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Tuesday Leadership Lesson: HeartSpeak

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Here’s my weekly email to leaders in Reno County…
Having taken a few weeks to encourage you to manage yourself better, I thought today we’d get after a facet of leadership that (to quote the late Cajun Chef Justin Wilson) “I guarantee” will help you intervene more skillfully: speak from the heart.  

If speaking from the heart makes you think of Valentine’s Day, then you might well be missing the point.  Speaking from the heart gets us close to purpose.  It helps expose why we care so deeply about the specific challenges in which we’re engaging. 
As the recent KS Leadership Center journal (which I’m still waiting to link to online) points out (on pp.104-105), there are some key questions involved in speaking from the heart:
1) Why are you/I working on this?
2) What do I care about most related to this challenge?
3) How often do you/I share your/my beliefs and personal stories with stakeholders?
4) Are there some stakeholders with whom you/I haven’t shared these thoughts?
You can see through these questions what speaking from the heart does both in you and your stakeholders. 
Furthermore, the Journal has us look at a continuum.  Evidently, speaking from the heart is striking a balance between and not becoming overly emotional or overly detached.  Where would you fall on this chart?

Today, then, no matter the leadership issue you’re engaged with.  Speak from the heart and see if it doesn’t help you make progress on the issues you care about so deeply.

Leadership Lesson: Manage Self, Self-Control & GI Joe

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Here’s my email to leaders in Reno County this past Monday:

Call me a geeky 80’s kid, but I grew up watching the cartoon G.I. Joe.  It seemed in every episode, there would be a lesson of some sort and the conclusion would be: “Now you know and knowing is half the battle.”  This is certainly true for those of us who step into leadership.  One of the KLC’s Leadership Principles is that “IT STARTS WITH YOU…and must engage others.”  Leadership begins when we make a conscious choice within ourselves.  We know that managing self is an important component but that is just half the battle.  Training ourselves to exercise self-control in leadership situations is where the rubber meets the road. 
For the past two weeks, I’ve written to you about taking care of yourself and I’ve done this intentionally.  I haven’t done it to breed some morbid self-interest, getting you to look in the mirror and say, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all,” expecting us to say we are the fairest.  No.  I’ve done it because our acts of leadership begin in us.  We must manage self.  We must exercise some self-control and knowing our strengths, vulnerabilities and triggers, choose among all the competing values to intervene.  We step in to act.  We want this to be more and more strategic and skillful each and every time we act in leadership.  We have to experiment beyond our comfort zone.  We have to increase our tolerance for uncertainty and conflict.  This is what it means to be a leader.
Today, then, manage self by exercising some good self-control.  Assess yourself.  And see if managing self doesn’t help you make progress on the issues you care about so deeply.

Leadership: Take Care of Yourself

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Each week, I write a short email to graduates of the Leadership Reno County program.  Here’s this week’s:

Last week I posted an encouragement to “Take Care of Yourself.”  As I was digging out from being gone, I came across the latest KLC Journal (Vol 4, Issue 1 – Summer 2012, which will hopefully be online soon) and in it, under the learning laboratory section on p.102, was the following items to encourage you to “Take Care of Yourself.”  Here’s the info and questions:
 “It’s not the load that breaks you down; it’s the way you carry it.” – Lena Horne
 “As you engage others in difficult work, pay special attention to maintaining your own energy and enthusiasm.  Take time to renew yourself.  Call on friends and colleagues for support.  Be purposeful about taking care of yourself over the long haul.”
 “Ask yourself these questions:
1) How do you know when your energy is waning?
2) What activities, practices and places revitalize you?
3) Whom can you call on for support when you need it?
4) How might you create time or space to take care of yourself?
 These are excellent thought.  Take some time and consider these things and see if it doesn’t have an effect on your long term progress on those issues you care about so deeply.

