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Category Archive: Church Scattered

Five Concrete Actions Every Leader Should Take

Posted by on June 13, 2018

I spend my life in the world of leadership development. I am constantly reading and listening to all of the current best practices on how to lead yourself and your teams more effectively. The hard fact though is that knowledge is not growth. Unless what we are learning can be applied, it will all be soon forgotten. The priority of this post by Ken Gosnell is on execution:

“Leadership is about action. Real leaders are not afraid to take risks, make decisions and create ideas. In fact, the effective leader takes action every day to ensure the future success of an organization or a company. As Pablo Picasso is credited with saying, “Action is the foundational key to all success.”

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10 Effective Ways To Help Manage Stress

Posted by on June 11, 2018

We all live with the reality of stress, it has become a part of the culture we live and work in everyday. What we don’t have to do is experience chronic toxic stress that drains all of the margin out of every area of our lives. To learn to live with the normal stress while eliminating the unnecessary is a key issue for every leader and this Forbes Coaches Council post is helpful:

“Little things you do while away from work can reduce stress and have a significant impact on how you do your job. Even better, many of them can be easily incorporated into your day, some of them even before you have breakfast.

So what works? Below, 10 members of Forbes Coaches Council share their best tips to help you keep your stress levels in check, in order to help you and your business grow and thrive. Here is what they recommend:”

Categories: Leadership Development Margin Personal Leadership | Comments Off on 10 Effective Ways To Help Manage Stress

How Long Hours And Less Sleep Impact Our Character

Posted by on May 25, 2018

The quality of my daily decisions comes down many times to how much margin do I have physically, emotionally and spiritually. Its impossible to sustain good character based decisions when you are already looking for a shortcut because you have nothing left to give. This Forbes post will drive home the risk of margin-less living:

“Perpetual deadlines, challenging goals and objectives, urgent deal closures, multitasking, etc. — all have created a frenzied need to perform at super-human levels. The need to outperform by working long hours or pulling all-nighters has become a meme of professions such as finance, medicine, technology, military and shift workers.”

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Defining The Elusive Work-Life Balance

Posted by on May 18, 2018

There is this constant tension between the priorities of learning and living. The first stage of improvement is to learn something new that will help you set new goals. I have reached that point several years ago on this subject but I still find myself having a very hard time consistently living out the practices. This post by Karl Sun was very specific on how to live it out:

“For me personally, I can try to silo work and life all I want, but in order to really build something meaningful, compartmentalizing is borderline impossible. But I recognize everyone doesn’t think or even work like I do. So, what’s important is individually figuring out the best way for work life and personal life to work together.”

Categories: Church Scattered Margin Work Life Integration | Comments Off on Defining The Elusive Work-Life Balance

4 Questions To Ask Yourself When You Are Stuck

Posted by on May 16, 2018

I used to think of being stuck as these major times in my life where big decisions needed to be made and I could not find the answer. Now I see it as almost a daily event because I have to decide what is next in the midst of seemingly endless new inputs. It does require you to clearly know what the big rocks are for your life so you can say No to everything else. Great post by Jeff Boss:

“The good news is when you’re in a state of chaos (which I define as an unpredicted or unwanted change that impacts our physical, mental, emotional or spiritual well being) the only next step is to move toward clarity.”

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Five Steps To Break Your Social Media Addiction

Posted by on May 9, 2018

This one is very hard for me to get to a good place and stay there. By the nature of my work in leadership development I am constantly searching and reading new content. I use social media to stay connected to some of the people in my network. However, there are times that I realize I am picking up the phone simply because its there, instead of doing something better. This Forbes Coaches Council post was great:

“It’s undeniable that people stare at their phone screens too much. In fact, a Nielsen study found that the average adult spends five and a half hours every week on social media. That’s nearly 12 full days every year. If that doesn’t scare you enough, a lot of us are now addicted to social media.”

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How Humble Leadership Really Works

Posted by on May 4, 2018

When I started my corporate leadership journey the leaders were very directive and the results were the number one priority. The people in the organization were simply a means to that end. Today, results are still critical but the best approach is to value your people first and then they will deliver consistently great results. This HBR post is excellent:

“When you’re a leader — no matter how long you’ve been in your role or how hard the journey was to get there — you are merely overhead unless you’re bringing out the best in your employees. Unfortunately, many leaders lose sight of this.”

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Work Life Integration

Posted by on May 2, 2018

This post by Kathy Lockwood perfectly sums up the critical issue on this subject. The normal work life balance rationale assumes a zero sum dynamic. If we are winning at work then we must be loosing at home. Yes, there is the reality of limited margin but that does not mean we can not use situational leadership to shift roles daily and maintain success:

“I often hear people talk about work-life balance. If we take the word balance literally, it would mean equal, and it would suggest equal time spent at work and in our personal activities. As work becomes less traditional and many offices even become virtual, I believe we are looking at work-life integration rather than balance.”

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7 Signs Great Leaders Can't Afford To Ignore

Posted by on April 30, 2018

Because we are so busy as leaders we can confuse activity with effectiveness. Sometimes it becomes critical to have an outside voice to help us regain perspective and create positive momentum. I have benefited greatly from having a coach and absolutely love helping others through my executive coaching. This Forbes post helps define the rational:

“All great athletes have coaches, so do most world-class executives. You are a leader. Growth is your job.Coaching is the most effective way to see into your blind spots, enhance your vision and reduce or remove challenging behaviors.”

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Controlling The Negative Noise In Your Life

Posted by on April 25, 2018

I have often said that if technology only helps you do the wrong things faster then it can become a very bad thing. Today we live with powerful micro-computers that can connect us to the world called smart phones. However, I am more concerned that with no boundaries established around content and time spent, I am in reality become more foolish than smart. Seth Godin is a thoughtful writer:

‘You open the door and the vacuum cleaner salesperson comes in, and dumps a bag of trash in your living room. Or a neighbor sneaks in the back door and uses a knife to put gouges on the kitchen table.

Or, through the window, someone starts spraying acid all over your bookshelf… Why are you letting these folks into your house?

Categories: Margin Personal Leadership | Comments Off on Controlling The Negative Noise In Your Life