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How to successfully build your leadership with willing followers

For years experts have said that leadership was intangible and not measurable. However there is a basic measure - leaders are determined by their followers. No followers, no leader. Most influential leaders no matter what title they have or role they play are those with willing followers.

The whole point of leadership is to get whole hearted followers for a given course of action. However most potential leaders ignore followership and instead focus on being more engaging, interesting or convincing. At times they may rely on their positional power and end up, not with committed followers but with agreements at best, compliance at worst and marginal results.

The term whole hearted implies leaders have engaged their followers both in the heart and head in other words emotionally and intellectually. It also implies that the follower decides to whether or not to give his or her commitment.

So how do you gain whole hearted commitments and willing followers? The first step starts with the conversation
you have with a potential follower. Here you express your decision goals, and you include three critical decision goal elements:

1) a confident statement of the goal which has value or benefits to the potential followers
2) an invitation for followers to look at or listen to the goal and strategy and
3) an acknowledgement that the potential followers are decision-makers.

Take for example the following interaction: I believe we can reach our target of cost reduction by making a few changes to our process. Let's discuss this approach and you decide if it something that you can support. By putting forth your ideas with the confidence that others can decide on and treating followers as fellow decision makers, you have a greater chance of being heard and with an open mind and gaining credibility.

Planning and logic alone will not guarantee commitment. Commitments are whole hearted decisions and that means engaging the heart and head. Not everyone sees information the same way because emotions shape logic.

Opening a conversation with a well stated decision goal establishes rapport, openness and trust; it also lets followers know they are decision makers and so feel safer talking and revealing their true attitudes toward a plan.

A follower’s potential attitude can be positive, negative or neutral and can vary from moment to moment. Exceptional leaders are able to intuitively recognise intuitively recognize momentary changes in attitudes or points of view in a conversation. They focus more on how something is said, and by that, what is said makes more sense. Recognising and adapting to what is said is what enables leaders to influence others.

Let's look at an example of what this looks like - when you give someone directions to your home, you first determine where the other person is starting from. The directions you then give vary based on where the person is at that moment in time. In the same way if a potential follower considers your goal or strategy difficult to execute then you must simplify it. If a follower sees a plan as being to risky you then reduce the risk. Since followers vary in their attitudes you will need a range of responses that make sense to followers.

Regardless of a potential follower’s response, you must treat followers seriously so they talk openly and consider your goals and strategies. Acknowledging their point of view and taking them seriously are easier to do with the following:

1. Give them your total attention: Prove you care by suspending all other activities, suspend your point of view and show interest in what the other person is saying.

2. Respond: Responses can be verbal or nonverbal (nods, expressing interest). the key is to show that the message was received and had an impact.

3. Prove understanding: Saying I understand is not enough. You need to prove understanding by occasionally restating the gist of the idea or asking questions which prove you know the main idea. This is different from proving that you are listening and transmits a different message when people are communicating.

4. Prove respect: Take others’ views seriously. Telling someone, I appreciate your position, or I know how you feel, does not help. Such responses are usually followed by the word “but” and your viewpoint. Instead, show respect for the other person’s view by communicating at their level of understanding and attitude. An adjustment in tone of voice, rate of speech, and choice of words shows you are imagining being where the other person is at the moment.


When others sense they are being taken seriously; they in turn will take you seriously as their leader. Understanding that successful leaders are great followers first will assist you in becoming a better, more effective leader.

Does your leadership facilitate?

What does my life mean? What am I doing here? Do I matter? Is there more to existence than consumption? Are we called to improve the lives of our fellow human beings? Are we called to take care of the earth? Is it really possible for one person to make a difference?

This “higher purpose” mentality sounds lofty, but it is actually the kind of thinking that is now driving some of the best human efforts on the planet, whether in business, science, the social sector, or entertainment. Make no mistake: meaning can be commoditised, just like toothpaste and cars. We would be amiss to imagine that the significance movement is altruistic at its core. But we would also be amiss to imagine that it is altogether insincere. More than ever, humans are waking up to the fact that they have the power to affect life, for better or worse. We’ve had several centuries of mostly worse. Now, many are choosing to do what they can for the better.

