Why Crisis is a Leaders Best Friend

Tag Archive - courage

Why Crisis is a Leaders Best Friend

Sunday, June 5, 2016

If you lead in a church long enough eventually you’re going to face a crisis. It may be a staff crisis, a financial crisis, a moral crisis, a personal crisis or even a crisis of faith. One of the differences between good church leaders and great church leaders is that while good church leaders manage through crisis a great church leader never lets a serious crisis go to waste.

1. Crisis is an Opportunity for Change

Crisis is neither good or bad, it’s simply an opportunity to change things. In fact the best leaders know how to create healthy crisis in order to build a sense of urgency within people and the organization that can lead to change and forward movement.

2. Crisis Defines Reality

Crisis is a barometer. It helps you understand where you are, what your strengths and weaknesses are as a church, a staff team, and a leader. But you have to be willing to see it. You have to be willing to avoid deflecting blame, criticism, and begin to listen and take personal responsibility. Crisis will show you what you’re really made of, and it will show you what your team and the organization you lead is made of as well.

3. Crisis puts a Spotlight on Leadership

When crisis hits, all eyes are on the leader. Crisis is an incredible opportunity for leaders to build trust by delivering results and following through.

4. Crisis is a Catalyst for Innovation

Crisis creates opportunity for innovation. New ideas thrive in crisis. Problem solvers come alive when pressure is applied and they’re faced with daunting circumstances.

5. Crisis Infuses Courage

Comfort is the enemy of courage. When things are going smoothly and everything is routine it takes very little courage (faith) to lead a church. Crisis jump starts the kind of courage it takes to lead a church.

Change doesn’t happen in a church that’s stuck simply because the leader says things must change. A crisis, or a perceived crisis, has to be great enough to provide enough pressure that will help everyone be ready for change.

Posted in Leadership

Why Your Policies are Killing Your Leadership

Sunday, July 19, 2015

I’ve written before that policies are anti-leadership statements. Most people think that due to my role as an Executive Pastor at a large church I would be the guy who embraces and loves policies. Not so much. I’m actually policy adverse. And I’m policy adverse because policies naturally undermine leadership growth.

1. Policies Abdicate Responsibility

It’s never your fault if you’re implementing what a policy tells you to do. It’s safe. It’s safe because the policy is to blame, not you. Leaders take responsibility they don’t abdicate responsibility. By the way leaders don’t play it safe either.

2. Policies Drain Courage

It takes no courage to implement a policy (unless it’s an unpopular or stupid policy). Learning to win as a leader by leading through difficult circumstances builds healthy confidence and courage as a leader. Implementing policies not only robs you of the opportunity to build healthy courage as a leader but it actually drains you of courage at the same time; because you train yourself to rely on policy instead of developing your leadership instinct.

3. Policies Teach your Staff not to Think

Telling people what to do actually makes them stupid. When team members are taught to look in a manual for a policy to direct them how to act instead of learning how to think and act, they miss the opportunity to grow. Difficult moments in leadership are the proving grounds for young leaders to learn how to lead. You don’t become a great leader from executing policies. You become a great leader by leading.

Don’t hear what I’m not saying. There are moments when everyone in the organization needs to know what to do and a policy needs to be put in place. Policies can be useful when they reflect and build the culture you’re trying to build and get you closer to your vision. If your policies don’t help you get pass that test then why do you have them?

Posted in Leadership

Why Churches Don’t Grow: #5 A Leadership Void

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

This is the final post in a series of blog posts that I’ve been sharing about the 5 key contributors that lead to 80% of churches in America being stuck or in decline. These key contributors have been observed repeatedly in our work with churches at the Unstuck Group. While churches get stuck and decline for all kinds of reasons, these 5 key contributors are the consistent culprits.

Out of these 5 key contributors, this next one carries the most weight. The greatest crisis facing the modern day church is a crisis of leadership. The modern day Church simply doesn’t attract, develop, or keep leaders. Leaders by their very nature are change agents. Because the unstated goal of most churches is to preserve the past, church leaders find themselves fighting the family instead of fighting the enemy. I thought that building a list of indicators to help you understand that your church has a leadership problem would be the lazy way to go with this post. Anyone can take shots at the church and build a list of everything the church does poorly when it comes to leadership. Instead I’ve built a list of what leadership traits I’ve noticed are most needed in the American Church today:

1. Courage

The majority of churches that I work with aren’t stuck because their pastors don’t know what Jesus wants them to do next. Often times they just need a competent and experienced outsider to confirm and say out loud what the Holy Spirit has already been saying to them. They simply need an infusion of courage and clear steps to get where Jesus wants them to go. If you’re leading a church let me encourage you. Please, obey what Jesus is asking you to do. Please, lead your church where Jesus wants you to go. There’s too much on the line not to.

