Good to Great proved you don’t have to be a celebrity type personality leader to be effective. In this post by Joseph Lalonde he drives home the value of the introvert in relationship to leadership:
“The world tends to praise the extrovert. The outgoing. The person stealing the show.
And the introvert gets relegated to second fiddle. And forgotten about.
It’s time we change our perception of the introvert.”
Welcome to the latest new term to describe the tension that exist between life and work balance. According to Dalton Conley a New York University sociologist, “increasingly it’s not clear what constitutes work and what constitutes fun time.” You can read the entire article on CNN.com/living.
More and more people are using their smart phones and other technology to keep up with their 24-7 lifestyle that keeps them in almost constant contact with others. At one minute we may be quote at work and receive a text message about last night’s game and then later while at quote home get an important email on major project.
It’s one thing to watch a fellow employee scroll through email during a meeting you are attending but now to see the same thing happening during the evening meal is a little harder to swallow.
Apple is probably not going to come up with an app that will schedule time everyday to unplug from all the information that is available to spend time with people who really matter in your life. We are going to have to discipline ourselves to set some boundaries so that we can have the time we need to wind down and even quietly think without interruption.
Technology can be an incredibly good thing if we use it as a tool to improve our lives. If we let it though it can easily change from a means to the end into the end itself and when it does that we all lose.
How do you deal with the tension of being connected all the time?
The is another great post by Mark Merrill that reminds all of us of some things we already know about marriage but so easily forget in the daily pressure of life.
“Of course you don’t want your marriage to fail, do you? You want it to last for life. But if too many of the things listed below are too often a part of your life, then you may be on a dangerous road in your relationship.
Another incredible post by Ann Voskamp that makes a much needed point:
“The coffee shop is quiet except for the sound of voices at the table across from me and I can’t help but overhear.
An older man says, “Most people think failure is here.”
He taps one edge of the table.
“And that success is here.” He taps the opposite edge.
Then he places both of his hands in the center of the table. “But failure and success are really here. Side by side.“
This is a great post by John Maxwell on driving home the point that you must own what you can change and don’t worry about what you cannot.
“Who is responsible for what happens in your life? Do you believe you should take personal responsibility? Or do you feel as if that is outside of your control and there’s little or nothing you can do about it?
Psychologists say that some people possess an internal locus of control, where they rely primarily on themselves for the gains and losses in their lives.”
Lighting the fuse is an appropriate analogy for any leader who is about to initiate a significant change process. If you make a mistake during this critical process the whole situation can figuratively blow up in your face leaving your people and your organization in worse condition than before you started.
It is never enough to just do the right thing, you must do the right thing, the right way, and especially at the right time. There are at least four major reasons for initiating the change process:
The bottom line for any leader is that you have a very limited amount of leadership capital with your people so spend it wisely. Most people will only be motivated to change when the pain of the present is clearly worse than their fear of the future. Be careful not to judge them for that because to some degree we are all the same way.
How do you know when the time is right for change?
Sometimes we confuse roles and goals with responsibilities and tasks. There is a difference and unless you understand it you may not be successful in any area. Michael Hyatt knows the difference and he takes on the goals task with listing several common mistakes:
“It’s time to begin thinking about goal-setting for 2014. I don’t know about you, but I have been going through this annual exercise since my second semester of college, when a friend introduced me to the concept. Almost immediately, I loved the concept and saw the potential.”
I have attended a lot of funerals over the years and the one common denominator is in every service someone is trying to communicate the legacy of the person who has died. There are some patterns I have noticed when people have lived their lives in such a way that truly leaves a mark on the world.
Begin With End In Mind-All of the people that really made a difference took the long look about life and determined what they wanted the top priorities to be in their lives when it was over. When a person values friendships then you can see a pattern from there earliest years all throughout their lives where other people came first. If you want to be known for something later then you need to live it now.
Leave Something Better Than Found It- This is the type of person that is always trying to help others be successful and is not consumed about themselves. If they are a leader in the corporate world they are not looking out for number one they want the department or the corporation to be better when they leave than when they came. The true test of someone’s leadership is not when he or she is there but what happens when they are gone.
Gave Away More Than They Took– In the end people are either more consumers or contributors. They see other people as a means to their end or they see other people as the target of their generous spirit. These are the people that are always adding value to whatever they do from community involvement, relationships, work and faith. They simply love to give more than they take and people are moved by their humility and servant heart.
It is never to late to work on your legacy. The really important thing is taking the time to decide what you want it to be and then when the time comes other people will gladly step up and write your eulogy for you.
What practical steps are you taking to build your legacy?
Pastoral leadership is hard enough and there are so many different ideas that they have to filter through. The temptation is when things are not working well to try the latest and greatest new idea only to see it fail as well. Eric Geiger deals with this common mistake as well as two other important ones:
“I was recently honored to discuss leadership on a panel at the Southern Baptist Pastors Conference with Greg Matte, Rodney Woo, and Jack Graham. People submitted questions beforehand, and one of the questions that Pastor Greg sent my way was “What are the most common mistakes pastors make?” Here are three:
We are all familiar with the metaphor of making emotional deposits and taking withdrawals from another person both personally and professionally. When you end up taking more than you give to another person you end up with a negative balance and believe me there are serious fees and late charges involved.
Stephen Covey in his great book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People gives us six ways that we can make sure we are making deposits on a consistent basis with another person:
What are some ways that have worked for you to make emotional deposits?