On Leading Well

Author: Ken

  • How To Maximize Your Learning at Events

    As a leader you probably find yourself attending many meetings, conferences, retreats, and networking events. These external connections serve a crucial function in your role as a spokesperson — and learner — on behalf of your organization.

    Sometimes I find myself in a season of back-to-back events that reflect commitments I have made to speak, sponsor, or support others in their leadership efforts. It’s tempting to go through the motions: to step out of the meeting to find a quiet place with an internet connection so I can jump on a conference call with people who are elsewhere, or attend to other pressing work.

    Last week I was in Hong Kong. In the next two weeks I will be in Ethiopia and Amsterdam. I’ll be with an amazing group of talented creatives and digital strategists at Indigitous events.

    It is quite possible to squander these opportunities to learn and grow. I want to avoid that mistake.

    Today I’m in Poland at the Jesus.net Conference. The program guide contains an excellent tool, adapted from Steve Moore of MissioNexus, to help leverage events for maximum learning. I want to share these with you.

    Five Questions to Maximize Your Learning Experience

    1. What is the most important IDEA I need to CONSIDER?

    2. What is the most important RELATIONSHIP I need to PURSUE?

    3. What is the most important CONVERSATION I need to HAVE?

    4. What is the most important DECISION I need to MAKE?

    5. What is the most important ACTION I need to TAKE?

    What tips would you add?

  • Why Your Leadership Must Change (free download)

    The world has changed dramatically in the past decade. You know this. You’ve felt it. You live with the stress of it every day.

    Your leadership needs to change with it.

    The human race is rapidly becoming a more tightly knit global community. A dip in one country’s economy can prompt falls across world markets before the next day’s trading cycle. A technological explosion of mobile devices, social networking, and cloud computing has made the world seem smaller.

    These shifts have changed the way we live, work, think, learn, and relate to family and friends. And our expectations have changed. Increasingly, we believe that information and people should be available on demand. A global economy with shrinking boundaries allows buyers and sellers to conduct business non-stop, 24/7/365.

    Companies, institutions, nonprofits, churches, and mission agencies are all struggling to keep up with this pace of change. Many are rightly questioning whether the practices that made yesterday’s leaders successful will still be helpful tomorrow….

    Want more? Download this free chapter of my book CLOSE: Leading Well Across Distance and Cultures.

    Get the whole book on Amazon.com.

  • Your Two Biggest Enemies

    As a spiritual leader you have two formidable enemies. Each picks at you daily, constantly, relentlessly.

    If left unchallenged each will undermine your ability to lead people onto God’s agenda.

    What are these two enemies? It’s not your culture. Or whatever -ism is in vogue this year. Or problems in your organization. Or other well-intentioned leaders vying for power or control (of course they would never say it quite that way).

    Henri Nouwen, in The Way of the Heart, a classic work on authentic spirituality that mines the insights of 4th and 5th century desert fathers and mothers of our common faith, suggests that the two main enemies of the spiritual life are anger and greed.

    Anger and greed are by-products of my compulsive self — my false self, or old nature — that craves affirmation from constant activity and others’ approval. Nouwen writes:

    Whether I am a pianist, a businessman or a minister, what matters is how I am perceived by my world. If being busy is a good thing, then I must be busy. If having money is a real sign of freedom, then I must claim my money. If knowing many people proves my importance, I will have to make the necessary contacts. The compulsion manifests itself in the lurking fear of failing and the steady urge to prevent this by gathering more of the same — more work, more money, more friends.

    [These compulsions] are the inner side of a secular life, the sour fruits of our worldly dependencies. What else is anger than the impulsive response to the experience of being deprived? When my sense of self depends on what others say of me, anger is a quite natural reaction to a critical word. And when my sense of self depends on what I can acquire, greed flares up when my desires are frustrated. Thus greed and anger are the brother and sister of a false self fabricated by the social compulsions of an unredeemed world.

    I’m taking some time this week to reflect on the impact anger and greed have on my leadership. A mentor once told me, “Ken, people can’t follow anger.” James tells us that the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.

    How do you fight against these two enemies of your leadership?