But do we really believe this? Do we really have faith that people want to build better workplaces, better neighbourhoods, better mousetraps, or better ministries? One manager of a Fortune 100 company described his dilemma as a leader:

“I know in my heart that when people are driving in to work that they’re not thinking, ‘How can I mess things up today? How can I give my boss a hard time?’ No one is driving here with that intent, but we (as leaders) then act as if we believed that. We’re afraid to give them any slack.”

Margaret Wheatley put it best when she said, “Most of us know that as people drive to work they’re wondering how they can get something done for the organisation despite the organisation—despite political craziness, the bureaucratic nightmares, the mindless procedures piled up in the way.”

Ben Zander, in his book, The Art of Possibility, claims that leaders often operate with the assumption that people don’t want to contribute; that they want us to do everything for them. Yet, from Bono’s One campaign to Arts for Aids to the Sustainable Energy Network, there is a new level of participation and individual commitment. Perhaps people are tired of being told there is nothing they can do. Perhaps they are tired of clogged bureaucracies. Instead, they are persistently and quietly organizing themselves—over the Internet, over coffee, over anything—because they want to make a difference. They are rolling up their sleeves and doing what they can because, well, they finally know that they can—without the help their employers or the institutions they attend.

There is no question that good-old fashioned narcissism still abounds. But the rising tide of activism is getting hard to ignore, and this time around, it seems to be more grassroots than ever and embracing several generations, not just one. What assumptions have you made as a leader about the people in your church, your ministry, and your community? Are people really just out for themselves? Do they really want us to do it all for them? How do we know? Have we tested that assumption lately? And if it’s true that many people really do want to make a difference, how will our leadership facilitate rather than exterminate that desire?

Great leadership believes great things about people and releases them to do the impossible.

What Makes For A Unique Training Experience?

It has been a challenge to describe the unique distinctive of the Leadership Matters Course. With so many courses being advertised as leadership training, as graduates of LMC, we need to be able to describe what is different.

If we were to simply give an outline of the materials covered in the LMC curriculum, there may seem to be little that is different to other leadership training courses. The question needs to be answered "What is unique about LMC?"

Many courses that are advertised as training are, in reality, lectures that are given in a teaching mode, rather than a training mode. ‘Teaching’, while very significant, tends to focus on the delivery of prescribed content in a lecture format. But in our context ‘training’ is focused on developing the participant’s skills and doing it in such a practiced way that they will remember the principles.

Participants will remember far more because they have had the opportunity to actually practice the new skill, or apply the new insight, than if they only have a record of it in a handbook.

There are a number of things in the presentation of LMC that make it unique. Four very significant aspects are:

1) The amount of time the participant is actually ‘doing’ and ‘practicing’ the material rather than passively ‘listening’. Each of the trainers is motivated by the phrase ‘Participants will not remember so much what WE say, but they will remember what THEY do’.

2) Participants are asked to practice a new skill only after the trainer has first modeled it.

3) While the trainers do introduce new material, they are committed wherever possible to help the participant discover the answers themselves. Participants do this by sharing their combined knowledge in a very interactive environment.

4) There is a carefully planned structure to the progression of the training which follows a Biblical emphasis.
a. Firstly, we help the trainees recognize their own worth and gifting in God’s eyes as the essential reality for them.
b. This is followed by developing an understanding of Gods concern for them to be loving and caring for other people.
c. With these two in their rightful place we then focus on the situations that as leaders they will need to address.
Being able to guide the discussions and insights from the participants; and balancing the introduction of new content with that, is what necessitates the specialized training given to all the trainers.

Given this background, another helpful way to show the differences between LMC and the many other training courses is to state the outcomes that the graduates can expect when they actively apply the training. The ongoing relevance of the course will be directly related to the ability of the participant to apply it to their own situation.

Warmly in Him,
David Cummings

What Happens If Nothing Changes In The Way We Lead?

Perhaps like me you go through a similar routine at the start of a new year. We start by admonishing ourselves for the mistakes of the past year - projects left undone, opportunites not seized. We grit our teeth and resolve to make changes in the way we do things in the coming year, only to find ourselves making the same resolutions: I've got to get organised, I'll set priorities this year, I promise to delegate more etc.

