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May 9 - May 20, 2019
Great leaders, young and old, understand that God is the one who gives authority and that having influence is the path toward authority, not the other way around.
His way allows us to find contentment in our circumstances and also drives us to make the world better. His way brings the fullness of truth with the fullness of grace.
A kabash leader doesn’t need authority, but he or she cultivates influence through relationships. A kabash leader knows that the way to the front isn’t by pushing ahead or waiting until the game is over; it’s getting behind people and helping them move ahead. Just like a master gardener, a kabash leader gives space for people to thrive and cultivates growth in others through time, attention, care, and kind correction. The way to lead is to serve, and the way to create something great is to give people space to thrive in the way God has gifted each one. A kabash leader is marked with humility
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Here’s the truth you need to know: Your boss is not in charge of you. You are in charge of you.
You are in charge of you. You are in charge of your emotions, your thoughts, your reactions, and your decisions. It’s the law of personal responsibility, because everyone is responsible for leading something, even if that something is just you.
Remember, we’re all leaders. You have leadership in you, and if you find yourself abdicating responsibility because you’re not in charge, step one is to recognize it. Step two is to fix it. And that leads us to the second truth you need to know as a leader: When you’re not in charge, you can still take charge. To put this in the form of an Old English question, “Of what should you take charge?” Great question. For starters, the answer is you. You should take charge of you.
With the small choices you make when no one else is looking, when it’s just you and God, you are proving or disproving to him (and to yourself) your future ability to lead others. When a younger leader tells me he is frustrated at not having a voice yet or not having influence yet, the answer I give him is to continue to be faithful in leading himself well. You can never go wrong by making that decision.
Monitoring your heart requires constantly checking your motives and feelings before God.
No one can do this for you. You have to make a decision to constantly check the emotions of your heart.
Leading ourselves requires monitoring those dark corners of our hearts where these dangerous emotions lie. Monitoring your behavior must be both horizontal (with others) and vertical (with God). This will mean asking some tough questions of those around you.
A healthy curiosity should drive your efforts to monitor your behavior. And not just curiosity for curiosity’s sake, but curiosity for the sake of growth. You need to cultivate interest in how others see the way you act and lead. There is feedback orbiting around your world that could change you, grow you, stretch you, and make you better, but the responsibility for soliciting that feedback is yours! You are in charge of you!
own doing, but this only sets leaders up for future failure: “Truly great [leaders], no matter how successful they become, maintain a learning curve as steep as when they first began their careers.”4 For you to maintain a steep learning curve in this season of your life, you’ll need to be honest about where you are and how you got there.
Self-leadership means spending the necessary time and effort to determine your own personal vision for your future. I see many young leaders who have no clear sense of direction, and that can be paralyzing.
It’s dangerous to hold too tightly to the plans we’ve determined for ourselves, but it’s just as dangerous to have no vision or direction for stewarding the gifts, talents, and opportunities God has given us.
Choosing to believe that your boss owes you nothing might just change everything.
So, how do you know if you’re all-in? Let me ask you a tough question: if you were to leave, would anyone be surprised? If no one would be surprised, you haven’t committed enough. If you do decide to leave, the people that work around you should be surprised that you’re leaving because you were all-in.
What if God wants to accomplish something in you more than he wants to accomplish something through you? What if the only way for him to grow it in you is to put you under a bad leader? Don’t we all learn more from times of struggle than we do from times of ease? Of course we do. When I desire what God wants to teach me more than I desire getting done what I want to get done, I am in the best place. It would be tragic for you to leave before you have learned what God wants you to learn!
How you see your world shapes your world. And you have a say in how you see.
And once you’ve found that “why we exist” piece, smack-dab at the top of your job responsibilities should be connecting your specific role to that overall mission and vision. This isn’t a onetime thing. It’s part of your everyday duties as you serve the organization and follow whomever God has placed in leadership over you.
the satisfaction employees have in their job is directly correlated to their ability to see how what they do fits into the big picture.
So, what does it take for employees to move from mildly engaged to deeply engaged? Those leaders who feel a strong sense of ownership and have made the crucial connection between what their job is and how it drives results for the organization are more deeply engaged.
Don’t settle! Don’t let the frustration you feel over what you don’t have keep you from doing what you can do. Changing your perspective on your situation can change everything. Seeing what you do have will allow you to overcome what you don’t.
