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Greg and I had been talking about resiliency vs. resignation, but then Greg asked if there is a place for resigning. The short answer is yes, but check out the proper way for leaders to help facilitate this in a healthy way.
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The apostle Peter was a big believer in repetition to get his message through (just look at the words remind you, refresh your memory, and remember these things in 2 Peter 1:13-15). As pastors who are in the pastures of ministry every single day, it’s good for us to be frequently reminded of the duties of our calling. So, who better do to this than the apostle Peter; or, as he called himself: “a fellow elder” (1 Peter 5:1).
Peter’s repetition to pastors comes after he tells them, “Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them” (1 Peter 5:2). Then in verses 2 and 3, Peter repeats a pattern three times to remind shepherd leaders of what Christ-honoring shepherding looks like. The phrase is: “not … but….”
(1) “NOT because you must, BUT because you are willing” (v. 2).
This contrasts a “get to” attitude with a “have to” attitude. If we have a “have to” attitude about tending to the sheep in our pasture, we will ultimately end up trying to coerce the sheep to follow us. Jesus said worldly leaders use their authority to “lord it over” the people around them, but He calls His leaders to be servants (Luke 22:25–27).
Shepherding is NOT a duty, BUT a delight.
(2) “NOT pursuing dishonest gain, BUT eager to serve” (v. 2).
The KJV says this very graphically: not for filthy lucre. Shepherds are not supposed to be bottom-line, profit-motivated workers. To think something like, “I don’t get paid enough to do this,” is to say, “I’m only here for the paycheck.” The AMPC renders this verse, “Not dishonorably motivated by the advantages and profits belonging to the office, but eagerly and cheerfully.” The true shepherd knows that the true rewards come from the Chief Shepherd only after the flock is brought Home.
Shepherding is NOT for temporal rewards, BUT to hear the Master say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”
(3) “NOT lording it over those entrusted to you, BUT being examples to the flock” (v. 3).
Our shepherding should NOT be, “Do as I say,” BUT always, “Do as I do.” Again, the AMPC captures it well: “Not domineering—as dictatorial and overbearing persons—but being examples, patterns, and models of Christian living to the flock.” Shepherd leaders seek the Holy Spirit’s help to be gentle, patient, and creative with the flock under their care.
Shepherd leaders must always remember, “These are NOT my sheep, BUT they are Christ’s.”
We shepherd NOT to get temporary rewards and recognition here, BUT to know the Master’s eternal rewards and approval in Heaven.
I invite you to check out three of my books to help shepherd leaders:
The 15 Invaluable Laws Of Growth is yet another powerful leadership book from John Maxwell. If you haven’t already, you can check out my full book review here. These are some quotes from John that especially caught my attention. My Patreon supporters have access to all of the quotes I highlighted in this book.
“You cannot change your life until you change something you do every day.”
“If you focus on goals, you may hit goals—but that doesn’t guarantee growth. If you focus on growth, you will grow and always hit goals.”
“People are never able to outperform their self-image. … If you put a small value on yourself, rest assured the world will not raise the price. If you want to become the person you have the potential to be, you must believe you can!”
“Every time you make a mistake, don’t bring up everything that’s wrong with yourself; tell yourself that you’re paying the price for growth and that you will learn to do better next time.”
“Here’s the truth when it comes to personal growth: Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing.”
“If you think about it, you can see that discipline and motivation are two sides of the same coin. If you have the motivation you need, discipline is no problem. If you lack motivation, discipline is always a problem.”
“What kinds of ‘larger’ people should we spend our time with? People with integrity. People who are positive. People who are ahead of us professionally. People who lift us up instead of knocking us down. People who take the high road, never the low. And above all, people who are growing. They should be like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, whose question for each other whenever they met was, ‘What have your learned since we last met?’”
“It comes as little surprise that people want to follow leaders of good character. No one likes to work with unreliable people. But before you or I work with any other person or follow any other leader, who do we have to rely on every day? Ourselves! That’s why character is so important. If you cannot trust yourself, you won’t ever be able to grow. Good character, with honesty and integrity at its core, is essential to success in any area of life. Without it, a person is building on shifting sand. … Most people focus too much on competence and too little on character.”
