Leadership: Energy

We all love people with energy. We like people who seem to do a lot of things very well because they seem to have boundless reserves of energy. We all would love to be people that have this energy but can we all have it?

I think the answer is yes and it is all about changing our attitude and doing less not doing more.

Attitude
How do you see your life? Are you grateful for all the opportunities in your life God has given you? Many of you have the opportunity to be at least one of the following: parent, spouse, teacher, leader, lawyer, pastor, musician, nurse, student, friend, activist, blogger, preacher, etc. You get to go for walks with those you love, work in an air conditioned environment, watch movies, read books, play sports, learn, cook great meals, go out to eat meals, etc.

Do you thank God for all of the things you get to do? Because of your place in the west you are privalleged more almost all the world so is your day filled with thankfulness?

Attitude is so important, if we have an attitude of thanks for the great things God has put in our lives we will enjoy life more and when we enjoy things they give us energy!

How is your thankfulness?

Do less not more
One of the problems we have in our fast paced culture is that we feel we need to do more and more and more. But the result is we do things that we hate and that drive us down or we do things we love doing but we take too much on and then we are despondent when we know we are doing a sub par job on most of the things we are doing.

The thing is we need to do less but do what we do better. We also need to choose the things we do better.

What are your main responsibilities? Do they get the lion’s share of your time?
How many things do you do each week that energize you?
How many things do you do each week that drain you emotionally?
How many things do you do that you could get other people to do?

If a leader lacks energy, he or she will not inspire people.

If a leader is not inspirational are they really a leader?

Leadership: Passion

You can see what a person is passionate about.

Take some ministers to the footy and they will scream their lungs out. Put them in the pulpit and get them to preach about the cross and it sounds like they are reading from a shopping list.

You can see what a person is passionate about

We are in a time where people are more concerned with how you say it rather than what you say. This decline in our culture is unfortunate at best and downright dangerous at worst. But it says to the leader that they need to figure out how they will communicate what they need to communicate. In short the communicator needs to be visibly passionate.

This especially goes for preaching. If you want to preach and be engaging be visibly passionate.

Tips on communicating passion:
1) Make sure what you are communicating hits your heart. If you want to be communicating with passion are you passionate about what you are communicating? My worst sermons have been when I have not taken time for the message to freshly inspire, correct or rebuke me. I find that if the text has done work on me I will communicate the text far better than if I hadn’t.

2) Choose your words carefully It always cracks me up when I hear some ministers talk about their wives. Because their description of their wives are the worst advertisement for marriage ever!

This is a direct quote from a minister about his wife. (I have changed her name though) “This is my wife, her name is Wanda and we have been married for 15 years now and she has been really helpful as a ministry partner. The way she organizes our family is really commendable.”

This quote communicates no passion at all because of the words he chose. Words like helpful and commendable aren’t even okay when you are talking about a book let alone your wife! Also, notice how there are no words which display affection. The words love, like, beautiful, etc. are replaced with helpful and commendable which are just boring and tepid. (By the way if anyone calls something I do “helpful” I really find it hard to know where I am going to hide their body!)

If we want to communicate passion we need to choose our words carefully.

3) Speak with passion. Use your voice to show you are angry/sad/scared/happy/etc. If you speak in a monotone it will make people switch off.

4) Prepare, prepare , prepare. I have found that when I am really confident with what I am communicating I am more passionate. However, when I am not confident passion is the first thing to go. So to be passionate I need to prepare whatever I am communicating well. In fact the more I prepare the better I communicate with Passion.

So what things this week do you need to communicate with Passion? How will you prepare yourself and your message to passionately communicate?

Leadership: Candor

“That was very helpful”
“You are being inappropriate!”

What the hell do these sentences mean?

Nothing

One of the biggest issues Christians face is a lack of candor, I define candor as:

Clearly communicating what needs to be said when you need to say it.

I think we lack candor because we want to be nice and we do not want to hurt the other persons feelings.

This is gutless.

And not loving.

Loving people means saying the hard things, whereas being nice means you will make them feel good.

If you want to love people be candid.

Candor is not just used when you need to say the hard thing, it is also used in giving specific feedback.

We could say “that sermon was very helpful/lovely/etc.” and thereby not really say anything about the sermon. Or you could say “What I really dug about the sermon is that you made me clearly see X by showing me Y. I also loved your illustration about the dog it worked because of A. Also, what your application did was highlight this area of weakness in my life by applying what was aid in verse 6 this way.” See how this communicates far more but requires far more thought from us.

In short, candor informs better, it communicates more, it allows people to have their say and it if you start using it people will be candid with you which will help you make better calls.

How candid are you?

Leadership: Communication

Hypocrisy alert! One of the things that my team is constantly telling me to work on is communication, so I feel hypocritical blogging about communication but I think good leaders communicate so here it goes:

Here is why communication matters:

Communication says that you matter. If I forget to tell you the things I needed to tell you or should have told you this communicates something. It communicates that you are not important enough for me to tell you what I need to tell you.

