mensministryleader: Recent Episodes
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Relationships are at the center of all God values. We learn best with and with the help of others. We have the chance to practice what we are learning while we are with others. And as leaders we have the best chance of realizing out objectives when we determine to work in teams of people with varried gifts and abilities but with united hearts and purposes.
Our objective is to provide a credible offer of the Gospel and to travel with our brothers in their spiritual journey.
The problem is that there is a lack of Leadership Culture and a core of leaders is needed who are united in purpose while individual in pursuit.
This week we're borrowing from an idea I read in a mentoring book recently. The author attributes it to his own exposure to the concepts in a book entitled Launching a Leadership Revolution by authors Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward. They suggest that in the development of leaders there are actually 5 phases or 5 steps from the starting point of leadership to becoming a highest level leader. While there isn't one single idea in itself which is profound, when putting the 5 levels of development along side each other we can really appreciate the power of their observations.
So this week we'll quickly explore their 5 step pathway to great leadership.
I personally found this useful and helpful, I hope you will as well.
Your job as a leader is involved more than a single thread of process from beginning to end. Imagine being a college football coach. Every year there are new players coming onto the team for the first time, and also every year there are people whom you've learned to trust and count on who will no longer be part of the team. Every year's team is different. Compounding these enevitable transitions is the reality of injury. Great players are sidelined due to sprains, breaks, and the other common occurances of a contact sport.
Yet great college coaches are renowned for their ability to form and mold great teams every year. How? Well, among other things, great coaches concentrate on buidling a great coaching staff. They do this because while the players on the field may come and go the coaching staff will remain for a number of years. There are certainly changes in staff, which a coach prepares for, but he invests heavily in developing a staff which share the same core beliefs and principles about building a winning team. Yet even at that high level of athletics there are transitions. Some college head coaches are asked to head up pro teams. Some great assistant coaches are tapped to be head coaches at other universities. So when that head coach invests in his coaching staff and then watches staff members leave, what he is actually seeing is everything he has taught them go out into the world and off to other situations. Certainly there is a loss, but there is also a satisfaction in knowing that future successes achieved by former staffers are at least in part due to the head coaches investment.
And so the head coach will do what he must. He'll repeat the process. He'll invest in new staffers. He'll pour everything he knows and believes about competing successfully into more lives. He - in short - repeats the process. It's something all great leaders do. They never tire of finding others in whom to invest.
What leader hasn't given a team member a key assignment, only to take over and take it back? Perhaps that wasn't the intention. It may not even have been the way the leader perceived it. But in the mind of the team member, the freedome to tackle something new was all but completely underminded. And then, there are times when leaders a bit more aloof. The assignment is given, the measurement metrics are in place, but the team member simply doesn't have adequate resources to do the work in the prescribed time at the prescribed level of quality. Empowerment is a tricky and delicate balance between giving enough of the right things at the right time, but without giving too much or giving the wrong things in the wrong way at the wrong time.
Let's take a look.
Every week organizations around the country begin new endeavors. They envision new products, new markets to be reached, new people who will be helped and ways in which their ministry or business will help people. Immediatly after that, most begin to craft a plan for achieving what they hope to. They do what we'll call drawing a map which - if followed - will take them to the future they want. After developing the plan to take them there, a leadership team will pass out assignments. Each person on the team and many others will be given a portion of the responsibility for reaching the destination. They do what we refer to as "delegate". Every week in organizations all across the world, leaders delegate. They give part of the precious process into the hands of others and trust them with getting important things done. And then months pass. There are occasional follow ups. Maybe weekly meeting where results are "checked", but it more about chastising those who don't meet objectives or don't hit targets. Later, after the results are not as hoped for, people are let go, or visions are abandoned.
No leader wants to fail. Every leader is familier with the statement that "Failing to plan is planning to fail". Let me suggest another. Failing to monitor is guarenteed to give us bad results to measure later. This week we'll look at why monitoring is the thing which makes delegation effective. If we delegate but don't monitor, we've sent a very bad message to others. And we've almost certainly assured the future failure of whatever we've begun.
No organization can grow beyond the vision and capability of those who lead it. So when a man undertakes to develop and direct the ministry, lead each event, provide individual coaching, plan for the future and solve the problems of today, he'll severly limit the reach, the growth, and the effectiveness of his ministry. No one man can do it all.
But just for a moment, suppose he could. Could Jesus have done all the healing, all the serving, and all the teaching while he moved about the backwater towns of Galilee? Yes, but how would that have helped his followers to grow? The only difference between Jesus and each of us is that Jesus could have done it all, but chose not to because that would have defeated the long-range plan God had for the church. You and I, on the other hand, often actually believe we can do more than evidence suggests. And so, no one else has the chance to serve, to grow, to learn from mistakes, or to try their own new idea.
Delegation is the process not only of getting more work done, but also of creating a powerful sense of buy in. Those who sit and spectate may nod their heads when you talk about purpose and vision. But those who are doing the work of bringing a vision closer to reality understand the purpose behind the vision and how important it is. They become owners who will sacrifice and lay down their own lives in pursuit of the important work you are doing together.
Want to be a leader? You must be a delagator.
Teach, Delegate, Monitor, Empower, Repeat.
Are you busy? As a leader and perhaps a men's ministry leader in a local church, do you have too much to do, not enough help to do it, and no where near the resources and time needed? You aren't alone. Our temptation is to blame others for their unwillingness to step up. You've heard it and so have I. "I need help, but my men just won't get involved". What if it was our weakness as leaders, and not unwillingness of our men which was at the heart of the problem? What if our inabilities to lead properly and strategically were at the center of the problem which we've blamed on lazy or un-committed men? Yes, that might sting a little. It hurts me to have to say it also. Here I am working hard. And that isn't enough? My men are doing very little! While I am doing way too much!. I know you don't say those things outloud. Or at least not to your men. But we as leaders all know that we each think those thoughts at times. Perhaps one or more of the tips we'll talk about in this podcast could be helpful.
Some people in leadership have a model for leading and living which isn't sustainable and isn't really helpful to others. For each hour spent in serving, working, planning, teaching, etc, there needs to a certain amount of time given to re-investing in ourselves. When I don't take time to learn and to be renewed it will soon become apparent to those who know me best. I may be able to coast for a while when I'm in the presence of those who haven't heard everything I have to share at this moment, but when I'm in the presence of those who have known me for some time and who have heard my "big ideas", it will be evident when I haven't been recharging my own intellectual and spiritual batteries.
It isn't a weakness to need renewal. It's a weakness to believe we don't need that and plow ahead. Make a list of the ways you are most encouraged and inspired, the ways in which you learn the most and gain the most useful new understanding. Then make it a point to use that list as a guideline for creating a daily habit of renewal and recharging. A stale and tired leader is no joy to be around and does very little of lasting value. Let's take note of the fact the even Jesus felt it necessary to get away frequently and for enough time to renrew his spiritual vitality.
No one can do it all. No team can do it all. But we honestly don't plan and implement with that belief as central. So as individuals, as teams and as ministries we often attempt more than in possible to do well. What is the end result of that? We don't need to make a fresh list! We can each look at the true results of that in what we are already doing. How can we avoid more of the same in that regard? What are the few things which must be done well?
First issue of a new Podcast on Men's Ministry and Leadership. Thoughts and ideas which can be helpful at the intersection where Leadership Meets Ministry