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Being the new leader of an organization is a difficult task. It doesn’t matter if you’re a first-time leader or have decades of leadership experience, you’re still “the new guy” to everyone else in the organization. So when you step into your new role and have to begin making changes you will most likely encounter areas of resistance.
In this episode, Greg and I have a thought-provoking discussion on how to mitigate and confront resistance to change, as well as laying out why we think patience can often be your most important trait during a transition.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. Check out the video content in this post by clicking here.
Greg and I were discussing how to keep your top talent from leaving your organization to find “greener pastures.” Here’s one strategy that can help you keep your superstars from leaving.
Speaking of the “boxes” on the corporate flowchart, Greg and I have a series of books calls Business by the Book. Check those out here.
If you would like to watch the full episode about retaining your top talent, you can find that here.
Not too long ago, a friend noted, “You seem to read a lot of John Maxwell’s books.” I smiled and said, “As long as he continues writing content that I can apply to my life, I’ll keep on reading.” And that’s just what I got from The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth.
John writes in the introduction of this book, “To reach your potential you must grow. And to grow, you must be highly intentional about it.” These 15 laws are indeed designed for those who want to intentionally grow, as none of them will come to fruition automatically or easily. The application of all of these laws will take time and intentional effort.
But what I appreciate about John Maxwell’s insights is their realism. He doesn’t write fluffy platitudes that sound nice yet really don’t change anything, but neither does he share thoughts that are unobtainable. Each of these 15 laws required me to confront myself, consider the potential for growth, and then make an intentional and specific plan to implement the principles he shared.
If you have read other John Maxwell books, you will discover many places where these laws overlap and are supported by principles from those books. But if haven’t read anything from this prolific author yet, 15 Laws is an excellent starting place to begin a new phase of leadership growth in your life.
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…the Lord has a charge to bring against you… (Hosea 4:1)
Sadly, the charges that God brings against ancient Israel sound eerily similar to charges He could make against us today:
Faithlessness
Lovelessness
No acknowledgment of God
Cursing
Lying
Murdering
Stealing
Adultery
Deserting God
Rampant sexual immorality
Idolatry
I believe idolatry is at the root of all these other sins. And this idolatry stems from a lack of knowledge of God’s supremacy (v. 14). But the lack of knowledge of God among the people is due to a rejection of deeper knowledge of God by the religious leaders. God specifically identifies the priests and prophets as those who are stumbling in their sin.
God says, “You stumble day and night, and the prophets stumble with you. … Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as My priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children” (Hosea 4:5-6).
God’s leaders set the tone. As the leader goes, so go the people.
A mark of a godly leader is one who is continually and increasingly growing in his knowledge of God.
Leaders must be learners in order to defend those under their care. C.S. Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory, “To be ignorant and simple now—not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground—would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen.”
Leaders, I implore you: learn more of God. Abide intimately with Him. Get to know His heart and mind. Then impart this knowledge to those around you. Lead them into the all-satisfying presence of God, so that they may also know God more intimately. This intimate knowledge will fortify them against the pull if idolatry and the whole list of other charges God has against those who remain willfully ignorant of Him.
This is part 89 in my series on godly leadership. You can check out all of my posts in this series by clicking here. And you may also want to check out my books for church leaders—Shepherd Leadership and When Sheep Bite.
Even a Wolverine fan can acknowledge the quality leadership lessons that Urban Meyer (the coach of that football team to the south of us) provides in his book Above the Line.You can check out my book review by clicking here.
Below are a few quotes that caught my attention. My Patreon supporters have access to all of the quotes from this book.
“We teach our players, in response to any situation they face, to press pause and ask: What does this situation require of me? Pressing pause gives you time to think. It gets you off autopilot and helps you gain clarity about the outcome you are pursuing, the situation you are experiencing, and the Above the Line action you need to take to achieve the outcome.”
