Tweet I was talking with a concerned man recently about his church. He’s concerned the church is wasting a lot of resources and accomplishing little towards its vision to make…
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As a leader, one of your most valuable assets is the respect of the people you are leading. If a leader is respected, people will follow him or her almost anywhere. If a leader loses the respect from the ones he or she leads, it becomes very difficult to regain that respect.
Often a new leader is given respect because of his or her position as a leader, but respect can be quickly lost due to performance. Many times, it’s the seemingly small things which cause the most damage to a leaders’s reputation.
I have found that with a few simple (some not so simple) acts help protect the respect a leader enjoys:
It’s been a long time since I wrote the post 10 Characteristics of Good Leadership. It remains one of my most read posts, being found by readers through search engines. Shortly after I wrote the post my friend Jesse Phillips at Catalyst asked me to expand on each item. You can thank Jesse for this post.
In an expanded version, here are 10 characteristics of good leadership:
Tweet I have a strong desire to help improve the quality of leadership in churches and ministries, especially among the next generation of Christian leaders. My youngest son, Nate, who…
Tweet There are no perfect leaders — except for Jesus. For the rest of us, we each have room for improvement. Most of us live with flaws in our leadership…
Recently I posted 7 Characteristics of Cowardly Lion Leadership. In that post, I discussed the characteristics of leaders who fail to have the courage needed to lead well. I thought it only fair to share the reverse post. There are many courageous leaders in our world today, as evidenced by the strong organizations that thrive even during difficult economic times.
Here are 7 traits of a courageous leader:
You remember the cowardly lion from The Wizard of Oz don’t you? He was supposed to be the king of the jungle but he had no courage.
Sadly I see this missing in much leadership today. Let’s face it. Leading others is hard. There is often loneliness to leadership. (I wrote about it HERE.) Leadership takes great courage.
Here are 7 characteristics of cowardly leadership:
Tweet The longer I’m in leadership, the more I realize I don’t always fully know the real health of my team or organization at any given time — at least…
Let’s be honest! Criticism can hurt. No one enjoys hearing something negative or finding out that everything you are doing isn’t perceived as wonderful by others as you hoped it would be. Criticism, however, is a part of leadership and, if handled correctly, doesn’t have to be a bad part of leadership. Learning to let criticism work for you rather than against you is a key to maturing as a leader.
Recently I posted 5 Wrong Ways to Respond to Criticism. A companion post is in order.
Here are 5 right ways to respond to criticism:
Criticism accompanies leadership. The only way to avoid criticism is to do nothing. If a leader is taking an organization somewhere, and really even if he or she isn’t, someone will criticize his or her efforts. The way a leader responds to criticism says much about the maturity of the leader.
Here are 5 wrong ways to respond to criticism: