Tweet You said this… They heard this… It meant this much to you… It meant this much to them…. Your words are powerful As a parent As a leader As…
Read More
I was helping someone think strategically recently. We were looking at this person’s ministry, trying to design a system, which would allow for continual growth and improvement. The ministry has grown rapidly and the leader barely feels she can keep up with the current demands. She recognizes the need to delegate, grow new leaders, and spread out responsibility and ownership, but she can’t seem to get past the current demands of details to develop a plan to do so.
Have you ever been there?
Tweet Whenever I post about the subject of introversion I hear from fellow introverts. Some of these are apparently even more introverted than me. And, that’s a lot of introversion….
Tweet I’m blessed with so many pastor friends. I have the opportunity, through my blog and personal ministry, to interact with hundreds of pastors every year. After hearing many of…
Tweet Do you want to be a part of a healthy team? Do you like simple? Maybe we’ve made this more complicated than it has to be. I think there…
I was talking with someone the other day about my experience with church planting. As I told my personal story, I kept using words such as “our” and “we”. Towards the middle of the conversation the person stopped me and asked, “Who’s ‘we’?” I was talking about me the whole time, but I confused him with my verbiage. I wasn’t trying to be confusing. It’s just a habit I’ve formed. I love teams and team-building and I’ve learned that developing a team vocabulary is a large part of encouraging healthy teams.
I cringe when I hear leaders use the words “I”, “me, and “my” when referring to their team, their church or organization. To me it always sounds so controlling, prideful, and arrogant. As an example, Ben Reed is our small groups pastor at Grace Community Church. He’s an amazing leader. I would give anything to have been where he is at his age when I was that same age. When I refer to him, I don’t say “He’s my small groups guy”. He’s not! He’s our small groups guy. I don’t want to portray to him or others that I control him. I would be limiting his potential if I refer to him in a possessive sense.
I understand it’s just semantics, but to me it’s an important one for leaders to think through. If we truly want to create a team environment, then we must have team vocabularies.
There are a few times when I use the personal words, such as:
Tweet I will never forget a sobering question I received a couple years ago. I was on my last day of vacation at the beach and had just finished my…
Tweet I am not sure why you would want to, but just in case you ever did, I know some keys to creating an unhealthy team. Seriously, I realize no…
Tweet Are you more of a leader or a manager? This may be one of the most important questions we have to answer as our careers take us to new…
Tweet I have learned how your team sees you may be more important than who you are as a leader. The perception people have about you matters greatly Obviously, character…