While they are worthy goals - the truth is we will more likely than not find ourselves at the same spot next year. But what would happen if we were to make a determined and real change in the way we lead our organisations? Better still - what will happen in our organisations this year if nothing changes in the way we lead?

Here are seven leadership resolutions you might consider that will make a real difference in your organisation in the coming year. Which ones will provide the biggest payoffs? Do all seven, and chances are you will have the most rewarding year of your leadership career!

1. Craft a big, bold, breath-taking story and tell it every day.
What is the most exciting, rewarding, and scariest future you can imagine? What great battles will be won, treasures found and people freed? Paint the story in full colour. What does the future look like? How are we going to get there? How is tomorrow going to be much better than today? People want to be part of an important story. Tell it to them and help them find their own starring role.

2. Multiply the strength of your leadership connections.
Consider for a moment the 8-10 individuals with whom you share management and leadership responsibilities. What would change if your relationships with those on the leadership team remained as is?
How much more effective would your leadership team become if you dramatically strengthened your personal connection with every one of these people? You have probably created a mutually acceptable status quo with these individuals so change will not be easy. Are there some difficult conversations that you need to have? Try this: honour their uniqueness; share more of yourself; learn about them; ask how you can serve them. Be careful, this is very potent.

3. Act with exceptional compassion and kindness.
You are not the only one feeling a bit beaten up these days. The members of your organisation are faced with many of the same challenges that you face…imperfect products and processes, unpredictable environments, insatiable customers, disappointing staff performance. Seek out ways to show your humanity every day. Treat everyone in the organisation with dignity and respect, especially those who are struggling. They will walk through walls for you, but do not do it for that reason. Do it because it is the right thing to do. We spend much of our waking lives inside organisations and you have the power to make these places where the human spirit can thrive or die. Use this power well.

4. Tell the absolute truth.
Stop spinning, sugar-coating and avoiding. You’ll be amazed at how many people start listening to you. How much more effective would your organisation be if the half-truths, positioning and face-saving were eradicated? The tough part is that you cannot make this happen by mandating it. You must go first. You must model it.

5. Hold everyone accountable.
Accountability is not tyranny. It is a very good thing. A caring leader insists that people do what they say they will do. When you hold people accountable, you are saying that their work is important. You are saying that they are important. Every time you let a deadline slip or a deliverable go incomplete, you are discounting the person whose job it is to deliver on these commitments. Make it a habit to ensure that every piece of work is accompanied by a personal commitment. Measure. Give feedback. Initiate consequences. Celebrate being part of an organisation that keeps its promises.

6. Confront underperformance.
You know in your heart-of-hearts who in your organisation is under-performing. Commit to seeing that this performance changes early this year. Now here’s the caveat. Before you take any action, ask yourself these questions – “What is my part in this situation? How have my actions or lack thereof contributed to this situation? What do I need to do differently?” Approach the individuals in question and describe your responsibilities and personal commitments to change. Then, and only then, it’s their turn.

7. Be distinctively you.
What would you get if you could put all of the leadership qualities of Bill Gates, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, George Washington, Jack Welch and Winston Churchill into one individual? Probably a bland, non-descript person indistinguishable in the crowd. These men and women made a difference because they had the courage to be themselves. Have you forgotten who you really are? What excites you these days? What are your passions? Where do you want to make your mark? When you are at your best, what are you doing? Maybe it’s time to figure out what is most important to you, tell everyone around you, and let this fuel your leadership.

Why not make this your best year ever as a leader. What will happen if nothing really changes?

Resources to Engage

FERRAZZIGREENLIGHT http://www.ferrazzifrfeenlight.com
Born out of a rich life experience in senior management, this company seeks to enable leaders to develop their own networking style and thus enrich their own careers. "How to build a lifelong community of colleagues, contacts, friends and mentors" is the sub-line of the title of "Never Eat Alone" the CEO's first book on networking.

FARNHAM CASTLE http://www.farnhamcastle.com/
An excellent example of a truly comprehensive equipping programme for those working overseas. One of the key area of focus is preparing senior managers in international companies for their posts overseas. A professional and highly relevant project.