“Under pressure, we do not rise to the occasion. We rise or fall to the level of our training. When contact is made, it is too late to train and build skill.”
“Every team faces some kind of adversity. Mediocre teams are destroyed by it. Good teams survive it. Great teams get better because of it.”
“Resilience is one of life’s most important attributes. Because nobody wants hardship or adversity, but everybody gets it. It’s inevitable. No one escapes pain, fear, or difficulty. In fact, a productive and successful life involves some amount of necessary pain. When it happens, don’t run from it. Learn from it.”
“Performance cannot be declared. It must be led. Great results are initiated and sustained by great leadership. Not just leaders at the top, but leaders at every level.”
“Culture is what leads when no one is watching.”
My Patreon supporters have all of my notes from Above the Line, including the six “R” factors Urban Meyer unpacks in his formula E + R = O.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. Check out the video content in this post by clicking here.
It seems like many people put business and faith in two separate boxes, considering them entirely different topics of discussion. Greg and I completely disagree—the Bible is a resource for all areas of our lives, from the board room to the living room. That’s why we wrote our Business By The Book series. This is a guide to help you apply biblical principles to the corporate world. In today’s episode we preview the first book in this series: Business by the Book: What the Bible says about a CEO’s vision-casting.
[0:00] Introduction
[2:10] What does it mean for the leader to cast vision for his or her organization?
[3:07] Here’s what you can expect from Business by the Book—What the Bible says about a CEO’s vision-casting
[4:13] After a leader has cast a vision, that leader then needs to empower his or her entire team to help them achieve the vision.
[6:46] Leaders must be self-aware of their strengths and weaknesses, and help their teammates learn about themselves as well.
[9:06] Organization chart maneuvering can help empower teammates to accomplish great things. And I also share a teaser about a new project on which Greg is working.
[10:26] Greg talks about two vastly different roles: Commander and Includer.
[12:27] I share an excerpt from a chapter that Greg wrote in this book, and then Greg elaborates on how this helps a team pursue the vision.
[16:37] Leaders can move from doing to facilitating, which will help others set up into new roles.
[18:21] Some counsel for leaders who are first time vision-casters.
[19:26] Greg shares a tip for facilitating meetings to get more people involved.
[21:44] “Leaders become great not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others.”
[24:18] HERE’S HOW TO WIN A FREE COPY OF OUR NEW BOOK!
Being a diehard University of Michigan Wolverines fan, it’s hard for me to say anything good about that school to the south of us. But being a lifelong learner of quality leadership insights, I have to tip my cap to Urban Meyer for the outstanding principles he presents in his book Above The Line.
Coach Meyer has been developing the principles he shares in this book for years, but he tells the story of how they all came together for his team during the season they went undefeated and won the college football national championship. As he correctly notes, leadership isn’t just for sports teams: “Where the coach’s job comes in is to get great players to play great. That is the responsibility of any leader in any organization.”
The title of this book comes from the overarching maxim for all of Meyer’s leadership teaching. It goes like this: E + R = O (where E is the Event, R is your Response to the event, and O is the Outcome. The response winning leaders are trying to develop in their team is an above-the-line response. He says that most of us default to below-the-line behaviors—
“It isn’t hard to find people who are caught up in Below the Line behavior. All you need to do is look for those whose first reaction is to blame (others), complain (about circumstances), and defend (yourself), or BCD. … Instead of accountability, BCD creates a culture of excuse making and victimization—things that are toxic for your organization and performance.”
The bulk of the rest of Above the Line is Coach Meyer elaborating on the six healthy “R” responses that leaders should be building into their team members. He says, “Here’s the bottom line: exceptional leaders think about common things in an uncommon way.” In keeping with this truism, Coach Meyer doesn’t share any uncommon leadership principles, but he does share them in ways that most leaders probably haven’t considered before.
Although this book is written by a college football coach, there isn’t much football talk on the pages of this book. So I can highly recommend this to any student of leadership who is ready to learn some new ways to get better outcomes to the events that happen to them and their organizations.
