Leadership Development | Coaching Churches

Category Archive: Leadership Development

The Secret Of Successful Leaders

Posted by on September 13, 2019

The tipping point for the source of successful leadership starts with how well you lead yourself, not the results you accomplish. Getting the right things done is critical but if you lose touch with why you are doing what you do everyday, you will eventually crash. Today must be self-awareness day and this post by Jenni Catron is outstanding:

“Today’s leaders have the tools to grow things rapidly but lack the emotional and intellectual health to sustain it all. And the fallout is killing us.

Our culture has minimized the responsibility and elevated the celebrity of leadership and with this I believe we’ve lost the realization that leadership is a sacred privilege.

Leaders have the power to change or affect the lives of others and therefore leadership is sacred work.”

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Five Healthy Ways To Run Your Church Like A Business

Posted by on September 2, 2019

All great leadership principles come from scripture and many leaders draw too hard of a line between the secular and sacred. Integrity and productivity are equally as important in the church as they are in the corporate market. So lets not draw inappropriate hard lines between the two leadership worlds that have more in common that we think. This post by Thom Rainer is great:

“One of the most common responses we receive at ThomRainer.com is something like this statement: “You can’t run your church like a business.” I get it. Our goal is to glorify God. Our goal is to make disciples. Our goal is to be faithful to God’s Word.

Our goal is not to make profits. Our goal is not to adopt secular principles in place of biblical principles. So, when someone insists we not run the church like a business, I understand his or her heart and intent.

But there are indeed some business principles that correlate with church practices and biblical truth. To say we don’t run our church like a business carte blanche may be a signal that we are ignoring sound and, at least indirectly, biblical counsel. Here are five examples:”

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8 Reasons Pastors Get Fired

Posted by on August 23, 2019

The painful reality for me is that most of the pastors I have watched be fired had nothing to do with bad theology. It had to do with a character failure or a lack of leadership ability and training. Leading a church is extremely difficult and we should prepare these pastors for the leadership challenges that lie ahead. This post by Chuck Lawless is very helpful:

“Over the past several years, I’ve paid more attention to reasons pastors—including some of my acquaintances and former students—have been fired. In some cases, the congregation has been a “knucklehead” group of people who’ve treated a leader poorly; but, I’ve also seen some leaders who invited trouble by doing the following:”

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5 Keys To A Great Apology And Why Leaders Should Go First

Posted by on August 19, 2019

When I do executive coaching, I help leaders understand the minority offender response. This simply means in a situation with another person, even if you have the minority of the responsibility for the problem, leaders should always go first. Doing the right thing is far more important than being right. Carey Nieuwhof has another great post:

You probably have a love/hate relationship with apologies. You appreciate it deeply when others apologize to you.

But you find it difficult to apologize to others. And let me guess, when you do apologize, you’re tempted to explain, justify or defend your actions.

Which is not really an apology at all. Please hear this. Two of the most powerful words a leader can utter are simply “I apologize”.

One of the reasons those two words are so powerful is because we hear them so rarely from leaders.

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A Sobering Reality For Pastors And Leaders

Posted by on August 11, 2019

The voice of your character must be louder than the opinions of the crowd if you are going to sustain great leadership over time. People can make you think you are better than you really are or they can convince you that you have nothing to offer. I learned a long time ago to live my life before an audience of One. Ron Edmondson has some excellent advise:

“There is a sobering reality every pastor and leader needs to understand. Knowing this one can protect your career—help keep you from burning out—and guard your heart.

I see this impact leaders from all generations—but, I must be honest—I probably see it even more in our youngest generation of leaders entering the workforce.”

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6 Reasons We Make Bad Decisions At Work And What To Do About Them

Posted by on August 4, 2019

Harvard Business Review has been my go to resource for best practice leadership development for over ten years. Everything they publish is high quality and occasionally they absolutely hit it out of the park. This post by Mike Erwin is one of those times:

“Research has shown that that the typical person makes about 2,000 decisions every waking hour. Most decisions are minor and we make them instinctively or automatically — what to wear to work in the morning, whether to eat lunch now or in ten minutes, etc. But many of the decisions we make throughout the day take real thought, and have serious consequences. Consistently making good decisions is arguably the most important habit we can develop, especially at work.”

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How To Lead The Five Most Difficult People

Posted by on July 28, 2019

The reality of all leadership is that most of our major problems are caused by a small percentage of people. When you realize that, then you can develop the right perspective that puts these people in a different category. Then you still must develop the leadership skills to help them. This Dan Reiland post is very helpful:

“As a church leader, I’m confident you love and care about people, but If you have been leading for more than one week, you have encountered a difficult person or two.

Recently a wonderful volunteer on the hospitality team told me that someone just left because of the coffee. The unhappy attendee said, “This coffee tastes like dirt.” He said it was weak and insisted that we do something about it. It didn’t matter that it was free. (Free is not an excuse for lousy coffee, but thousands of people seem to like it.) The volunteer offered the Starbucks brand, but the attendee was upset that it wasn’t free.”

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Why Smaller Churches Are Making A Comeback

Posted by on July 14, 2019

In the height of the mega-church movement, if you were leading a smaller church in the same area, it was going to be extremely difficult to grow. However, the cultural shift with these last three generations values smaller over large. They are looking for community and they have a natural distrust of anything that is big. So smaller can be the new big, if pastors are prepared to lead contextually. This Rainer post is helpful:

“Smaller churches are poised to make a comeback. I’m serious. I see too many signs and indicators to believe otherwise.

For certain, I know the bad news. The median size of a church has declined from around 100 to 70 in worship attendance in a decade. That means one-half of all American congregations have fewer than 70 in worship attendance.”

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The Skills Every Staff Member Needs

Posted by on July 7, 2019

So often in church life, just like the corporate world, we take people who are good in ministry and try to make leaders out of them. There is a tremendous gap between people who are great with students personally and their ability to enlist, train and empower great student lay leaders. The lack of intentional leadership development for church leaders contributes more to church failures than anything else. This post by Church Fuel is a great start:

“Teams come in all sizes and styles. Some teams wear uniforms, practice daily, and compete in tournaments and championships. Some work together on a building project, a life-saving endeavor, or in pursuit of a prosecution. No matter what the team looks like, a common goal is always the pursuit.

Churches have teams, too.”

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Ten Behaviors Sabotaging Your Leadership

Posted by on May 19, 2019

In this day of a major priority being placed on collaboration and empowerment, the question that still remains is how do great leaders stay engaged? Collaboration is not just group think and delegation is not abrogation. This Forbes post is a great read to help know where the lines are:

“Have you ever been in a situation at work where you felt like you lost your cool? Maybe not in that wildly out of control way, but enough to where you felt bad about what you said or did and wished you’d handled yourself differently?”

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