Leadership and You

Introducing Leadership

Leadership is influencing people.  All people lead in some areas while in other areas they are being led.  No one is excluded from being a leader or a follower.  In any situation, with any given group, there is a prominent influencer or leader.

Leadership is the process of optimising individual, group and organisational innovation and development.  It entails cultivating an environment in which people are encouraged to grow, are free to grow, and desire to help others develop.  It releases creativity, imagination, and the ability of people to listen to the wisdom in others.

Leadership is about taking people where they are not already going.  It is about redefining the possible.  It is motivating, mobilising, resourcing, and leading people to pursue a shared vision that produces positive transformation.

Success as a leader is getting people to achieve things that they didn’t think were possible on their own.  It is believing in people and helping them to set goals and standards, and then helping them see how they can possibly achieve them with plans, systems and practices.

Staying Healthy as a Leader

Leadership can be very demanding. It is incumbent on leaders to keep healthy in every way.  This means good patterns of rest, recreation, diet, exercise and spiritual disciplines such as regular corporate worship, personal prayer and Bible reading and journaling.  It entails self-feeding with scripture and taking personal responsibility for one’s health.  This can require the decision to not do some things to create space do what is health-creating and builds resilience.  Many leaders find it helpful to have a mentor or friend who asks them questions about their overall pattern to keep healthy.

1. What is your habit for keeping yourself healthy?  What unhelpful habit should you stop?  What new habit would make a difference?
   
   

2. Who could you ask to mentor you or coach you to be the best you could be? 

Leaders Lead People

While events, programs, and activities are part of a church, the key role of leaders is to lead and develop people.  This can be easily overlooked in the busyness of life.  As we build people, so Jesus builds his church!   Great leaders are motivators and trainers of others – they produce other leaders who in turn produce other leaders.

1. Who are you intentionally developing?  How are you doing this?  What more could you do? 
   
   

2. What resources do you need to be better at this?
   
   

Leaders Continually Grow

First, leaders keep checking and growing their character.  Strong character is a necessity in every position in the Church.  One’s character is often overlooked, taking a backseat to knowledge and skills.  This is also an area that gets the public spotlight when low-character incidents happen in the Church.  Christ-followers need to be the model for the world.  Character involves qualities such as trust, consistency, ethics, confidentiality, humility, reliability – the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5: 22-23.

Secondly, what will you need to know to lead well?  One’s knowledge is relatively easy to improve.  Does your present or desired position require more education? You may not know what you don’t know, so seek guidance from others in this area.

Thirdly, what skill do you need?  If you run the audio/video components, then you need that skillset.  Likewise, pastors today need to be able to lead teams, develop budgets, and create strategic plans in addition to the obvious requirements of preaching and teaching God’s Word.

Fourthly, what do you feel in leading your team or ministry?  Emotions are seldom discussed in the leadership of churches, yet we serve an emotional God – and we are created in his image – so it’s right for us to show appropriate emotion too.  Leaders should understand their own emotions, handle them maturely, and be perceptive to the emotions of others.

1. What are you doing to develop yourself?  What podcasts, books, conferences, study program, etc are you using?
   
   

2. What specifically is an area you need to grow in: Communication, Listening, Delegating (Authority to act, not merely tasks), Receiving and giving feedback, Casting vision, Encouraging, Initiating (not merely responding), Establishing priorities?
   
   

3. What area of your character do you honestly consider needs to be addressed?  Who can you discuss this with?
   
   

4. What do you understand about emotional intelligence – EQ?  What area of your emotions would benefit from strategic attention?