The Five Responsibilities of every Leader

 

The Practices of Leaders of Deep Influence

 

Don't allow these issues to derail your leadership

 

It is possible to have significant leadership skills and still undermine one's own leadership. This is not only a risk for young leaders but often for leaders who have seen significant success. Here are some of the ways that leaders can sabotage their leadership and even destroy it.

Ego. This should be obvious, but it isn't always! Success breeds confidence, and that confidence can cause us to overestimate our wisdom and underestimate our need for counsel. This can creep up on us over time without our realizing it until we are no longer open to the input of others, which eventually comes back to bite us.

Schedule. Good leaders are in demand. That demand can cause us to say yes too often and no too seldom. Busyness wears us down, tires our bodies and minds, and robs us of thinking time and even God. Schedule erosion eventually catches up to us in negative ways.

Entitlement. Successful leaders can start to believe that the rules don't apply to them as they apply to others. One of the ways this often plays out is in behaviors that they would not allow others to exhibit but which they feel they can. This may be carelessness in the treatment of others in words or attitudes or simply taking staff for granted. Because they have positional authority, they often get away with behaviors that they shouldn't, but by doing so, they lose the respect of their staff.

Laziness. Many leaders who saw success in one period of life lose their edge in another because they no longer feel the need to stay sharp, learn new skills, and understand the changing environment around them. This can be the result of out-of-control schedules or hubris, but whenever we stop being intentional in our own development, we begin to lose our ability to lead well.

Health. This is one I understand, and I have had to become deeply intentional about addressing my own health issues. When we don't, those issues often compromise our energy and our ability to carry out our leadership roles. In the second half of life, this is one that leaders must become more intentional about if they are going to go the distance.

Growth. Learning and development are lifelong processes. I love the comment my brother made at my father's funeral service. "He was not a perfect man, but he kept getting better."  When we lose our intentionality here, others notice, and it sabotages our leadership. This includes growth in areas like Emotional Intelligence, relational intelligence, our leadership skills. When we stop an intentional paradigm of growth, we enter a danger zone. 

Clarity. Lack of personal and leadership clarity leaves both us and our staff without focus. No matter how brilliant one is, a lack of focus creates confusion for those one leads and dissipates the energy that one expends. Life should be a journey toward ever greater clarity about what we ought to be doing (and alternatively not doing), what our priorities should be (and there should be only a few), and what the target is for our work (without which our staff will lack direction). 

Discipline. No amount of brilliance makes up for a lack of discipline in our lives. Each of these areas requires a disciplined life around key areas of personal health. 

What sabotages your leadership? It can be one of these, or it can be other things. Being sensitive to whatever it is will allow us to go the distance.

The gift of irritating questions that disrupt the conversation and current assumptions

 

Have you ever been in a team or board conversation when someone asks the kind of question that disrupts the whole dialogue? It happens when everyone is operating off one set of assumptions and one individual challenges those assumptions which brings the conversation to a standstill. These are golden moments because they force the common assumption to be examined and the disruptive and often uncomfortable question forces the group to deal with a deeper issue that underlies their conversation.

Let me give you an example. Church boards often deal with known issues without getting to the underlying causes (which would raise uncomfortable questions). It takes just one board member who is not conflict adverse to ask the deeper question as to why the issue exists! 

In one church I am familiar with, a long term pastor presided over a congregation that would go up to six or seven hundred and then fall to 300 - a cycle that was repeated fairly often in his career. The board spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to keep this from happening until someone raised the uncomfortable question as to whether this actually had to do with the senior pastor's competency to lead at that level and his defensiveness that caused good leaders to leave the church. That question got to the table about 15 years later than it should have but it took one courageous board member to ask the disruptive question. And, it did put the issue in its proper perspective, whatever the outcome was going to be. 

Or take a discussion about "making disciples" that regularly takes place in church circles. Often the discussion goes way down the route of strategy for making disciples until someone asks the disruptive question: "Folks, we don't even have a good definition of a disciple so all this talk has no target or focus." An irritating comment that causes the discussion to go back to the beginning and ask what we are actually trying to achieve.

It is not unlike the question why? Why are we doing this? Why are we assuming that our strategy will get us to where we need to go? Why do we think this "conventional" idea is actually a good idea? How does this program or strategy get us to where we are trying to go? Is there a better way? 

Disruptive questions can be irritating but they force groups to clarify what they are after and focus on the right things rather than just the presenting issues. Usually they come from deep thinkers who are unafraid to raise the hard questions. They are a gift to any organization or board. 

Boards, teams and whole organizations get lost in group think, historical ways of looking at issues and assumptions that often no longer apply but remain the conventional wisdom. Here is something to think about. Conventional wisdom is always conventional but it is often not wisdom. It is simply the way we have done things in the past. Disruptive companies and ministries challenge those old ways and look for new ways to accomplish something different or more.

This always starts with individuals who are willing to ask the disruptive questions. Those questions challenge the current thinking and force the group to look at issues from a different angle. Many organizations, teams and boards do not realize what a gift this is to their organization but it truly is.

Expectations of others and the role they play in our leadership paradigms

Those who lead inherit expectations from their team or organization. Some of those expectations are critical: Building healthy teams; serving one's staff; removing barriers; clarifying what is important and so on. All supervisors and leaders have an unwritten contract with those they lead around these key issues. Leaders ought to pay close attention to those leadership traits that promote clarity, health, alignment, accountability and results.

But, there are also expectations that simply come from history (what the previous leader did), personal preferences (this is what my leader should do) or my version of what a leader is and does. This is one of the primary issues pastors face because there are as many expectations of what a pastor should be and do as their are members of the congregation. These unrealistic or false expectations can cause issues for leaders unless they are personally clear as to what is important to them in their leadership role.

The expectations of others are a trap because no leader can ever fulfill all the expectations that others have, nor should they. There are simply too many. Leaders must be clear about what is important to them in leading well rather than trying to fulfill the expectations of others. Furthermore those expectations, (other than the critical obligations every leader has) are often distractions to good leadership, rather than contributors to the mission. 

Leaders must have a clear understanding of their strengths and those things they bring to the table that are critical to the team or organization they lead. If we as leaders are not clear on our priorities, others will gladly step in and define our priorities for us. In that scenario we are not leading: others are leading us. 

If we are driven to please others by meeting their expectations we are more concerned that people like us than that we are to lead well. Our goal should not be that everyone likes us but that those we lead respect us, and that we serve them well. There is a big difference between the two. The best leaders have conviction and clarity as to what their priorities are and it does not include meeting all the expectations of others. 

What is important is that leaders can articulate clearly what their priorities are and what staff can expect from them. And then consistently deliver on those commitments. Clarity and consistency generate respect and stability. Lack of clarity and inconsistency confuse those we lead. 

The expectations of others usually come from how they would live or lead. But they are not us. "But our last leader...." is not an uncommon phrase. Bless them for how they did what they did but we are not them. It is why in organizations I have led there are some non negotiable expectations of leaders, but how they do what they do is highly flexible. Leaders are individuals with their unique gifting, personalities and even quirks (yes we all have them). All of us must  lead from who God made us to be. 

When we get caught in trying to meet the unrealistic or false expectations of others we inevitably get out of our best lane and it hurts our leadership. Ironically in trying to meet the expectations of others we often end up hurting our staff because we are no longer leading out of who we are, or focused on the clarity that we ought to have. The clarity of a leader keeps them from the trap of expectations that would otherwise be a distraction to their leadership.

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If you want to go to the next level personally as a leader, or as an organization, we need to talk. On the website above you can schedule a free 60 minute consult to talk about your situation. Remember, what got you to here, got you to here. It will not get you to there. That is a new and different journey and it is what we specialize in. We can design a path just for you!

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