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.

70% Is The New 100%

I read recently that people rarely give more than 70% effort at any given time.  70% effort towards their careers, personal physical upkeep, the relationships they are in and in their ministry or serving opportunities.  One of my pet peeves is when people talk about giving a 110% because that is just not possible.  We were challenged in staff meeting last week to make “Surprise and Delight” a regular part of our interaction with people.  I was challenged in my Backstage Leadership coaching call to give an extra 1% professionally and personally.

I would say it is overzealous to go from 70% to 80% effort.  But 1% is something you and I can do.  Imagine what that would look like if we were to give 1% more effort than we are today.  What that would look like to say or do something just a little extra out of the ordinary.  I wonder if it would make those around us feel just a little bit more important, would it make us feel a little bit more important?

So whether today your at a job you don’t like only giving 55% effort, try taking it to 56% effort and maybe tomorrow it will become 57%.  Maybe in your relationship with God your spouse or your kids you having been sitting at 60% effort, try taking it to 61% effort and see if it makes a difference.  It is the slow process to giving a little bit more today than you did yesterday.  Are you up for the challenge?

Failure To Thriving

God has a sense of humor.  Don’t believe me?  The fact that your reading this blog post proves it.  All through school since I can remember I struggled with English.  I feared the spelling bee days.  Brian Regan has a great clip on that.

I scratched a clawed to get a D in any English class I ever took.  Vocabulary and grammar were the same way.  I feared having to write any type of paper especially if it was 500 words or more, that was crippling.  I have always struggled with some form of dyslexia.  Once again Brian Regan has another funny clip on that.

So needless to say when I began to write a few years back I did it to simply appease a few, literally 3 people, who said, “Hey you should blog.”  What I heard was public humiliation time.  Fear struck me again as I began to write.  As readership increased my confidence did not.  I thought people were crazy.  After all what can I possibly share that will be of any value or importance to others?  After 500 plus blog posts I have found, as with anything, the more you practice the more natural you become at it and it generally becomes something you enjoy.  My English skills and grammar and vocabulary probably have not improved dramatically.  I still use too many comas and use small words so I can spell them, but blogging has become something I enjoy to do.  If for no other reason as my friend Greg Darley said, “It allows me to get my thoughts focused.” [Side Plug: you need to check out Backstage Leadership that Greg runs...I'm in and love it.  It has been life changing in my approach to leadership.  End Of Side Plug.]

So thank you for reading and supporting me these last 3 years as I share my heart and randomness.  I think of Moses who questioned God about how he would lead his people out of captivity, “Then the Lord asked Moses, “Who makes a person’s mouth? Who decides whether people speak or do not speak, hear or do not hear, see or do not see? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go! I will be with you as you speak, and I will instruct you in what to say.”

Don’t let your insecurities keep you from enjoying God’s best for your life.  Whether you have an audience of one or you speak to thousands on a daily basis, understand and realize that you have a voice.  What you failed at early in life may just be what you thrive at today.  Chase your dream and enjoy the ride.

Coaching Network

I have had the privilege to be a part of Backstage Leadership since  last September and to be honest I didn’t know what to expect. I had never been a part of anything like this but I knew I was passionate about leadership and developing not only myself but taking what I was learning and applying it to my circles of influence.

I have been blown away by the line up of speakers that I have gotten to interview such as: Chuck Colson, Michael Hyatt, Andy Andrews, Carlos Whitaker, Gabe Lyons and Brad Lomenick. Mark Batterson, Dan Cathy, Catherine Rohr, Mike Foster, Ken Blanchard and Francis Chan.  The line up is always incredible and challenges me in such areas as; time management, dream casting, social networking, leadership development and family being a priority.

Backstage was started by Greg Darley and has gone from concept into an idea that is transforming young leaders by giving them opportunities to learn from those who have blazed the path before us.  I can honestly say I am a different leader and approach leadership differently because of this program and hopefully one day have the opportunity to pour into others like Greg has poured into me.

If your interested in joining Backstage Leadership, check out their website at www.backstageleadership.org

Randomness

So much has been happening over the last couple weeks.  Some things life changing and some just schedule altering.

First off great weekend.  Kid Kollage was great, 15 students received Christ at UNITED, great turnout on Sunday with a lot of energy and Gus did a great job wrapping up Udderly Stuck.

Brandon is back home from the hospital and is doing good.  He went in Friday morning and came home Sunday night.  He had a temperature and an ear infection.  They did a spinal tap on Friday and all the cultures came back negative (which is good).  He still struggles badly with his acid reflux which keeps him and mostly Jess up at night so prayers for that would be appreciated.

Backstage Leadership started and last week had a chance to listen in on a conference call with Chuck Colson.  I guy with tremendous wisdom and at age 77 is going as strong as most thirty year olds.  Out of respect for the program I will not blog on the details but will say that I am so fortunate to be able to learn from so many influential leaders as well as walk through this program with guys who are just like me and trying to figure all this out.

Get a chance to go to the Catalyst conference and listen to leadership “stuff” for 12 hours a day and if you know me that just gets me fired up so be looking for blogs and possibly some live blogging (if I can figure it out) from the conference.