The top five priorities every leader must pay attention to

Good leaders must do at least five things well in their leadership role. A leader may do other things, but if she or he does not do these five things well, they will not become a great leader. These five responsibilities are the five highest priorities in one's leadership role. How well they are done will determine the effectiveness of the team.

One: Personal Development - Ensuring I live intentionally in my spiritual, family, emotional, relational, and professional life.

By personal development, I mean the core issues that make a leader spiritually, relationally, emotionally, and professionally healthy. These become a leader's highest priority because health in these areas determines their ability to lead spiritually and professionally and to model the kind of faithful, fruitful, connected life that the New Testament describes for leaders.

Two: Strategic Leadership - Providing strategic leadership to the organization or part of the organization you lead.

This is not about administrating the team. There is a crucial difference between 'activity' and 'results.' Good leaders are always seeking results that are consistent with the mission. Leaders do some administration, but they are not administrators. Instead, they are constantly pushing the mission forward - which often gets lost in the press of activity. Strategic leadership is about keeping the organization's mission central and the team aligned toward accomplishing the task.

Three: Strong Team - Building a healthy, unified, aligned, strategic, and results-oriented team.

Newsflash: The higher the altitude you fly, the less you can do yourself, and the more you depend on other people. Your ability to influence the organization you lead and advance the mission depends on the people who make up your team. Your success is tied directly to your team. So, the better the team, the more you will see accomplished.

Four: Leadership Development - Develop current and future leaders.

Are you developing current and future leaders for your ministry? It amazes me how many churches and organizations have no strategy or plan to create future leaders, and I wonder why they have trouble when new leaders create problems. Leaders pay close attention to identifying and developing new leaders for the future. I will only succeed if I raise the next generation of leaders for the organization I lead so that it flourishes into the future.

Five: Mobilizing Resources - Mobilize critical resources for the team's ministry to flourish.

Team leaders are mobilizers of people, strategies, finances, and other needed resources. Leaders use their authority, vision-casting ability, and position in the organization to ensure their team has the resources necessary to fulfill their responsibilities. This may mean negotiating with others at their level or higher for necessary budgets or cooperation.

Mobilizing resources is more than just about funding. Leaders are 'people raisers,' always looking for individuals who can contribute to the mission. They are always looking for strategies that might work or people who have been successful in what they are trying to do. All too often, we try to 'reinvent wheels.' Leaders point their team to those who have already figured it out and encourage them to explore successful models.

Leaders who pay attention to these five priorities will grow healthy and effective teams.

Creating cultures of excellence
AddingtonConsulting.org

The curtailing of freedoms in China will impact business, missions and the free flow of information

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China is moving back to a surveillance state where people are watched, phones are tapped, the internet is controlled, hotel rooms are entered without permission and surveillance can even be found in the home. It is not by accident that China is also on the cutting edge of the development of face recognition software that will further erode individual freedoms. In addition, China is making it more difficult for the news media to report what is going on and limiting their freedom to travel. Even reporters in Hong Kong who have crossed a line with Beijing are finding that their visas are not being renewed. All of this is reminiscent of the days of Mao but it is taking place in a globalized world.

This will have major implications for the business community. Already, the government is holding international companies hostage for positions they take or anything on their web site that is contrary to China's image and politics.

More importantly this will potentially bring much more scrutiny to those who are in China to spread the gospel. Not that Christianity can be stamped out in a country with many believers but foreign missionaries may well find it much harder to find a valid reason to receive a visa. China is already doing battle with the church in various locations and the government is not trying to hide their actions.

It is my belief as well that Chinese students from the mainland are being watched in the United States more carefully for their associations with Americans and the church.

Below are links to an important article for those who desire to know more. It is a report entitled Under Watch: Reporting in China's Surveillance State. It is a report by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China. It ought to give us pause.

Rapidly expanding surveillance and widespread government interference against reporting in the

country’s far northwestern region of Xinjiang drove a significant deterioration in the work environment

for foreign journalists in China in 2018. This is shown by the annual survey of correspondent members

conducted by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC).

 UNDER WATCH: REPORTING IN CHINA'S SURVAILLANCE STATE

Creating cultures of excellence

Rapidly expanding surveillance and widespread government interference against reporting in the

country’s far northwestern region of Xinjiang drove a significant deterioration in the work environment

for foreign journalists in China in 2018. This is shown by the annual survey of correspondent members

conducted by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC).

Rapidly expanding surveillance and widespread government interference against reporting in the

country’s far northwestern region of Xinjiang drove a significant deterioration in the work environment

for foreign journalists in China in 2018. This is shown by the annual survey of correspondent members

conducted by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCC