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August 3 - August 10, 2020
to lead you must be willing to serve.
“Jesus said influence, leadership, is built on service,”
Authority is always built on service and sacrifice.
INTENTIONS – ACTIONS = SQUAT
All the good intentions in the world don’t mean a thing if they don’t line up with our actions,” the teacher explained.
INTENTIONS + ACTIONS = WILL
will. It is only when our actions are aligned with our intentions that we become congruent people and congruent leaders.
Leadership begins with the will, which is our unique ability as human beings to align our intentions with our actions and choose our behavior.
When we serve and sacrifice for others, we build authority or influence, the ‘Law of the Harvest,’
Our religion is simply our map, our paradigm, our beliefs that answer the difficult existential questions.
All of life is relational, both vertically to God, and horizontally to our neighbor. Each of us has to make choices about those relationships.
agapé is used, a love of behavior and choice, not a love of feeling.”
“I cannot always control how I feel about other people but I certainly am in control of how I behave toward other people.
I can be patient with him, honest and respectful, even though he chooses to behave poorly.”
If the leader is screaming or otherwise out of control, you sure can’t expect the team to be under control or behave responsibly either.”
create an environment that is safe for people to make mistakes without worrying about some crazy person going off half-cocked.
Our job as leader is to point out any gaps between the standard that has been set and their performance, but it does not have to be an emotional event.
“The word discipline comes from the same root as disciple, which means to teach or to train. The goal of any disciplinary action should be to correct or change the behavior, to train the person and not to punish the person.
“Kindness means ‘giving attention, appreciation, and encouragement.’”
“Active listening requires a disciplined effort to silence all that internal conversation while we’re attempting to listen to another human being.
love is not how we feel about others, rather how we behave toward others.
Humility—being authentic and without pretense or arrogance
Humility to me is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking about yourself less.”
‘Humbleness is nothing more than a true knowing of yourself and your limitations.
Respectfulness—treating others as important people
one of our roles as leader is to assist them in becoming successful.”
Selflessness—meeting the needs of others
Selflessness then is about meeting the needs of others, even if it means sacrificing your own needs and wants.
To meet the needs of others even before your own.”
needs, not wants.
Forgiveness—giving up resentment when wronged
Honesty—being free from deception
Honesty is about clarifying expectations for people, holding people accountable, being willing to give the bad news as well as the good news, giving people feedback, being consistent, predictable, and fair. In short, our behavior must be free from deception and dedicated to the truth at all costs.”
Commitment—sticking to your choices
“Yeah, everyone wants to be involved but nobody wants to be committed.
However, we must never dare to ask the people we lead to become the best they can be, to strive toward continuous improvement, unless we’re willing to grow and become the best we can be.
“we have a choice to make about whether or not we will choose to behave lovingly. When we love others by extending ourselves, we will have to serve and sacrifice. When we serve and sacrifice we build authority with people. And when we have built authority with people, then we’ve earned the right to be called leader.”
“Manipulation, by definition, is influencing people for personal benefit.
mutual benefit.
leadership is built upon authority or influence, which is built upon service and sacrifice, which is built upon love. When you lead with authority, you will, by definition, be called upon to extend yourself, love, serve, and even sacrifice for others.
love—the verb—could be defined as the act or acts of extending yourself for others by identifying and meeting their legitimate needs.
“When we publicly punish someone, we obviously have embarrassed them in front of their peers and that is a huge withdrawal out
“As leader, John, you are responsible for the environment that exists in your area of influence and you have been given power to carry out your responsibilities. Therefore you are empowered to legislate their behavior.”
I eliminate the ones who aren’t.’”
The will is the choices we make to align our actions with our intentions. I’m suggesting that, in the end, we all have to make choices about our behavior and accept the responsibility for our choices. Will we choose to be patient or impatient? Kind or unkind? Actively listen or merely be silent waiting for our opportunity to speak? Humble or arrogant? Respectful or rude? Selfless or selfish? Forgiving or resentful? Honest or dishonest? Committed or just involved?”
“Leadership is not about personality, possessions, or charisma, but all about who you are as a person. I used to believe that leadership was about style but now I know that leadership is about substance, namely character.”
‘Thoughts become actions, actions become habits, habits become our character, and our character becomes our destiny.’”
The work of kindness, active listening, giving appreciation, praise, recognition, setting the standard, clarifying expectations, holding people accountable to the standard—this is indeed a daily mission,
people buy into the leader before they buy into a mission statement. Once they have bought into the leader, they will buy into whatever mission statement the leader’s got.”
our role as the leader, we have a unique opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of others.