FOCIG http://www.focig.com/focus.htm
Enriching and encouraging those who work in governments around the world, is indeed a high and noble vision. This is the desire of FOCIG which is a fellowship of Christians in government in the Philippines. Serving the nation in the heart of the nation.

MARKETPLACE CONNECTIONS http://www.marketplaceconnections.com/home.htm
We have a Marketplace Faith: The Christian faith started outside the temple. Jesus grew up as a carpenter. When it was time for public
ministry he worked in the marketplace with fishermen and a tax collector. His parables were marketplace stories and his healings
happened often in marketplace situations. Why is the marketplace important as a place of ministry? Our work is important because that is where we earn our living, provide for our families and spend some 67% of our waking time Monday to Friday. It is also the place where we meet non-Christians the most.

by Global Nomad

Resources to Engage

Links to help provide resources and to engage with others of similar mindset:

CABE: A initiative among Business Executives. Well worth exploring: http://www.cabe-online.org/history.htm

BE THINKING: This website keeps our minds alert and in-gear: http://bethinking.org/

2SIGNIFICANCE: Businessmen with a flair for influencing others for the Kingdom: http://www.2significance.com.au/

ETHICAL LEADERS: The Don Soderquist Business Centre is well worth checking out: http://www.soderquist.org/

By Global Nomad

4 Leadership Secrets Revealed

I was browsing through a bookshop the other day and found a couple of books including a recent edition of Fortune irresistible. I simply couldn’t walk away from a magazine and books that promised to share the secrets of leaders from companies such as GE and P&G. The articles were well written and interesting, but as I read, I was struck by the fact that I have seen these same ideas in dozens of books over the years.

The truth is that there are no secrets to leadership. We know what it takes to successfully lead organisations. It is however just simply put - tough, and we'd like to find an easier way to do it. Perhaps Ken Chenault of American Express has the answer.

Leading today's organisation is not for the faint-hearted, but the elements of what it takes to be successful at the craft are well-known.

1. Be the kind of person to whom others attribute the qualities of leadership. Words like authenticity, integrity, trust, and respect are often used, but it boils down to having the requisite personal stature, as measured by organisation members, to earn the right to lead. (Bonus points: create an organisation of stature.)

2. Determine where the organization is going and how it is going to get there. (Bonus points: create an organisation that can effectively respond to the inevitable changing winds and tides that will surely throw it off course.)

3. Craft innovative business models, systems, processes, and structures which unleash the natural talents and capabilities of people, while harnessing the inevitable chaos associated with organisation life. (Bonus points: create teams and organisations that re-design themselves as they encounter obstacles and opportunities.)

4. Build a purpose-driven community where all members get to contribute, learn and earn in a big way. (Bonus points: create the environment and processes that will supply an endless supply of leaders that are even better than you.)

Great leadership is not a secret; it's just hard work on four well-known fronts.

Give Us Trainers With Credibilty

The following is a quote from Bill Hybels book 'Courageous Leadership' page 132. It captures what we desire to see in trainers for the Leadership Matters Course.

"I usually hesitate when people ask me to participate in leadership development programs. 'How is it going to work? ' I ask. If they respond in the typical fashion: 'We are going to get Jo Shmo (with a Ph.D. in this or that) to teach on leadership' I tell them the same thing I tell everybody else. 'Most good leaders are not going to want to participate in that program because Jo Shmo is not a leader. He's a classroom teacher. He might even be a great teacher, but he never really led anything. True leaders want more than theory from teacher types. They want to be around other leaders who have actually been in the game, leaders with a few bloodstains on their uniforms. "

This powerfully illustrates the point of why we are intentional in recruiting key trainers for the Leadership Matters Course. We are looking for individuals who have a lot of experience. For each LMC, a team of three experienced leaders, who are good trainers, should be able to lead a successful course. They work together with others on their team who have a little less experience.

