Leadership doesn’t have to be hard. Through experience I have some simple leadership tips I can assure will make you a better leader.
I have a heart for leaders; especially church leaders. I’d love to help others learn from my experience, including my mistakes. In fact, investing in other leaders is a huge motivation for this blog and a lot of my ministry.
With this in mind, I want to share a few things I’ve learned over the years. While these are simple concepts, they are huge principles in leadership. Miss these and you’ll find yourself struggling in places in leadership you wish you weren’t. Remember them and they’ll save you some headaches.
7 simple leadership tips:
Fight fewer battles where the win doesn’t matter as much.
This was learned the very hard way. But this is also hard, because usually people are bringing the battle to you. You are the leader and they expect you to do something about it. But in reality the petty complaints, the constant grumbling are really nothing new. Read the Old Testament. People are people and wherever there are people there will be drama.
The key is to remember the over all vision. What’s the end goal? Go for that and don’t be distracted by the things, which really won’t even matter in eternity. Stick to the dominion you’ve been given and stay out of the fringe issues, which don’t matter as much.
Don’t try to duplicate as much as you emulate.
The connotation of duplicate is to be just like. When someone emulates they are trying to match the level of success, but in their individual context. And that won’t necessarily be achieved in the same way. It’s okay to emulate another person’s success. You can even learn from them, but when you try to duplicate their success you’ll often end up disappointed.
You are not someone else. Don’t try to be. So, be you. You’ll stress less about your progress if you drop the comparison game and be who God designed you to be.
Lead with leaders.
The more you surround yourself with people capable of leading others, the greater the impact your leadership can have.
It means you’ll have to delegate. You can’t control everything. Leaders must empower other people. You’ll be incredibly blessed when you see the church and its leadership capacity grow, because you were humble enough to get out of the way.
Downtime is gold. Protect your gold.
This is true more than you ever imagined. I so wish pastors would learn this one – if none of the other.
Don’t neglect your Sabbath. It’s not simply Biblical – it’s highly practical. Discipline yourself to build sufficient rest into your schedule. When you’re tired you will never lead at your best level. And you, the church, and everyone in your life will suffer.
“Above all protect your heart, for out of it come all the issues of life.” Proverbs 4:23
Think it’s a marathon not a sprint.
You will have bad days. There will be critics. People will perform badly as people do – including you.
You will send a dumb email or say the wrong thing. You will plan a project and it will totally bomb.
On those days, remind yourself of the bigger vision. Regroup. Rest. Recharge. Go at it again tomorrow.
Stop trying to control every outcome.
The fact is you’ll seldom be able to anyway. When you try to control things people will either rebel or never live up to their potential. Either way you are disappointed.
Control the vision. Locks arms around where you know God says you are supposed to go, but almost everything else, you can release to the people around you.
Be authentic – in everything.
Don’t be partially authentic – be totally authentic. People will trust you more if you are who you claim to be – and you are that way always.
Don’t try to make yourself bigger than you are. People can easily spot the margin between the portrayed you and the real you. And the greater the margin the less you’ll build trust in those you hope will follow.
Check out my leadership podcast where we discuss issues of leadership nuggets in a practical way. Plus, check out the other Lifeway Leadership Podcasts.
That first one about fighting fewer battles is indeed hard, but vital. My wife and I practice this and talk about it, sometimes asking each other as a somewhat neutral party our opinion on whether a particular thing is a battle worth fighting. We say, "Choose your battles wisely," and you have to be intentional about it. The idea as you say is to serve the vision and not be distracted by unimportant battles. If you need to give in an battle that is unimportant, that's fine because it lends strength to a battle that is strategic in pursuing the vision.
Some relatively unimportant things still need to be settled and can be seen as battles. A lot of these kinds of things can be delegated. I've taught on this from the life of Moses where he received sage advice from his father-in-law, Jesse, about delegating these petty cases he was bogged down with out to leaders among the tribes so that he could focus on leading the exodus as a whole. It's a good lesson for us, whether we are the one delegating or the one being delegated to, to understand our place in the leadership structure.
Thanks, yes this is hard. And a great practice to do in marriage – and all relationships.