May 19, 2012

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How to Avoid Painting Yourself into 4 Common Leadership Corners

May 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

How often have you found yourself facing a leadership challenge where you asked yourself, “How did I get into this mess?”

Unfortunately, sometimes the answer is that you may have put yourself in that position.

I call this “painting yourself into a leadership corner”.


And the best way to deal with these challenges is to avoid putting yourself there in the first place. Here are four of the common corners that church leaders often paint themselves into, and a few ideas for how to avoid them.

1.   The My-door-is-always-open corner
Granting such unlimited access to everyone in your church is a noble-sounding sentiment, and can possibly be managed when your church has fewer than 100 people. But good luck with this when your church grows to 1000 or more.

Effective leaders must be strategic about where, when, and with whom they invest their time.

2.   The Let’s-put-up-a-memorial-plaque corner
Church leaders love to recognize “fallen saints” by sticking a plaque honouring their memory on a piano, a pew, a classroom or entire wing.

But if you need to renovate, I wouldn’t want to swing that sledge hammer through a memorial plaque. And neither should you.

Find ways to honour the past without limiting your future.

3.   The You-deserve-a-raise-today corner
Rising stars need to be recognized and rewarded with appropriate increases in compensation, with added responsibilities, and with titles that reflect their responsibility.

But proceed with extreme caution when doling out such recognition. Because while it’s easy and fun to hand out these rewards, it’s almost impossible to pull them back. A premature promotion can come back to bite you.

4.   The Let’s-call-this-the-FIRST-ANNUAL corner
Don’t give away your calendar.

There is no upside to calling something a “First Annual” anything. Nor should you announce a feature in your weekend services will happen “the first Sunday of every month”, nor any other declaration that will hand-cuff your planning calendar.

Each of these promises can have short-term gains but often result in long-term pains. So be very wise about issuing these kind of public promises.

Because leadership is a lot more fun when you’re not painted into a corner.

What leadership corners have you found yourself in, and how did you get out?

Filed Under: Church, Effectiveness, Featured, Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

5 Easy Steps to Becoming an Inauthentic Communicator

May 15, 2012 By 2 Comments

Authenticity is one of the most important lenses through which your congregation filters what happens when you communicate.

But actually being authentic in your communication isn’t always easy. It requires the effort and discipline to be yourself.

On the other hand, being inauthentic when you communicate is actually quite easy. It simply requires these 5 easy steps.

1.   Make sure there’s no connection between your real-life and your communicating
If there is a disconnect between your personal life and your communication you can be sure you’ll be perceived as inauthentic. For example, talking about good stewardship when you’re wracked with debt is a good starting point.

2.   Communicate completely differently than the way you talk
I knew one pastor who talked very normally in every day conversation, but the minute he stood behind the pulpit suddenly he pronounced the word “scriptures” using five syllables.

Creating a wide chasm between how you communicate in the church lobby and how you communicate in the pulpit guarantees inauthenticity.

3.   Never disclose any areas of struggle in your life
A sure way to be seen as inauthentic is to communicate as if you have all the answers and have everything in life nicely sorted out.

Since your congregation is dealing with real-life issues every day you’ll be sure to be seen as weirdly different from everyone else.

4.   Include content designed to make you look smart
These are the cool nuggets of trivia you uncovered in your research that really don’t add a lot of value to the talk, but which might make you sound clever.

Inauthentic communicators cram their talks with this stuff.

5.   Lace your talks with important-sounding names and places
Instead of saying, “I was talking with someone” you say, “I was talking with someone while on a flight from Rome to Bangkok.”

Instead of saying, “I was at an event recently…” you say, “I was the guest of honour at an event recently…”

This kind of communicating doesn’t have a lot of power, but it can make the preacher look good.

On the other hand if your goal is changed lives through the power of God’s Word, ignore these five steps.

And just be real.

How do you make sure you are as authentic as possible when you communicate?

Filed Under: Featured, Leadership Tagged With: , , ,

4 Risks that Exaggeration Poses to Your Leadership

May 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

How many of these statements, or statements like them, have you used;

  • “That was the best (event, class, earnings quarter, meeting) we’ve ever had!”
  • “This promises to be the best (baptism service, board retreat, youth outreach, stockholders meeting) ever!”
  • “There is an unbelievable sense of momentum and excitement building in our (church, company, ministry, club)!”

If you find that these types of hyped-up, hyperbole-filled statements are creeping into your leadership communication, watch out. Your leadership could be taking hits that you’re not even aware of.

As a leader you must certainly project optimism. But when you cross the line into hyperbole, you run four significant risks:

1.   You can be seen as inauthentic

Let’s face it. Not every event can be the “best ever”. If you use this kind of language excessively people will start to see you less as a leader, and more as a pitch-man.

Remember, you need to cast vision, not sell a ShamWow.

