There are three things that I have seen bring down more than one leader over the years. All leaders have flaws. All leaders have weaknesses. Not all flaws or weaknesses are fatal to leadership. These three, however, are always destructive.…
Tag: Effective Leadership
Innovation or Memory
Ideation. Think outside the box. Paradigm shift. Imagineering. These buzzwords are all supposed to inspire us to think different and do something new. In the church world there are constant attempts at finding the "new thing" that will work to…
Checking the Church’s Oil
Just as a neglected car engine will eventually break down and leave you stranded, failure to do regular checks within the church will lead to breakdown and pain. By the time the signs are obvious it is too late. Too…
Change the oil
We have a problem in the church today... we don't like to do normal ordinary maintenance. We like to maintain, but not do the work of maintenance. When I was young, my dad did all of the minor and major…
The ONE thing to GUARANTEE your SUCCESS
That is quite a headline! One that will draw traffic and get attention for sure. Why? Because we all want to succeed and we would like to do so in as few steps as possible! Before we can get to…
3 reasons leaders wipe out…
In leadership, mistakes can be overcome, wipeouts can be career enders, and even fatal.
Managing Me … Ask for help
The final installment in our series on self-management is probably the hardest one of all for many of us. I know asking for help is not something I do well at all. Most leaders are quite independent and tend to be…
Managing Me… Work Hard
I wrote about a good work ethic in the series "Leadership Essentials" and that post fits this subject of this current series. I am reposting that original article with some modifications below. _______________________________________________________ I was blessed with wonderful grandparents. They…
Managing Me … Evaluate and Adjust
Stubbornness is not an ethnic trait, it is a human one. To very earliest accounts of humanity, we see stubbornness at play and causing issue after issue. It is true that some of us are especially stubborn. (My wife just…
Managing Me… Listen Well
No one ever promised that managing self would be easy. This is definitely no exception. We have heard it said many times, "God gave you one mouth and two ears so you can listen twice as much as you talk."…
Managing Me… Be Grateful
Gratitude is something that gets so easily consumed in life. It is far too easy to see what we don't have and miss the joy of what we do. This is true for people as well as things and resources.…
Managing Me… Humility
One of the earliest lessons that needs to be learned in leadership is humility. The sooner this happens, the less painful it is and yet the more effective it is. How many times have we seen a leader rise to…
Managing… Me
I readily admit I can be a hothead. I have a temper. It has gotten me into trouble more than once in my life for sure. I am also a control freak. Trust me, these two attributes do not play…
Setting the tone
One of the things that seems overlooked in leadership teachings, seminars, and books is environment. Not "the" environment as far as nature, climate change, etc. I mean culture, tone, experience, feel, the intangibles of all interactions and what it's like…
No one is immune…
Leaders have a huge responsibility: not just in what they lead, but in how they live. 20 years ago, we were led to believe by many in media that what a leader does in private does not matter. However, we…