That's why we desperately need people with ample life and ministry experience to be the key trainers in each LMC. Our focus is to train leaders in pastoral and mission work. We need people who are leaders in their ministries; who have field experience. They have "a few bloodstains on their uniforms". We have often recognized this. In fact this has been an issue where some have disagreed with us. They say: 'Anyone can teach LMC, because it's about principles and the philosophy of training'. But we said 'No' to this, for the very reason that Bill Hybels so clearly points out to us.

The tendency may be to become somewhat lenient on this point, due to the pressure of our great need for trainers. At the moment, this is not so much an issue, since we have many who want to help out. A few years ago, we recognized that if experienced leaders, with this stature of giftedness and experience, have the desire to do training, they will prove to be the ones that can successfully carry several courses in a given year. We knew that if we worked almost entirely with people with less leadership experience, we would soon find out that the reputation and effectiveness of the LMC would suffer and eventually die a quiet death.

The ongoing involvement of David Cummings for example has been an enormous significance and has been widely appreciated.

In this sense we can't over estimate the value of people like David in the process of making the course as successful and popular as it is right now. We need people with much respect, a clear maturity, obvious skill, and with plenty of ministry background. We want to grow; we want to keep a good reputation and we want to gain admittance into more organizations.

As you read this you can pray that God will give us more of these experienced trainers. We also need them in the French and Spanish language world, as we are purposefully trying to get the course going in those languages. Depending on the level of an individual’s giftedness we can train people in the skills of being a good trainer. We can't train people, however, to have the credibility that comes from a rich life and ministry experience. Only God can bring about that growth. He also needs to call them to be involved in training other leaders. They need to see that with all their experience, the best investment they can make with their life and ministry is to pass on some of the lessons they have learned to others. That is investing in the future!

In Bill Hybel's words: The 'Jo Shmo's’ won't do it because leaders want to learn from leaders!' That is for the 'pillars' in the team.

by Joop Strietman

Natural Leadership Development

I have been thinking about and having conversations around Leadership development of late. These realities have been challenging my thinking:

• Leaders can't be recruited from the platform. We have to challenge them one-on-one.
• Leaders won't be fulfilled performing tasks. We need to give them responsibility.
• Leaders don't follow doers. We need to make sure they're connected to another strong leader.
• Leaders don't want to be micromanaged. We have to eliminate the tendency to control the process and, instead, hold people accountable for the outcomes.
• Leaders won't commit to ambiguity. We need to offer a clear vision. (And, it better be big.)
• Leaders don't just show up. We have to be intentional about leadership development.

John Maxwell challenged us in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership with this statement:

"When a leader can't or won't empower others, he creates barriers within the organization that people cannot overcome. If the barriers remain long enough, then the people give up, or they move on to another organization where they can maximize their potential."

He went on to explain, "Only secure leaders give power to others." In other words, failure to empower other leaders is a sign of insecurity.

This stuff is smacking me right between the eyes. Where are my limitations and insecurities limiting the leaders around me? What changes do I need to make to empower new leaders? How does our ministry need to change in order to improve leadership development?

Where is Your Attention?

Do you have the ability to focus your mind on what you want, when you want?

It is often said that our most precious commodity is time. I disagree. Because the experience of time is relative, I do not find it an adequate measurement tool. Rather, I propose that our most precious commodity is our attention. We only have so much attention to give at any given moment, and so our question becomes, to whom and to what should I devote it?

Unfortunately, for most people including myself, the ability to control one’s own attention is severely underdeveloped. As a result, I frequently find that my mind races off, following various thoughts as they arise. Perhaps you may identify with the following experience – I was reading the other day and came to the end of a page only to realize that I had no idea of I had just read because I was not paying attention (and so, frustratingly, has to re-read the entire page). What a strange experience!

If you can recall such a time you’ll realise - you were reading, but your attention was decidedly absent. Where did it go? If you were not controlling your own attention, do you know who or what was? This is something worth contemplating. The undisciplined mind is a noisy and busy mind. Sometimes we can see evidence of this mind in outward behaviour such as quick speech, the inability to sit still, or the constant need to rush from one thing to another. The most common incarnation of this type in organizations today is the person who has to respond to every ping from their Blackberry (not unlike Pavlov's dogs). However, just as often, the only evidence of an undisciplined mind is the feeling that another person is not really listening to us. Perhaps you have noticed this in others - they appear to be paying attention, but you don't get the sense that they really are. Or, perhaps you have noticed how your own mind wanders when in conversation with others.

