#4: The Responsibility Riddle QUESTION: Pastor, who is responsible for your spiritual maturity and vitality? ANSWER: I am, of course! Ok, fine. Now answer this… QUESTION: Pastor, who is responsible for the spiritual maturity and vitality of your congregation? ANSWER: Again, I am! Really? Are you sure? If you are responsible for your congregation’s spiritual […]
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#3: The Price of Love Courage, I’ve suggested, is living with heart. With you heart fully engaged. Fully invested. Fully in play. Some would argue that to live this way is expensive. Costly. Reckless. Even dangerous. I agree. To live with your heart withheld is costly, too. There’s no living without paying prices. Give your
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#1: The Heart to Lead This begins a new blog series. The topic is Leadership Courage. Courage is integral to leadership. The link between the two is inseparable. To attempt to lead anyone, without employing courage, will undermine the possibility of the enterprise you hope to lead others in. Management is another bird entirely. A
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Principle #8- Who gets to choose? This entry concludes the Being in Conflict series. At least for now. While there is much for a Christian leader to learn when in conflict — if you choose to apply it — today’s principle will keep you from falling into conflict, a great deal of the time. So,
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Principal #5- Who, before What and How Thus far the focus of this Leadership Skills Series has been to resource you, as a Christian leader, when you’re in conflict. The first four distinctions, plus those remaining, will support you becoming skillful when you’re in “deep weeds”, as my pal and mentor Gary Mayes often says. You, like
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Principle #4b- contender, know thyself! Last time I introduced the idea that you’re enormous advantaged, as a leader, when you’re honestly aware of your vulnerabilities. Ignorant of them, you undermine your own effectiveness. These blindspots lead directly to conflict. Sometimes you’re aware of the row they produce. If you’re like most pastors I know, you hate
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Principle #3- Get to neutral Ever met a powerfully influential person who was great in conflict? They are a rare breed, and have intentionally developed the disciplines and rigor to effectively govern themselves when they’d rather just react, explode, shut down, counter-attack, or evaporate. Yet, they don’t, more often than not. The Christian leader, at
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Principle #2- Go for altitude There may be no more essential skill than successfully handling yourself in conflict. Many a career has been ruined when executives mishandled themselves when mired in an important disagreement. Mike Leach, the very successful head coach of the Texas Tech football program, is but one contemporary example. As I write
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