A Conscious Choice

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Each Monday, I write a small piece on leadership for my Leadership Reno County group and today my email was posted on the Kansas Leadership Center blog.  Here’s the content:

I was recently thinking about Intervening Skillfully into a situation and in that competency, I came across that line: “make conscious choices” and the thought occurred to me, what is a conscious choice?  How does this kind of choice differ from others?  Hopefully, my musings on this will help you think about intervening skillfully through making conscious choices.
The KLC Quick Guide asks some questions that help define it: “What is our typical approach to intervening on issues like this?  What new intervention approaches might be necessary?  What type of leadership interventions are needed from us right now?”  Again, so many of our interventions are, to quote something I’ve often heard in church life, “the way we’ve always done them.”  We’re not seeking to be effective, but rather to step in like we typically do.  Making a conscious choice means pausing a second to consider if the particular situation you’re addressing requires the same old, same old or if there is a way that you might be able to intervene that would be more effective.
Making a conscious choice requires great management of self, a thorough diagnosis of the situation and a consideration as to how our actions can best be maneuvered to energize others.  So, this works together, with all the competencies, to have the most robust and powerful impact on others.  That is a conscious choice that makes a difference.  Therefore, today, let’s intervene skillfully through making conscious choices and see if we don’t just achieve better outcomes in our leadership opportunities.

Leadership Reno County

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…is a class offered in our community that “focus[es] on leadership skills combined with exposure to the attributes of, and issues in, Reno County.” Our local paper ran a story announcing the group I am in these things with. If you’re interested, check out that story.

The time has been amazing so far. We’ve been given principles that have easily transferred over to my work. On a deeper level, though, we had panels related to social services and education, which have made me more aware of the adaptive challenges we face here in Hutch and Reno County.

Pastor Mark’s Daddy Christmas Tips

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Are very helpful and online at The Mars Hill Blog:

1. Dad needs a plan for the holidays to ensure his family is loved and memories are made. Dad, what’s your plan?
2. Dad needs to ensure his family is giving generously during the holidays. Dad, who in need is your family going to adopt, bless, and serve?
3. Dad needs to carve out time for sacred events and experiences to build family traditions that are fun and point to Jesus. Dad, is you calendar ready for December?
4. Dad needs to not let the stress of the holidays, including money, cause him to be grumpy with Mom or the kids. Dad, how’s your joy?
5. Dad needs to make memories and not just give gifts. Dad, what special memories can you make this holiday season?
6. Dad needs to manage the extended family and friends during the holidays. Dad, who or what do you need to say “no” to?
7. Dad needs to schedule a big Christmas date with his daughter(s). Dad, what’s your big plan for the fancy Daddy-daughter date?
8. Dad needs to schedule guy time with his son(s). Dad, what are you and your son(s) going to do that is active, outdoors, and fun?
9. Dad needs to help get the house decorated. Dad, are you really a big help to Mom with getting things ready?
10. Dad needs to ensure there are some holiday smells and sounds. Dad, is Christmas music on the iPod, is the tree up, can you smell cookies and cider?

These are all great tips. We have plenty of ways to serve your families at Crestview as well:

Thanksgiving Dinner, Sunday Nov 21 at 6PM
A Thanksgiving Offering to advance the Gospel in Australia
Hanging of the Greens, Sunday Nov 28 at 6PM, where you and your family can serve others
An Advent Series of Sermons, beginning Sunday AM, Nov 28

Honor Christ by leading your families well this holiday season.

Tri Perspectival Leadership…

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I found this chart by Leon Chingcuangco helpful. It is called “Triperspectival Leadership – Fulfilling the Offices of Christ“. The basic premise is that as Christ exhibits the offices of prophet, priest and king, so leaders in the local church will manifest those qualities. Specifically in this tool, the offices of Prophet, Priest and King are contrasted to examine Characteristics, Positive Tendencies, Negative Tendencies, Eventual Outworking, Errors of Uni-Perspectival Leadership, Possible Idols and Reductionism.

What was so helpful was seeing the apparent weaknesses that exist in my leadership, so that, by God’s grace, I can repent and believe the Gospel and see victory in these areas. Excellent tool.