 2.   You can lose credibility

You know that service you described as the “best ever”? Well guess what. Your people were there, and they know it wasn’t the best ever.

When your communication creates a gap between what your people know to be true, and what you claim to be true, you start to lose credibility.

 3.   Young people start to tune out

At a recent INNOVATE leader’s forum, Greg Hochhalter, senior pastor of Sherwood Park Alliance Church in Alberta, made this important observation. Young people today have their radar on “full alert” for anything that smells like hyperbole, exaggeration or hype.

You can’t afford to alienate this group with your communication.

 4.   You create a culture of “desperation”

As a leader your words have a powerful ability to form and shape culture.

When your communication is flavoured with constant hype you are creating a culture of desperation. For your followers it’s a short walk from desperation to suspicion.

Because of my own optimistic nature, I’ve learned that I need to be vigilant to ensure that hyperbole doesn’t creep into my own communication.

And I would urge you to be just as vigilant.

Because if you can keep away from exaggeration and hype it will be the absolutely greatest thing ever.

(In case you missed it… that was hype!)

How do you keep from over-hyping your communication?

Filed Under: Canadian, Culture, Discipline, Failing, Featured, Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Why Leaders Need to See the World through “Young Eyes”

May 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

There’s nothing quite like proven, reliable experience to help a leader navigate through the toughest of challenges.

But at a recent gathering of the board of The Leadership Centre Willow Creek Canada, I was reminded of an important quality in leadership that is an essential companion to experience.

It’s the ability to see the world through “young eyes”.

As our meetings concluded, one of the board members closed in prayer by asking God to bless each of these seasoned leaders seated around the table by granting us young eyes with which to view the world.

By this he meant the ability to balance experience with a youthful outlook.

As I reflected on this later, I recognized just how vital a quality this is. And I was reminded too that after years in the trenches, leaders may need to exercise the daily discipline of choosing to view the world through a youthful lens.

But the leadership payoff is worth it. Specifically, if you choose to see the world with young eyes you will develop three distinct advantages:

1. You will develop an exuberant optimism
Along with wisdom and perspective, longevity in leadership can also sometimes bring with it a certain jaded cynicism.

But when you see the world through young eyes you continue to see possibilities in any situation.

2. You will develop endless curiosity
Years of experience can have the unfortunate side effect of causing a leader to view certain outcomes as inevitable.

But choosing to see the world through young eyes creates within you an insatiable curiosity to understand why things are the way they are, and then a refusal to believe things have to stay that way.

3. You will develop stubborn resiliency
Spending years in the trenches of leadership can yield invaluable perspective and understanding.

But with young eyes you can add to this an uncanny ability to rebound from failed attempts.

The paradox is that the more experience you attain in your leadership, the more discipline may be required to maintain this youthful outlook.

But the results are worth the effort.

How do you ensure you continue to see the world through young eyes?

Filed Under: Featured, Leadership, Strategy, Wisdom Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How to go from Herding Cats to Leading Race Horses

April 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

One of the most common frustrations shared by church leaders is that leading their team can be like herding cats; each leader seemingly moving in a different direction.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Effective leaders know that it is possible to align even the most independently-minded department heads into a cohesive, focused and purposeful team. The key is in following these three steps.

  1. Create a plan based on a single vision, not on a collection of department goals.
    In many churches the ministry planning process begins by asking each department to submit their plans.

    This approach almost guarantees a “herding cats” approach to leading the team.

    Before each department can tackle their individual plan there must be a sometimes exhaustive process of clarifying the overall church vision, and ensuring each department “gets it”. Then, and only then, can they prepare a departmental plan, designed to further that overall vision.

  2. Continually measure the performance of each department against the church’s overall vision
    Each time you meet with your department heads, lead them toward increasing alignment with the overall vision.

    In the large church where I served as executive pastor I once had a department head who, by all appearances, was leading a record-breaking ministry in terms of growth.

    The problem was that our church’s vision centred on becoming an increasingly inter-generational congregation, with each member more fully integrated into the overall life of the church.

    This growing department was developing into an independent ministry merely orbiting around the church, not integrated into it.

    But with a clear and shared vision we were able to use to steer that department back toward fuller alignment.

  3. Create multiple sources of information
    You’ll never create full alignment merely by asking your department head, “How’s it going?”

    To truly discern the degree of alignment you need to:

    • Personally spend time in and around each ministry. I’d suggest at least once per quarter.
    • Build relationships with people you can trust within each department. Ask them how things are going really.

If you’re leading a team of highly energized department heads, the tendency toward misalignment is almost inevitable.

But if you keep your team focused on the vision, and relentlessly steer them toward the vision, you can free your race horses to achieve great things.

How do you ensure your “race horses” are aligned?

Filed Under: Featured, Leadership, Metrics, Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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