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Could you take time off of your work and it still be successful?
Taking Time Off Of Your Leadership Job
1. Can you leave? When I am coaching business leaders, I start by giving them my definition of a business: A commercial enterprise that produces a profit without me. The last phrase is profound—without me. Then I ask, “If you left your business for one month, what would happen to your organization?” Most small business owners admit it would fall apart, which shows lack of leadership. They have spent all kinds of time working “in” their business versus working “on” the business. The same principle applies to churches and nonprofit organizations. If you took a one-month sabbatical, what would happen to your church? Sadly, most leaders admit things would fall apart. 2. Are you lonely? Sometimes I will open my leadership conference by asking, “How many of you know that when you are a leader, it is lonely at the top?” Almost everybody raises their hand. Actually, if you feel lonely at the top, you are doing something wrong! LQ Solution: Inviting feedback is an essential skill to increase your leadership quotient. Successful people have two problems with dealing with feedback. 1) They don’t want to really hear it. 2) Their followers don’t want to give it to them. We naturally accept feedback that is consistent with our self-image and reject feedback that is inconsistent. The challenge: most people’s self-image is all messed up.
Leadership Tools & Education
The Hamburger Tool is the proof that leadership is a skill. Very few CEOs know this skill—but now you are going to learn all about it. Scripture exhorts us to be imitators of God, and God is into excellence. Excellence is the continual pursuit of improvement. We need to continually improve ourselves. All of us think we are doing our best at what we are doing. Nobody wants to think he or she has a horrible life or career. But our best can always get a little better. Right? Based on my many years of experience, in order to get better, everyone needs a coach. You need somebody who is outside of your picture frame to give you objective insight. When you are in the picture, you can’t accurately see the full picture.
How To Give Constructive Criticism – Feedback
We all need feedback from an outside source—a coach or mentor—to get better perspective. Ken Blanchard said, “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” I agree. Your leadership team needs coaching to make things better. Unfortunately, church members are often insecure. We want things to get better, but if we challenge people to change in order to improve, their insecurity registers feedback as criticism. Because most people are insecure, instead of giving feedback, we tend to hide it under the rug. We accept mediocrity because we don’t want people to feel badly. So eventually, everything we do is at a lower standard than the world instead of having a higher standard. To improve, we must learn to use tools to help people feel good about receiving feedback. Hence, the Law of the Hamburger becomes necessary. For example, an usher needs some feedback: buns are praise, the meat is the feedback. The bun on the top is praise. Take the time to make the person feel good about their current performance. Praise them for effort. Tell the usher something positive about the way he or she is doing their ministry such as, “You have a great smile,” or “What a positive attitude you have.” Sincerely build up the person and make him or her feel important. But if all you do is praise, you are not motivating the person to improve. You must go through the entire hamburger, the bun and now the meat. The meat is the feedback, but your delivery is very important. Don’t go into the meeting thinking confrontation—rather think clarification. Do not make it sound like judgment or criticism. Tell the usher you are sure he wants to be the best usher the church has ever seen, so you would like to offer some positive suggestions to improve his job and bring it up to a spirit of excellence that you know he wants to achieve. Offer your feedback as a positive not a negative. Feedback starts with the “what” and then goes to the “why.” It is not the “what,” it is the “why” that causes an action. Explain why this change in his approach to ushering needs to be done. Offer suggestions on how to do it and possibly point out that he skipped a step or exemplifies the wrong impression. For example, if he forgot to wear his name badge for three Sundays in a row, point out how important it is that members of the congregation and visitors can identify him as an usher. Impress how important he is because he welcomes both current and new attendees. The bottom bun is more praise in the form of encouraging him to strive for this new level of excellence; stressing his importance in the organization. Let him know of your appreciation for his faithful service, and tell him you look forward to seeing him with his name badge on next Sunday. When people receive the right feedback, you gain better staff and ministry volunteers—and future leaders. If this isn’t the case, you may discover that some people need to be moved within the church body to positions that are better suited to their skills, personalities, or talents.
Mistake 2 – We have gone after the down-and-outers, but have forgotten the up
I was sharing this mistake we had made at a church one day, and the pastor said to me, “Well, it just seems that God has called this church to reach the down-and-outers. God has called this church to go after the people nobody else cares about. Seems like poor people are attracted to this place. Every Monday for the past fifteen years, we have prayed for all the poor people in our city.” As he concluded his statement, I asked, “So on Tuesday do you pray for the rich people in the city?” He was obviously surprised by my question as he responded, “Why, no.” Then I probed a little further, “Do you ever pray for the influential and rich people in your city? Do you pray for governmental leaders? What about people who sit on the school board? What about those who control the media in your area? What about the successful business owners?” Each question he responded by shaking his head, “No.” Then I said, “What you are telling me is that you’ve attracted exactly what you have prayed for…only poor, noninfluential people.” The pastor realized his mistake and started praying for both classes of people, and his church started attracting people from both walks of life. How long does it take to move Harry the Hobo into leadership positions versus moving the mayor of your city into leadership? We have already established that your ability to succeed is based on your ability to train up leaders; the faster the better. We target Harry the Hobo and wonder why we don’t have any leaders. God has been giving the church exactly what we have been praying and asking for. It is important to realize we need both quantity and quality to experience true church health and growth to effectively transform our culture. Check out our next video post How To Be More Confident What have you learned from educational post?