Communication lets everyone know where the team is at. If I very rarely communicate I run the risk of people getting off mission or just plain thinking that what they are doing does not matter to the rest of the team. I try to communicate once every two weeks to every volunteer that what they do is Important and how grateful Resolved as a church is for them helping out. I also remind them of where their contribution fits in at Resolved.

Communication shows I am willing to say what needs to be said. A person whom communicates is far more likely to have the hard conversation that no one likes having but we all know needs to happen

Communication allows the leader to hear how their people are going. If I do not talk with my people How can I be their leader/pastor? So I need to be communicating with them

Things I am trying to do to communicate more effectively:

Replying to every text, voice message, email, facemail, twitter message even if it is just replying with “Cool” or “I got it” or “Paul Liao is not part of the Christian Music scene he is the Christian Music scene!”

Writing a list at the start of the day of people I need to communicate with for that day and designating the best form of communication (email, phone call, face to face meeting, etc.) to communicate what needs to be communicated and then communicating!

Every phone call or meeting I have I write out what I want to say on piece of paper and if possible have it in front of me when I am having the phone conversation or the meeting. This is so that I do not miss out on anything I wanted to say or ask. Now I do not do this in pastoral situations where a person needs to chat. But in those situations I do write down what I want to talk about before hand (if there is anything) just so it stays in my head. I also write down anything I need to do after the meeting is done.

I pray before and after ever significant bit of communication. I tend to screw things up so I always ask for Gods help in leading me to say the right things especially when difficult things need to be said or talked about.

Have you got any tips for me on how to communicate better?

Leadership: Vision

When Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Washington monument and said I have a dream the World stopped.

And the world still remembers

But why does the world still remember?

Was it his eloquence? Sure

Was it the time in history? Definitely

Was it geographic location? Probably

But I think it was one thing more than all these. Martin Luther King’s famous speech is still remembered and quoted today because of His vision.

He is some of his speech:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
Did you notice what he was saying? He was talking about a dream that in the future America could be a a different place.

He had a vision.

One of the things some leaders lack is vision. Vision is just a a picture in your head of where your church or organization will be in an allotted amount of time.

If you don’t have a vision you are just treading water.
Without a vision the the diffeent things that happen in your organization don’t have any unifying purpose.


What is your vision?
Can you say it one clear sentence?
Do the people around you know the vision?

Do you have a Dream today?

Leadership: Do you do what you say you will do?

How many times have you heard someone say they will do something and then not deliver?

One of the easiest ways for a leader to lose credibility is to keep saying that they will do something and it doesn’t get done.

When was the last time you said you would do something and it didn’t get done?
Have you apologized for this oversight?

Ask the people around you are you one who can be relied upon to do the things you said you would do or are you a person who can talk a good game but cannot walk it?

Because people are looking for a leader that does what they said they would.

Leadership: Character

I love Larry Bird! Partly because he is white and I am white and it gives me hope as a basketball player!

My favorite story of Larry Bird is when his team, the Boston Celtics, were at Seattle playing the Seattle Supersonics. The Celtics were two down with six seconds to go and they had the ball. They called a timeout.
Larry walks to the huddle and says ‘Guys, here is what we are going to do. You get the ball to me, get the hell out of the way and we will win!’
The Coach, KC Jones said ‘Hey Larry, I am the coach I call the shots! Ok guys here is what we are going to do. Get the ball to Larry, get the hell out of the way and we will win!’
After the timeout, Larry walks over to the guy who was marking him, Xavier McDaniel, a guy who was 6’7 and who could go bear hunting with a twig and come back with seven carcasses. Larry looked McDaniel in the eye and said ‘X we both know what’s going to happen, I am going to get the ball here I am going to fake left dribble right and shoot a three in your face. It will go in swish and I will look you in the eye and say I told you so!’
The ref blows the whistle, Larry gets the ball, he fakes left dribbles right and shoots a three in McDaniel’s face. It goes in swish and he looks McDaniel in the eye and says ‘I told you so!’
After the Game KC Jones is asked is he ever nervous when the Celtics are in that situation? There are a few ticks of the clock left down by two and Larry is taking a shot that will either make or break the whole game, is he ever nervous?’ KC Jones smiled and said ‘ No, cause Larry always comes through’

I think the essence of Character is someone who always comes through. Who always does what they say they the will do. As a leader, character is essential, the Bible speaks of leaders of the church having great character (1Timothy 3). So what about you have you got great Character?

Do you always come to places on time?
Do you confront people or talk behind their back?
Do you own up for your own mistakes when it is your fault?
Do you tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Do you look after your family well?
Are you accountable to people?
Do you work hard or bludge a lot?
Do you always do what you say you will do?

As a leader Character is essential!