10 Easy Ways to Know You're Not a Leader

I came across a nice list (from Tony Morgan) on leadership the other day.

"10 Easy Ways To Know You Are Not A Leader."

1. You're waiting on a bigger staff and more money to accomplish your vision.
2. You think you need to be in charge to have influence.
3. You're content.
4. You tend to foster division instead of generating a helpful dialogue.
5. You think you need to say something to be heard.
6. You find it easier to blame others for your circumstances than to take responsibility for solutions.
7. It's been some time since you said, "I messed up."
8. You're driven by the task instead of the relationships and the vision.
9. Your dreams are so small, people think they can be achieved.
10. No one is following you.

I believe this to be a good little list to enable leaders help take stock of where they are at and reassess their direction - and not get caught up in a loss of vision, responsibility and relationships.
I might add a few more to the list:

11. You are disconnected from the Spirit of God.
12. You don't take time to really listen to what others are saying.
13. No time to invest in developing other leaders.
14. You are increasingly making independent decisions.

I hope it helps you and others keep your eye on the goal through continual refocus especially in light of 7. "I messed up," which should produce redirected leaders, not just portray perfect ones. What are your thoughts?

11 Leadership and Management Lessons From Guitar Playing

The cover story of the May 2006 issue of Guitar Player magazine is titled, "99 Ways to Play Better Now: Tips from your Favorite Guitar Players!" and it struck me that are many similarities with gutar playing and life.

See if you can connect the dots between what several of them said about music and what you already know to be true about life, leadership, management and success at work or play:

• "Incorporate the feel of what someone plays into your style rather than the actual notes." - Bonnie Raitt


• "The best performances are completely unselfconscious - where you're inside the music, and it's leading you and you just follow where it goes." - Bill Nelson


• "Don't spend more time worrying about what it is you're supposed to be doing, rather than just doing the work. Once I was stuck while trying to write some new music, and I asked my friend Wayne Horvitz how he did it. He gave me a pencil sharpener. The moral? There are no short cuts, so stop whining and get on with it!" - Bill Frisell


• "Tone has more to do with touch than gear." - Eric Johnson


• "Get in touch with your uniqueness." - Ty Tabor


• "All it takes is to hear a little improvement in your playing, and that little bit of inspiration is often enough to push you even further." - Wes Montgomery


• "Don't be precious about anything - much less a certain guitar sound. There is always another interesting sound or effect just waiting to be discovered." - Robin Guthrie


• "Listen more to the other players on the bandstand than you do to yourself," - Bill Kirchen


• "Remember that the reputations of some of the greatest jazzmen ever are built on eight-bar solos. Too many guitarists play solos that are way too long." - John Hall


• "Remind yourself that you're free to feel great instead of reserved or insecure. You automatically become a better musician in becoming a more aware individual." - Eric Johnson


• "The enemy of inspiration is self-doubt." - Nels Cline

It all resonates with what is covered in the LMC - apart from being good stuff to remember.

Social Club or Transformational Powerhouse

I came across this quote from The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the position of the church:. It continues to be true in the 21st Century.

"There was a time when the church was very powerful-in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. . . . But the judgment of God is upon the church [today] as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the 20th century. (Letter from a Birmingham Jail, p. 17)"

I see two problems which have made a course like LMC necessary: 1) Ministries or the church has a hard time communicating its message. 2) The message we do communicate often fails because our authenticity is in jeopardy.

Finding pleasure in the simple things

I feel like I'm starting to get all wound up again and long for the unwound and relaxed feeling of last Christmas. The other day I watched on amused as a couple of little kids amused themselves during a long train ride with each other and their imaginative worlds. This prompted me to take action and put a stop to work and just relax - a little bit of cooking and little light reading that evening. Its amazing how much fun it can be throwing around a ball or taking a walk around the neighborhood or park.

My RPMs have been reving pretty high the last few months, but I feel like I'm getting my margin back. I'm trying to enjoy the simple pleasures.

I was reading Matthew 6 and reflecting on two fascinating commandments. They aren't the kind of "commandments" we typically think of as commandments, but Jesus subscribed to bird-watching and flower-smelling.

Look at the birds--Matthew 6:26
Look at the lillies--Matthew 6:28

One of my goals is to do more bird-watching and flower-smelling. Some of it is scheduled. We have a picnic day and time out with colleagues over breakfast. But some of it is just spontaneous. Last Christmas was my time of winter adventure. I was really intentionally about turning everything into an adventure. I guess I am learning to enjoy a season of simple pleasures :)

You Don't Need A Title To Be A Leader

Kem Meyer in a one of her blogs makes an interesting observation that I quite often encounter as well - that of people blaming a lack of excellence in organizational change/communications due to their lack of power/influence in the organization.

