Leadership Development | Coaching Churches

Category Archive: Leadership Development

How To Build Trust As A Leader

Posted by on May 9, 2019

There are some leadership principles that are contextual to leading churches but this is not one of them. As a matter of fact, failing in this area as a spiritual leader is magnified many times more than in corporate life. People potentially loosing trust in you is one thing, but in their faith is quite another. This Forbes post is excellent:

“A lack of trust often erodes teams and organizations to the point where people feel that their working environment has become toxic. The results of a toxic work environment — including unnecessary drama, fighting among employees, lack of communication and no clear protocol — can stifle productivity and results.”

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Don’t Be The Boss Who Talks Too Much

Posted by on May 4, 2019

There is a real tension between making sure everyone understands the vision and there is great alignment compared to the tendency as leaders to talk too much. This leadership skill is amplified when leading church staff or lay leaders because there is an even higher need for total buy-in moving forward. This HBR post is the type of leadership development pastors need:

“As head of a startup, I always want to make sure everyone on my team understands the vision for what we’re trying to achieve. I also want to make sure we’re hearing, considering, and incorporating everyone’s ideas, and acting quickly to iron out problems along the way. So we have a lot of group conversations. A lot.

We discuss our mission, goals, and the steps it will take to achieve them. Every time, I look for new ways to say things, in hopes of making the vision crystal clear and discovering even slight differences in how various team members understand our goals.”

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Don’t Give Your Critic Words

Posted by on April 13, 2019

I can think of no greater leadership challenge than being a pastor, where the emotional and spiritual health of the leader has a greater impact on results. Many pastors because of a lack of leadership training wonder almost every day if they are doing the right thing. Combine that with all the negative people in their ministry and discouragement is inevitable. This post by Ann Voskamp encouraged my spirit:

“We stand on the corner of Randolph and Green after a breakfast of sourdough toast, housemade sausage, blueberry pancakes, and coffee with raw sugar. The Uber pulls up and we climb inside, falling into easy conversation with the driver.

Turns out, she’s a chef, but for now she’s feeling burned out. Driving meets the need she has for conversation, and she takes the long way through the city to prove it.”

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10 Habits Of Transformational Leaders

Posted by on April 8, 2019

Leading a local church may be the single most difficult leadership challenge I know. You must have a high level of spiritual security and your significance primarily comes from you’re calling not the response of the crowd. You need to be inspiring and highly relational to move people to change. This Forbes post offers a great list for every pastor:
“A growing number of companies are looking to hire transformational leaders. These are the people who create positive changes in their employees and companies. Transformational leaders are billed as leaders of the future who can help their companies through turbulent times full of change and innovation. But what does it actually mean to be a transformational leader and how can you become one? Here are 10 habits of transformational leaders:

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What Does It Mean To Be A People Leader

Posted by on March 17, 2019

One of the greatest problems facing the church today is that we have the wrong metrics for success. As long as we place a higher priority on how many people are coming to the building over how many lives are actually being changed, we are going to fail. All leaders fall into the trap of measuring the means and loosing site of the end result. This Forbes post is a great reminder of what all great leaders know:

“Leadership can mean many different things to different people, but it often directly ties back to how a person’s contributions impact a business’s bottom line: “My efforts saved us X amount of money,” “My strategy resulted in X amount of new clients,” “I closed a huge sale that brought in X dollars.”

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6 Lessons For Every Leadership Style

Posted by on March 4, 2019

One of my passions is to help church leaders develop the ability to lead in their context with the same level of effectiveness of any corporate leader I coach. So as a regular priority, I will be posting best practice leadership development content to increase our potential to impact the kingdom. This Forbes Post will be helpful:

“In my experience as an entrepreneur and coach of business executives, I’ve seen that great leaders can at times be treated as if they’re invisible. Not many people see what goes on behind the scenes to create and shape new leaders, whether you’re in charge of a team or an entire company. And unfortunately, leadership training isn’t always a priority.”

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The Single Best Way To Motivate Your Team

Posted by on February 24, 2019

The classic leadership division for the last 50 years has been between leaders who can primarily drive results and those who have the ability to prioritize relationships. The first group would be in operations and the second in sales. Today unless you can do both and everything in between you will not be effective. This Carey Nieuwhof post is excellent:

“There are some kinds of leaders (often in churches and not-for-profits) who are wonderful with people, but whose organizations don’t produce great results. Often there’s little accountability, a general drift, poor metrics and just a lack of overall excellence. But the leader’s a really nice person.

There are other leaders (often in rapidly growing churches and businesses) who are not so great with people, but there’s tight accountability, laser-like focus, clear results and tremendous progress.”

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The Lifelong Journey Of Personal Development

Posted by on February 17, 2019

From a Christian worldview perspective we would see this as a journey toward spiritual maturity. If you integrate faith and leadership into your life as a means to that end then there is much to be learned from corporate best practices. This Forbes post has much to offer pastors on leading yourself:

“The term “personal development” is very much a part of today’s lexicon, but have you ever thought about what it really means? I describe personal development as a transformational journey, and improving your emotional intelligence (EI) can be a major part of that journey. This is because EI develops your self-awareness and gives you the tools to understand your own needs and the needs of others.”

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5 Meaningful Words Of Encouragement For Spiritual Leaders

Posted by on February 10, 2019

The hardest leadership job on the planet is leading a local church. In reality your customers are both your volunteer work force and financial investors all at the same time. When they stop helping or even worse leave that immediately causes concern if something is wrong. This post by Dan Reiland is an inspiring reminder:

“As a leader, you know the importance of encouraging people. It’s impossible to over encourage people as long as you are sincere. And I’m sure you’re not only generous but intentional about your encouragement of others. However, leaders need encouragement too, right?”

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5 Keys To Reducing Stress And Anxiety In Leadership

Posted by on January 28, 2019

Margin is the gap between demand and capacity. Today with all the multiple inputs with most of the media and culture being overwhelming negative, it’s no wonder we are all stressed beyond measure. The church is no safe place from this toxicity and in many ways is even harder to lead. This is a must read for pastors:

When someone asks you how you’re doing, how do you answer? Most of the leaders I talk to these days answer with two variations: “stressed” or “busy.”

Dig a little deeper and you it’s easy to see that at a deep level, most leaders today feel anxious and overwhelmed. Welcome to life in the 21s century.

There are a million reasons why:

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