Quick question: What has happened to general common courtesies?
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Recently I was in a restaurant and listened to some bickering between waitresses. One of them has worked in the restaurant industry and this particular restaurant for many years. The other waitress is in the first year of her first job. The younger employee refused to take suggestions or advice from the older employee. Although they did not handle this situation correctly in front of customers, it did remind me of an important principle.
Summer is often a time for church leaders (unless you are youth leaders) to take vacations, chill out, and rest up. While I agree with that need, the fact is that fall gets here quickly and we need to be prepared for one of the best growth opportunities of the year.
This can be a controversial principle, because it appears at first glance that an organization is strategizing to leave a group of people out of the equation, but really this strategy helps the entire organization be more successful, eventually improving things for everyone involved in the organization, even those in the last 20%. This principle assumes that in any organization:
Yesterday I posted about the need for a church to plan for the future. You can read that post HERE. In that post I shared three questions our staff worked through at our last extended staff retreat at Grace Community Church. This post has results.
If we aren’t careful, church becomes a Sunday-to-Sunday routine process and we look up someday from the weekly grind and realize we never reached our potential. For most churches, when one Sunday is over they are planning for the next Sunday. The church addresses the ministry needs of the week, but little time is spent planning for the months and years to come for the church. The monotony of a repeating schedule can often replace long-term planning.
Strengths Finder 2.0 has proven already to be a great tool for my leadership. We are going to use this instrument with our staff in the coming months. I have been using Myers-Briggs Type Instrument for years and still plan to, but this is now another tool I plan to use to help build a healthy team.
I believe in being friends with the people with whom I work. I consider the people on our staff to be friends. I hope we never hire anyone I could not also claim as a friend. Part of building a healthy team environment is getting to know team members and building close relationships…friends. That is the disclaimer statement, because this post is not about working with friends. Actually this post is the opposite. This post is a warning against working with friends; especially close friends. Well maybe not a warning, but definitely a caution.
Just an average guy with a dream…
(Of course, he followed his dream and is no longer average.)
Several wrote that a young leader should “leave his ego at home” or something similar. I agree with that too, but I think the issue here is more of the motivation of a person’s heart, not in their objective. There is nothing is wrong with a person wanting to grow in their leadership and influence, provided their motivation is for good and God’s glory, not their own. I do not think there is anything wrong with a young leader desiring to improve his or her skills as a leader or in their desire to become the best leader he or she can be. In fact, I would encourage it. We approve of this ideology in other fields, such as the area of sports, so why not in the area of leadership?