Left untrained, our minds will often repeat the same collection of thoughts over and over again, sometimes for years. When we have not practiced mental discipline to tame what has been referred to as our "wild horse mind," we find ourselves in a state of constant distraction, unable to be fully present to any situation - regardless of where we find ourselves. For example, we may be on vacation, but if our attention is back at work, then time away from the office has not been sufficient to provide that much needed holiday. Without applying mental discipline to direct our own attention, our mind is consumed with thoughts, making it difficult, if not impossible, to notice what is actually happening - in a conversation, in a meeting, or during a presentation or important negotiation. The cost of this lack of attention can never be fully known; however, I believe it is greater than we can possibly imagine.

Try This:
For one week, pay attention to the thoughts you think most often. Notice all the things you say to yourself about what is happening and what it means to you. Simply bring awareness to where you currently invest your most precious commodity - your attention. At the end of the week, answer the following questions:
- What are the thoughts I think most often?
- Which thoughts are useful to myself and others?
- Which ones are not?
- How can I more effectively focus my attention next week?

How Do You Measure Up?

Think about someone whom you consider to be a very good leader. What is it about this person that has earned them this status? Perhaps they are very inspirational, personable or visionary. Maybe they are pillars of virtue, incredibly creative or exceptionally encouraging of others. They might be strategic thinkers. These are all important leadership qualities, but are they appropriate measures?

I suggest that leadership has only one real measurement …the organisational outcomes it produces. In other words, how do others behave differently because of your leadership? Do they work harder; do they work on the right things; do they learn and grow; do they also lead? I believe that there is a lot of emphasis particularly in the leadership development field on what leaders do and not on what they create. Perhaps we should take our eyes off the leader and instead look at the impact they have on their organisation.

It is only appropriate that we be able to help leaders conduct a check up on their effectiveness. I find the following questions particularly useful for organisational leaders in assessing their impact.

Key Organisational Outcomes

1. Alignment – Are all the arrows going in the same direction?
2. Engagement – Does everyone bring their best talents and efforts to work everyday?
3. Retention – Do people stay through the good times and bad?
4. Innovation – Is there a constant supply of ideas, change an improvement?
5. Spiritual Health – Is everyone connected and in tune spiritually?
6. Collaboration – Does important work get completed with no one person taking credit?
7. Talent – Is the organisation known for exceptional talent and development?
8. Productivity – Are people 2-3 times as effective as those in competing organisations?
9. Agility – Do people thrive on change?
10. Responsiveness – Does the organization live ahead of the curve?
11. Pervasive Leadership – Is there extraordinary leadership throughout the organisation?

Leading today's organisations is extremely challenging, and we all come at this role with our unique personalities, talents and experiences. I would encourage you to put your sights on the most meaningful organisation outcomes and seek to find your own best road to get there. How do you believe that the International Training Alliance (ITA) and LMC measure up?

Making An Impact With Your Audience

Last Sunday I was sitting in a pew at Southside International Church during the sermon. This is pretty unusual because as the Pastor I am usually the preacher. Today was different and I was about to be greatly blessed and encouraged. The speaker was Rev Dang Pham. Dang and his wife are C&MA missionaries to Cambodia . They head up the ministry of New Hope which reaches out to the 1.5 million Vietnamese refugees who are amongst the poorest of the poor in the Khmer Kingdom . Dang was a former jet pilot with the South Vietnamese Air Force. He was imprisoned for three years after the fall of Vietnam in 1975. With his family he later escaped to Australia where they were sponsored by a rural Baptist Church . It was in this small town that an Aussie pastor led the family to Christ. After nine months they moved to Sydney where Dang undertook theological studies. He joined a C&MA church and after retirement he and his wife offered themselves for missionary service, leaving behind four single adult sons. In March this year Dang took the Leadership Matters Course in Bangkok . This is where my encouragement came. As I listened to this man for whom English is not his mother tongue, I could hardly contain myself as he delivered a near perfect thirteen minute talk which he had developed during the LMC. His “you modules” gained the immediate attention of his hearers, the cultural modules were gripping, his “is it worth it all” module came through loud and clear and his “nuts and bolts’ module clearly described the ministry of New Hope. Two others in the congregation who had taken LMC courses caught my eye and with big grins gave me the “thumbs up”.

From listening to Dang I was encouraged to realize again that LMC is truly making an impact. Missionaries can share their story in a concise and relevant way that really makes an impact on their hearers. I am all fired up again. I want to keep raising up leaders as long as I have health and my Lord allows me to continue this life-changing ministry.

Roger Lang
ITA Trainer

Greetings

Do you recall the Management Skills Principle # 1 that we discussed and memorized at the Leadership Course?

Click on image to enlarge.


As trainers, we love to hear brief comments of how you’ve been able to apply (or not apply!) the material researched at LMC. What has been the most important idea or concept you have been made aware of regarding Principle # 1 of Management since you returned to your work situation?

Hit "comments" below or click here and tell us a quick module of how you have made application …

Managing together …

John King

Why Listening is Key to Leadership

Habakkuk teaches us that leaders must first be listeners. In the first four verses of his book, the prophet cries out for God to answer his questions. He begs God to respond to the injustice, the violence, and the perversion of his nation. He knew God was infinitely just and he could not understand why God didn’t interested in doing something about Judah’s rebellion.

When God finally did respond, He gave Habakkuk a distasteful answer: God declared that He planned to use a nation more unjust than Judah to correct injustice among the Jews. That didn’t make sense to Habakkuk!.

Even so the prophet continued to listen. He wrestled with God but knew that leaders earn their right to speak by listening. When they listen they gain something more precious than the privilege to speak:

1. They gain insight about people
2. They connect with the speaker’s
3. They earn their right to speak
4. They become relevant
5. They understand the keys to the speakers heart
6. They identify
7. They gain authority
8. They learn

Tell me, When you speak, do you learn anything? Do gain anything - should you listen to God and to others?

How to Ease the Pain of Delegation

The ability to delegate sets leaders apart from followers. That is because many people find it difficult to give up control. Delegating duties and responsibilities is essential in today's downsized organisations. The following key points will help you take the pain out of delegation.

1. Find the right person for the project.
Do not assign the project to just any warm body - unless any outcome is acceptable. If you want the job done right, however, you must find the right person for the job. If none exists, find the most capable person and train him or her well.

2. Delegate authority and accountability.
The worst thing you can do is delegate a task and then tie a person's hands. If you have picked the right person or trained someone well, you must then give that person authority so the job can be done without your supervision. If you have to minutely supervise the project, you have not truly delegated it. In addition, you should make the person accountable for the quality of the work performed.

3. Make the task perfectly clear.
Carefully explain the nature of the project to the person you are giving responsibility. This may be done verbally or in writing, depending on the complexity of the task. The newer and more complex the task, the more questions the person you are giving responsibility will have. Answer all questions promptly and thoroughly.

4. Agree on a deadline.
When the person to whom you are delegating fully understands your expectations, both of you are in a position to determine a mutually acceptable deadline.

5. Review and coach.
There is a learning curve associated with any new activity. During this time, you should periodically review the other person's progress and offer additional coaching if needed.

6. Lay the groundwork for more delegation.
Once you get your feet wet, you will find more things that can be done by others to free up your time. Begin training people to assist you in more operations and you will find yourself with more time to do what you do best.

Why Transformation outweighs Culture

Of late I have been reminded of a critical objective related to helping people experience transformed lives.

"We are not helping people convert to our culture; we are helping them be transformed by Christ."

If we aren't crystal clear about that, people will be drawn to, and make commitments to our culture. People want to belong to a movement bigger than they are. People want to be in on what is exciting and adventurous. People want to be part of something excellent and significant. But, if we aren't clear about calling people to be disciples, sold-out followers of Jesus Christ, they will continue to show up, cheer and maybe even tell their friends, but their lives may not reflect a personal, missional buy-in to the agenda of the kingdom of God and the grace of Jesus Christ.

People matter too much to miss this critical distinction. God's kingdom agenda matters too much to allow this confusion.

Why The CEO-Leader Model Doesn't Serve The Purpose Of Going Missional

In an interview with Pastor/Professor David Fitch with the editors of The Leadership Journal here are a few of his perspectives on leadership in the Life on the Vine, in Long Grove Illinois, a chruch seeking a more missional posture.

"At Life on the Vine, we recently added a fourth pastor. Some people
told me a model with multiple visible leaders would never work—there
would be no single face to attach to the vision of the church and the
church would never grow. Balderdash (is that a word?). The church
continues to grow. There are signs of healing, new mission, and new
souls finding God."

1. It doesn't make sense to build a church around a personality
People start coming to hear that one guy (most often it's a guy), and
as the crowds get bigger this pastor becomes distanced from the
congregation at which point he loses the ability to speak into the
people's lives that he knows.

2. There are no supermen or superwomen
With mutliple pastors the whole ministry of the chruch is fed from their may gifts, and all are invited to participate in the empowerment of the gifts as modeled by the many faceted leadership. No single pastor has the gifts required to bring this about.

3. Isolated pastors can get tunnel vision
Multiple pastors in submission to one to another can work against this.

4. Pastors benefit from being bi-vocational/bi-ministrerial (since bing the secular workplace is ministry)
Pastors who have jobs outside the chruch can get to know non-Christains and spend time in non-Christain settings.

5. It models the diversity and interrelatedness of the Body
The notion of a senior pastor puts up a false impression that one
person is especially qualified and elevated to ministry. But with
multiple pastors, he/she does not stand alone. The whole body is called
to minister the gospel inside and outside the church as a way of life.

6. It protects pastors from the temptations which lead to moral failure and/or disappointment.
Multiple leaders in mutual submission to each other in Christ, there
can be no temptation to put any of the pastors on a false pedestal as
an image of the perfect Christian.

7. It is hard for pastors to be servants when they are put on a pedestal.
All pastors should have to clean toilets, serve the poor, and vacuum floors after potlucks. We should see ourselves in submission to the Body of Christ, not over it. (Mark 10:42-45). This "amongness" is not always possible as a senior pastor.

8. Because the senior pastor position is an impossible position to live up to.
Therefore, by accepting this role we are setting ourselves up (and the church) for inevitable failure.


While Pastor David Finch agrees that in some contexts and ways of bing the Body of Christ, the senior pastor position may still have validity - it doesn't work at 'Life on the Vine' whilst they seek to be missional.

How To Connect With Your Audience

Connecting with people is critical for selling, persuading or getting the point across. And one of the ways we connect with people is to tell them stories about ourselves.

I was at a business workshop recently, and the stories that were most effective (by acclamation of the attendees) were ones where the person let down his/her guard, and revealed something personal. This is one of the reasons storytelling is more effective than reciting a list of benefits to a prospect. In addition to being interesting and easy to understand, it also helps create a personal bond with the audience. It means that you may want, in your ministry storytelling, to reveal anxieties, fears and feelings. In other words, to give the audience your confidence.

Why Thinking About Vice Increases Your Chance of Giving In

In a recent Science Daily article - a study by researchers from Duke, USC, and UPenn explored for the first time how questioning can affect our behavior when we have mixed feelings about an issue. The study, forthcoming in the June issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, found that asking people questions, like how many times they expect to give in to a temptation they know they should resist, increases how many times they will actually give in to it.

A number of experiments were run including college students illustrating how questions that seemed innocent enough, actually encouraged people to lower their guard to the extent that they were actually giving in to the vice.
Despite very real negative repercussions, respondents to a question about their future class attendance engaged in the negative behavior (missing class) at a significantly greater rate than those not asked to predict their behaviour.

While the results were especially pronounced for those with low self control. Its implications only serve to strengthen why those of us in leadership and management have all the more reason to lean on the Lord and be rooted firmly in the Word so as to avoid the numerous vices that pervade our lives and societies.

However on a positive note - two moderators were discovered which can prevent intention questions from exacerbating indulgences in vices -

1. Having people explicitly consider strategies for how they might avoid the behavior.
2. Having people create a self-reward for sticking with their stated usage patterns.