On Leading Well

Category: Leadership

  • Love, Humility, Zeal & Knowledge

    Love. Humility. Zeal. Knowledge.

    These four words provided stepstones for my personal development path in 2009. They came to me during an extended day with the Lord in June, a day when I was asking Jesus what specific areas he wanted me to pursue for the next season of my life. So, over the past half year most of my close friends know that I’ve been hovering around these four ideas, seeking insight on their implications for my own growth, service and leadership. What follows is a snapshot of what I’m learning.

    LOVE. Some time ago a mentor asked me “Where do you want to grow, Ken?” I replied: Soft people skills. The next time we were together he brought that up, saying, “Ken, you know, in Christian leadership there’s no such thing as soft people skills. It’s called LOVE.” Jesus spoke often of love. So did Peter and Paul. Love one another, we are urged. Greater love has no one than this, that she lay down his life for her friends. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude; it does not seek its own. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Make every effort to add to your faith… love. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself… and so on.

    I spend an inordinate amount of time in various leadership settings around the world. It pains me to say that if we made podcasts of all of these discussions and played them back, we wouldn’t hear the word “love” pop up nearly as frequently as we’d like to think. If three of the world’s greatest spiritual leaders spoke so often of love, I should definitely pay more attention to this. For me this means forgiving people more readily when their mistakes cost me time, extra effort or loss of face. It means growing in p a t i e n c e. It means constantly depending on the Holy Spirit for discernment on when I should intervene as a leader and when I should allow others’ decisions to play out over time. I am usually too quick to rush to judgment or leap in to save. Yep. Still learning, still growing here.

    Next up: HUMILITY.

  • A Leader’s Honest Prayer

    Lord, you are God and there is no other.

    This morning’s rising sun declares your glory and reminds me of your Word and your Spirit. Nothing is hidden from their light and heat.

    You are compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness and truth. I am so glad that you are God and I am not.

    Lord, I feel compressed. The pressures, the demands, the expectations of my leadership role squeeze me like a vise. This is a high season of ministry to others. You have led me to make commitments: to travel, to speak, to observe, to listen, to coach, to serve, to support others in their high calling of following you. I have been careful to seek your leading for each commitment. Now it’s game time. No one else understands or can fully appreciate the path I must walk for the next two months… except for you. Lord, take me by the hand and lead me. I am your trusting child. Help me fulfill my commitments and bear fruit that glorifies your name.

    Lord, I feel tension. Like everyone else, I experience tensions between being and doing, people and production, cause and community, quantity and quality, running hard and resting in you. Your servant captures my heartfelt sentiments:

    There is the tension between the need for organizational hierarchy with all the power dynamics this creates and the mutuality and inter-dependence of life in community to which we as Christians are called. There is the tension of knowing how to “work the system” and entering into trustworthy relationships characterized by trust and a commitment to one another’s well-being. There is the tension between the need for an easy discipleship process through which we can efficiently herd lots of people and the patient, plodding and ultimately mysterious nature of the spiritual transformation process. And then there is the challenge of knowing how to speak of these things in fruitful ways inside places of power without becoming polarized in our relationships with one another.

    Compression and tension. Aren’t those the same two opposing forces that allow architects to erect their masterpieces of concrete and steel? Is not this dynamic interaction the source of strength for the human body, with the skeleton allowing for compression while the muscles and sinews work in tension? Does not the studied, disciplined training of these opposing forces allow the athlete to gracefully run and jump? The painter to draw out the most delicate brushstrokes from the palette? The musician to ply and pluck her notes with power and sensitivity?

    Ah, yes, Lord. They are one and the same. My soul resonates with the song of your servant David:

    For who is God, but the Lord?
    and who is a rock, except our God?
    The God who equipped me with strength
    and made my way blameless.
    He made my feet like the feet of a deer
    and set me secure on the heights.
    He trains my hands for war,
    so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

    Bring it on, Lord! Today awaits us!

    Sources: Ruth Haley Barton’s Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, Psalm 18:31-34

  • Two Great Quotes on Self-Leadership

    In their article “SuperLeadership: Beyond the Myth of Heroic Leadership” authors Charles Manz and Henry P. Sims, Jr. question whether the heroic figure of a leader is the most appropriate image of the organizational leader of today.

    Their answer: true leadership comes mainly from within a person, not from outside. Thus the challenge for any of us giving and receiving leadership within an organization is to understand how to mine the immense wealth of talent each employee or volunteer possesses.

    Two great quotes came across my desk in the past 24 hours that reflect this idea of self-leadership. One is ancient, one is fresh.

    A leader is best
    When people barely know he exists,
    Not so good when people obey and acclaim him.
    Worse when they despise him.
    But of a good leader, who talks little,
    When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
    They will say:
    We did it ourselves.
    – Lao-tzu, 6th century B.C. Chinese philosopher

    “Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor each morning the devil says ‘Oh crap! She’s up!’”
    – Rachel, student-led movement intern