Tweet I was in a hurry to get to a meeting across town and traffic was horrible. I decided to take a shortcut. I had been the new way only…
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Recently I posted “Leader, Strategically Keep Thy Mouth Shut”. The title was startling perhaps, but the principle is important. I wrote the post to encourage leaders to think strategically, especially when making quick decisions. Many times a leader says something or does something in a quick response which can negatively impact other people or the organization. Sometimes it is best to say nothing until the best answer can be decided. This often requires the work of more than just the leader answering the questions. One reader asked me to expand on the phrase “thinking strategic in the moment”; specifically how I do that.
Again, it should be understood that this post addressed decisions which should require some thought. Most leaders make hundreds of decisions a day and many of those require very little thought. If a leader is asked a question where an answer has already been clearly defined then the leader can answer quickly. When the issue, however, has an undetermined answer, especially if the answer could alter the direction of the organization, impact other people or require a change in the organization’s finances, then the leader needs to learn to think strategically in the moment. That may result in saying nothing at the time.
With that in mind, how does a leader think strategically in the moment? Here are 5 thoughts of how I do this:
Tweet I have learned many times, as leaders, we are blindfolded by the experience we have gained over the years. Here’s what I mean. We falsely assume everyone knows what…
Tweet I encounter many leaders who claim to want delegation to be a part of their leadership. They know the value, but they are often frustrated with the results they…
Tweet I’ll be honest. I’m not a huge fan of most policies. It may be because I’m not a very good rule follower, but I honestly don’t think many policies…
Tweet In her book “Unleashing the Power of Rubber Bands”, Nancy Ortberg talks about the need to differentiate between “a tension to be managed and a problem to be solved“….
I received a message from a staff member of another church recently. He is struggling with the current leadership and wondering how long he can continue to be where he doesn’t support the vision and direction of the pastor. He wanted my advice on how he should be responding during this season of ministry.
Here are 7 actions I encouraged him to do:
Tweet You know you made a mistake. It’s just a matter of time before someone finds out. What do you do now? I have often watched leaders struggle to recover…
I write a lot about introversion, because I’m an introvert. Introversion is a personality preference, based on the way a person has been programmed by experiences and life. In very simple terms, it means we prefer a world of inner thoughts and reflections over a world of social engagements and interactions with others. It’s not that we don’t like people, it’s that if we had a preference of how to use our time, we would mostly spend it in quieter or more controllable environments. Chances are you have lots of introverts on your team, in your organization, as your customers, or even in your family.
I will often get requests to write about extroversion. (Extroverted people are seldom shy about asking for what they want!) The fact is, however, that I’m not much help on understanding extroversion. Perhaps someone can guest post here sometime.
I do want to accommodate the requests, however, so here is an attempt. Allow me to share 7 ways that extroverts can help introverts:
Tweet Trust is like gold in leadership. Without it a leader will fail to build a healthy following. Change will be difficult to implement. Retention and recruitment of leaders becomes…