What you believe about God and how you see the future are foundational voices for how you will lead right now.
Paul’s remarkable trust in God’s provision informed his view. And that means when the circumstances of your job feel shaky, trusting in God will help to stabilize you as well. There is a confidence that comes from believing that God has you where he wants you. Throughout history, God has put specific people into particular positions for definitive reasons. And he has you where he wants you.
But notice that it wasn’t just a deep trust in God that affected Paul’s outlook. Being convinced that God was up to something greater than the circumstances in front of him provided a spirit of expectancy and hopefulness that allowed Paul to maintain a sense of positivity.
The basis of our Christian faith is that our God is a God who is always able, always moving, and always working on our behalf. Even when it feels like he’s silent, he’s never distant. Even when it feels like it’s over, hope allows us to trust because of what we believe about our God.
Why do positive people make good leaders? Because positivity is attractive and produces other qualities in leaders that are naturally attractive to others. Leaders who exude positivity will begin to see their influence grow.
Even through that boss you don’t like very much. This should also encourage us to pray. Because if you don’t have the authority you would like to have, one of the best ways to change that is to take it up with God.
A deep trust in God and a persistent hope for the future will push you to keep growing and learning because you believe God is getting you ready for something he will lift you into. Until he does, you’re not quite ready. This kind of humility allows me to keep working on my craft, knowing that when I’m ready, my time will come.
Choosing positivity forces us to recognize that whatever we have has been given to us as gifts to develop.
As you begin to see your job, your calling, and your life as God wants you to see them, with the big picture in mind, it will help lessen the frustration that can destroy you—and the team you work on. And as you begin to see your life with the big picture in mind, you’ll be better able to choose the positivity God wants you to have.
Every good leader is also a critical thinker.
But leaders who are critical thinkers don’t just criticize and whine; they learn. They start by questioning things.
Asking questions is at the heart of critical thinking. Questions challenge assumptions. Questions uncover the invisible forces behind behaviors and actions.
Critical thinkers also notice things.
Being observant is another key leadership quality, because as we carefully observe things, we are able to better determine cause-and-effect relationships.
Critical thinkers are also able to connect things. Similar to the ability to observe, critical thinkers are able to observe and then make connections between seemingly disconnected behaviors and feelings.
They are self-aware and have the innate skill of connecting the feelings people have to the contributing behaviors causing those feelings.
You might not be in the role of senior pastor, but you should care about your work and calling because you’re in God’s family. You’re not just a servant in the house of God. You are a child of the king and you are called to work for him wherever you are placed.
The worst is having a stack of meetings, back to back. While this can seem efficient, it can also be an enemy of critical thinking. I will get to the end of my day and realize I’ve generated no new thoughts, no new ideas.
Cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman says that seventy-two percent of people get creative ideas in the shower.4 That’s because thinking critically requires uninterrupted mental space.
Efficiency wasn’t leading to effectiveness.
The greatest enemy of thinking critically is an overcrowded schedule.
If thinking critically is a skill, being critical is a snare.
People who are critical want you to lose. They’re motivated to tear something down. They do not offer constructive criticism; they deconstruct. They’re bringing problems, not solutions. When I point out something wrong with you to make me feel better about me, I’m being critical. People who are great critical thinkers want you to win. They’re motivated to make something better. Yes, they may deconstruct, but it’s for the betterment of others. They don’t even care about the credit. When I point out something wrong with what you’re doing because I think I see a better way for you, I’m thinking
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This is not about whether you should convey the thoughts that could better those around you. It’s about how you pass on those thoughts. I’m convinced that you can say anything—even hard and honest truth—if you say it in love and with a caring tone. When you communicate critical thoughts to those beside you, below you, or to your boss, you need to do so with a helping hand, not a grading tone.
If you can’t talk about it without getting emotional, you’re not ready to talk about it.
Awareness is a great first step. Learn to recognize that a low risk tolerance may be resulting in passivity in your leadership.
The greatest danger of not being in charge and waiting around until you are, is that you never learn to risk or fail and how to handle that experience. You never learn from those mistakes. Learn to recognize that low-level fear in you that says, “If you try and fail, you’ll get labeled as someone who can’t.”
So being aware of passivity is the first step, but step two is learning to reject it and take action.