2. Tenacity

The church desperately needs an infusion of leaders who hang onto the vision in an unwavering manner; leaders who have the steadfast tenacity to stay with it until it gets done. Don’t give up, don’t give in, don’t back down, don’t let go. There’s too much on the line not to.

3. Development

The Gospel doesn’t need to be defended it needs to be unleashed. And for the church in America to turn the corner and be the movement Jesus has intended for it to be it’s going to take current leadership to unleash the next generation. Not just hand off the church to the next generation of leaders through good succession planning but legitimately unleash them by preparing them and turning them loose. There’s too much on the line not to.

4. Humility

Let’s be honest, neither you nor I have all of the answers for the challenges facing the church today. It’s going to take humility on our part to invite new voices into our lives, to be a lifelong learner, to give away our leadership credits to others, and to play our part in the Body of Christ that we play best so others can be their best. Humility is courage before it’s needed and at the same time it’s the chief virtue and the soil that all the other fruit of the Spirit grow up in. It is absolutely a necessity in leadership in the church today. There’s too much on the line not to.

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Posted in Leadership

4 Ways Spiritual Leaders Violate the Trust of the Church

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Trust is the fuel that leadership runs on, especially in church-world. When trust is high there is an environment for momentum, wins are celebrated, and people follow leadership because they believe in the leader and where the leader is taking them. When trust is low skepticism runs high, progress comes to a screeching halt, and the tenure of the leader is short-lived. Below are four ways leadership of church leaders is commonly eroded.

1. Follow Through

The easiest way for church leaders to build trust is to follow through on, and do what they say they’re going to do. Unfortunately this is also the easiest way to lose trust. This kind of trust can be won or lost at a very low level. For instance, if people in the church body leave voice-mails, send emails, and turn in communication cards from the weekend services that aren’t followed up on in a timely manner you can lose trust in a heartbeat. This kind of behavior in the organization is ultimately an indictment on your leadership as the pastor, because you’re the one leading. And by the way, “timely manner” in the market place is much different than “timely manner” in church world.

2. Integrity

Integrity is the degree to which your public, private, and personal life, line up. Your public life is the part of your life everyone sees. Your private life is the part of your life only those closest to you see. Your personal life is the part of your life that only you see. When these three areas of your life aren’t in alignment you run into character flaws that can show up in some pretty damaging ways. When this happens church leaders forfeit the trust of their congregations.

3. Moral Authority

Nothing is worse than hearing someone communicate with their actions, “Do as I say, not as I do.” It doesn’t work in parenting, and it doesn’t work in leadership. If you want to build trust as a pastor you need to lead with moral authority. That means if you want your church to be authentic then you need to go first and demonstrate authenticity through your teaching and leadership approach. If you want a church of small groups then you need to be in a small group. Leaders who build trust with their congregation go first.

4. Courage

Sometimes leaders can lose trust by moving too fast and not “earning the right to lead,” after all just because you have the title of “pastor” doesn’t mean you’re the leader yet. This is commonplace in churches. However the opposite is true as well. If you have earned the right to lead and you don’t have the courage to cash in the leadership chips you’ve earned you can lose the trust of your congregation. They’re waiting for you to lead, so lean into the trust you’ve built and lead, otherwise you’ll lose it.

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Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation

Leadercast 2014: Simon Sinek

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Leadercast concluded with Leadership Expert and best selling author Simon Sinek. Interested in learning more about Simon’s past work? Check out this post: “Why Telling People What to do Makes them Stupid”

“In the military we give medals to people who sacrifice themselves for the sake of other. In the business world we give bonuses to people who sacrifice others so we may gain.”

Leaders always set the tone for the organization
We can’t solve complex problems by ourselves but in groups we’re remarkable
The only thing we have control of is the environment inside the organization
At the sound of violence it’s a mother’s instinct to throw themselves on the top of their child
When danger threatens, it’s the leaders instinct to save their teams.
We call someone a leader because they go first

“The one characteristic any successful leader needs to have is courage”

Great leaders want their followers to grow beyond where they are themselves
Marine Corp tradition: The most junior person eats first. The most senior officers eat last
But in business, we tell entrepreneurs, “Pay yourself first”
Leadership is a responsibility not a rank
When you put the well-being of others before yourself, they in turn look after you
You can’t measure good leadership on a daily basis.
Leadership is a practice, not an event.
We all want to feel safe around the people we work with. Are you creating that safety for your team?

Posted in Leadership

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