She makes mention of Mark Sanborn's book: You Don't Need a Title to Be a Leader : How Anyone, Anywhere, Can Make a Positive Difference and shares a few foundation principles that he outlined about leading without being in charge that are true.

* Self mastery. [Develop your competence, character and connection.]
* Focused attention beats brains, brawn and technology every time.
* Power with people rather than power over people. [We shouldn't strive to be likeable or capable, but both.]
* Implementation Quotient. [Ability to execute.]
* Persuasive Communication Skills. [Influence, not force feed.]
* Giving. [Of yourself. Of your time. Of your knowledge.]

leading up, v. How to get things done and motivate others without formal authority; convincing or persuading colleagues/superiors of the need for action and involvement or leading when not recognized as a leader by virtue of power or position.

What are You Doing with Your Life?

Tom Peters (business and management guru) was speaking at an event in Dubai in September of last year when someone asked him the question: What have you been doing this year? Well, in typical Tom Peters fashion, he has responded. It's worth a few minutes of your day to download his response and then consider, what am I doing with my life? Have you identified your life mission?

There are helpful insights in Tom's response that might challenge your thinking on how you're approaching ministry as well. Stuff like "Deliciously designed gasp-worthy experiences" and "Women buy everything" and "Make it 'different,' not merely 'better.'" Do you think these statements and others included in this document have any bearing on what's happening or not happening in missions and the church?

What's stirring?

I enjoy cooking. I love to mix ingredients together in just the right order and in the correct amount. Having the right amount of each ingredient in a recipe is critical to obtaining the taste of what you are preparing for a meal.

Timing is also critical. Being patient enough to let your bread rise fully once and then a second time will lend to a great tasting loaf of bread for your meal. Timing yields rich rewards just like fresh baked bread. As a result of patience and timing, one can enjoy the reward of fresh baked bread floating through the kitchen and the smell itself is almost as good as the taste. However with out the proper techniques this is not possible.

There are the proper techniques for baking, frying, boiling, and grill top cooking. Done correctly and you can produce a delicious array of meals that will keep your family coming back for more. Overall, quality cooking involves having the right ingredients, timing, and techniques to be successful. I want whatever meal I am preparing to have that certain taste or smell that calls out to everyone in my family and makes them hurry to the dinner table. Then I can both enjoy the meal and others joyfully partaking of what I have prepared.

On the flip side is a way of cooking that will not call out to others to join you at the dinner table. If the ingredients are not mixed properly it will ruin the meal you are preparing. Too much time in the oven or not enough will cause you to serve your meal late or have to prepare something else. If you misapply cooking techniques and fry what you should have been baked or boiled what should have been grilled you might get something that is far less appetizing and worse yet not recognizable as food.

There are so many combinations that you can put together to make a quality meal of food; likewise, there are so many ways you can ruin it when trying to cook.

Leadership is a lot like cooking. You can put together a quality recipe, follow that recipe, and produce a wonderful, appeasing meal. Or you can throw together a recipe that has a series of ingredients that don't work together, follow that quick fix recipe to ruin, and produce something both unsavory and hardly edible.

So as leaders we need to be careful of what we throw in the pot. No one wants a leader who can't cook for anyone - much less himself/herself.

2 Key Questions To Increase Your Effectiveness

There are two questions that you can ask on a regular basis to keep yourself focused on getting your most important tasks completed on schedule. The first question is "What are my highest value activities?"

Put another way, what are the most important tasks you have to complete to make the greatest contribution to your organization? To your family? To your life in general?

Think it Through Carefully
This is one of the most important questions you can ask and answer. What are your highest value activities? First, think this through for yourself. Then, ask your boss. Ask your coworkers and subordinates. Ask your friends and family. Like focusing the lens of a camera, you must be very clear about your highest value activities before you begin work.

Keep Yourself Focused
The second question you can ask continually is, "What can I and only I do, that if done well, will make a real difference?"

This question comes from Peter Drucker, the management guru. It is one of the best of all questions for achieving personal effectiveness. What can you, and only you do, that if done well, can make a real difference?

This is something that only you can do. If you don't do it, it won't be done by someone else. But if you do it, and you do it well, it can really make a difference to your life and your career. What is your answer to this question?

Every hour of every day, you can ask yourself this question and there will be a specific answer. You job is to be clear about the answer and then to start and work on this task before anything else.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, make a list of everything you do at work and then select your most valuable tasks from that list.

Second, resolve to start in on your highest value task and stay at it until it is 100% complete.