader doesn’t mean we can’t work towards being a great leader.  Based on what I see in the scripture, Jesus was a great leader because He was personal and He got into the lives of those He led.  I don’t think it was the big numbers and miracles that drew the disciples to Jesus it was the fact that He called them, empowered them, walked with them and at the end of the day He called them friends.

Value Of A Mission Statement

Does your life have a mission statement? Ok, I know you just tuned me out thinking that this doesn’t apply to you.  Truth is a mission statement applies to everyone no matter where it is you work, serve or play.  Every person must get to a point in their life where they give serious consideration  to their purpose in life.  So many people find themselves half-way though life only to look back and realize they have no purpose or mission. Many times you will hear it defined as the will of God for your life.  No matter how you say it, does your life have a mission statement?  Does it share who you are and what you are passionate about?  In Acts 9 Paul (at this point he is still called Saul) is on the road to Damascus with a purpose to kill Christians.  Hopefully you are having a hard time relating at this point.  He is blinded by a bright light, and he hears the voice of the Lord.  At this point of the story if it is me I am asking for some identification.  During the conversation Paul asks two very important questions: verse 5 he asked “Who are you, Lord?”  In verse 6 he asked “What do you want me to do?”  How the Lord answered those two questions shaped Paul and his mission statement for his life.  There is value in a mission statement and here’s why.

1. It gives your life DIRECTION.  Life is like a road.  Some roads are rough and bring destruction.  Some roads have dead ends, some without the possibility of making a U-turn.  All roads lead to a destination, but it may not be the destination we want.  Our mission statement puts us on the road toward a desired destination.
2. It give your life MEANING.  It helps determine what is really important.  It moves you from just going through life to investing your life.

When it comes to life there are several ways to approach it.

• With your life you can struggle for survival.  One purpose-don’t die.
• With your life you can maintain the status quo.  Average is good enough.
• With your life you can strive for security.  Get ahead, but don’t take a risk.
• With your life you can labor for success.  Get ahead no matter how.
• With your life you can seek for satisfaction.  Moving upward God’s way.
• With your life you can invest for significance.  Making a difference in others.

To be honest with you your mission statement may change based on the season of life that you are in.  Sometimes the direction you end up heading is not the direction you intended when you started.  Sometimes God has to step in and take charge of your mission statement and make it His mission statement.

Question:  What is your mission statement?

Tick Tock

We usually find three groups of people in life.  There are those who don’t know what to do, therefore they do not try.  Those who know what to do but never get around to doing it.  Those who know what to do and do it.  I want to be known as someone who pursues that final one, I want to know what to do and do it.  Sometimes I find that I procrastinate with my responsibilities.  Taking out the garbage is one that I procrastinate at.  My oldest son is 7 and is not yet big enough to take out the garbage and yet everyday I hold off thinking he’ll be the right size.  I just need to take it.  With a 10 month old in the house, well I’m sure you can imagine the garbage situation.  I procrastinate the final scoops of ice cream in the container only to come back to it and find it is frostbitten and wasted.  Never good to waste ice cream.  I procrastinate at doing things like playing with my kids or taking out quality time with my wife.  I think that I will have another chance to do that tomorrow.  Problem is my kids are growing up fast and if your not careful you can grow apart with your spouse.

Procrastination is basically putting off until another time what should be done now. The procrastination motto is, “I think I can, I think I could, I think I may, I think I should.  I think I might, I think I will.  I think I better think more still.”  One procrastinator said, “Procrastination is my greatest sin.  It brings me endless sorrow.  I’m going to stop doing it, perhaps I’ll start tomorrow.”  We’ve all used the saying “I’ll do it later” or if “I only had more time”  Here are some things to remember about time.

1. We use all of our time – some of it productively and some of it is has to be considered wasted.
2. We all waste time.  We waste time for a various amount of reasons.
3. We cannot change time.
4. We cannot increase the quality of time.
5. We cannot do everything.
6. We need to see time as a valuable resource to mankind.
7. We can attempt to schedule our time.
8. We must invest our time.

None of us will be like Joshua in the Bible who received several extra hours to finish a battle.  So we all must learn to manage our time better.  If you figure out how to do this you should write a book and I’ll try to find time to read it.  Question: How do you invest or spend your time?

Questions

I am learning to ask questions.  I am asking questions that will sharpen me as an individual and as a leader.  Questions that will make me a better husband and father.  I am learning that when you ask a question, everybody has an answer.  In fact many people are just waiting for you to ask a question so they can give you an answer.  I’ve been asking a lot of questions when it comes to my time with God.  So many times it feels wasted  and uneventful.  I am learning that I will only get out of it what I put into it and so for me to understand and apply God’s Word to my life I am asking more questions.

Here are nine good questions to ask.

1. Is there a WARNING to heed?
2. Is there a PROMISE to claim?
3. Is there a SIN to forsake?
4. Is there a COMMAND to obey?
5. Is there a LESSON to learn?
6. Is there a PRINCIPLE to apply?
7. Is there an EXAMPLE to follow?
8. Is there a BLESSING to expect?
9. Is there a SERVICE to perform?

How about you? What questions are you asking?  Have any others to add to this list?

« Previous Page — Next Page »