Do you want to lead better?
Yes!
Then ask God for wisdom.
Got it?
Yes!
Good!
Now ask Him for more—“If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God Who gives to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given him.” (James 1:5)
Get it?
Got it.
Good, get more!
Related posts:
Leaders must resist trying to rush in “to save the day.” We need to let our teammates learn how to rescue themselves through a time of productive struggle. Check out the full conversation Greg and I had in our episode “The struggle is real (but necessary).”
I have a lot of new video content on my YouTube channel every week. Please check it out and subscribe so you don’t miss anything.
I have had an ongoing series of posts and videos called “Is that in the Bible?” Many times we discover that a phrase we think is biblical isn’t found in the Scripture or it is being used out of context. John Stonestreet addresses this same concern. He writes, “Selective proof-texting points to how widespread and deep biblical illiteracy is. In addition to an ignorance of the actual content of the Bible, there is ignorance about what the Bible even is, and how Christians throughout the ages have used it. It’s bad when this ignorance shows up in politics. It’s sad when it shows up in our churches and Christian subcultures.”
“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths.” —Arnold Schwarzenegger
Marcus Buckingham shared something fascinating: “I studied 3000 Disney housekeepers. Eight of them told me what they loved about their work. One vacuums herself out of every room to make perfect carpet lines. Another lies on every bed to test the ceiling fan because dust falling means guests think the room is dirty. A third arranges kids’ toys in elaborate scenes—Mickey with the TV remote, Minnie with french fries. All breaking Disney’s rules. All excellent for completely different reasons. Stop building competency models for leaders. The best leaders are super different from each other. Average is homogenous. Excellence is idiosyncratic.”
The subtitle of this John Maxwell book is “Bringing People Together in a World That Divides.” That is so needed today! Check out my review of High Road Leadership, and may these quotes inspire you to pick up a copy of this book to learn how you can be a part of healing a divided world.
“Leadership can be a blessing or a curse. It can help people rise to a better life, or it can cause people to fall into despair.”
“One of the reasons we don’t come together and work with one another is that we no longer see people on the other side as merely disagreeing. We see them as disagreeable human beings. We assume their motives are wrong. And the moment we think a person’s motives are wrong, we lose trust. … Good leaders need to rise above this attitude and help the people they lead do the same. How? We need to possess a strong collaboration bias. We need to bring people together to increase our understanding of each other and broaden our perspective.”
“We can’t divide people and expect to accomplish positive results. Conversation and collaboration will always come up with better answers than isolation and exclusion.”
“In my opinion, as a culture we lost our way when we went from simply disagreeing with others to devaluing them because we disagree. That’s when we crossed the line into low-road leadership. It’s one of the reasons so many people are so angry all the time. And when others take the low road with them, they become even angrier. It’s always easier to make a negative point than to make a positive difference.”
“High-road leaders who value people have a strong, healthy sense of self-worth, yet at the same time they are humble, meaning they don’t think too much of themselves or about themselves too much.”
“Accepting our humanness and possessing humble confidence does nothing to diminish our leadership ability. In a study of medical students, those who possessed doubts about their ability were just as effective in diagnosing illnesses as their more confident counterparts. Furthermore, the more humble students rated higher in bedside manner, empathy, respect, and professionalism.”
“The problem with arguing loudly that you are right is that you’re not listening and learning so that you can find out what actually is right. It’s the height of arrogance to believe you know everything there is to know about a subject, that you have looked at it from every angle, and that you possess the only valid perspective.”
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Leaders would do well to remember that they lead a group of unique individuals. Let the unique gifts of those unique people be used in unique ways, and watch both the individuals and the organization grow!
I have a lot of new video content on my YouTube channel every week. Please check it out and subscribe so you don’t miss anything.
“As Tyler Cowen wrote in The Free Press, ‘Whether or not you work in the AI sector, if you put any kind of content on the internet, or perhaps in a book, you are likely helping to train, educate, and yes, morally instruct the next generation of what will be this planet’s smartest entities. You are making them more like you—for better or worse.’ Now, maybe someone thinks, ‘I’ve hardly got any followers, who cares what I post? It probably won’t matter.’ But the principle means we should care. The philosopher Immanuel Kant famously offered his ‘categorical imperative’ as a test for ethical decisions: ‘Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.’ In other words, we should only do what we think would be good for everyone to do.” —Axis.org
How much good inside a day?
Depends how good you live ’em.
How much love inside a friend?
Depends how much you give ’em. —Shel Silverstein
A fantastic mini-biography of Otto J. Klink who went from being a Christian, to an atheist socialist, to failed presidential assassin, to a Pentecostal author and evangelist. Wow!
“My acceptance of the universe is not optimism, it is more like patriotism. It is a matter of primary loyalty. The world is not a lodging-house at Brighton, which we are to leave because it is miserable. It is the fortress of our family, with the flag flying on the turret, and the more miserable it is the less we should leave it. The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more.” —G.K. Chesterton
Marshall Segal said this about our daily Bible reading time, “I want to walk through a five-step prayer you could pray when you sit down with your Bible to meet with God. The five steps are built on an acronym for FEAST. Focus my mind; Enlighten my eyes; Address my sin; Satisfy my soul; Train my hands.”
“A man of character will make himself worthy of any position he is given.” —Mahatma Gandhi
“A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness. Successful people forget. They know the past is irrevocable. They’re running a race. They can’t afford to look behind. Their eye is on the finish line. Magnanimous people forget. They’re too big to let little things disturb them. They forget easily. If anyone does them wrong, they consider the source and keep cool. It’s only the small people who cherish revenge. Be a good forgetter. Business dictates it, and success demands it.” —Elbert Hubbard
“Leadership is not about being in charge, but about taking care of the people in your charge.” —Simon Sinek
Flowing Data has a fascinating look at how people spend their time during the day. Their adjustable chart shows activities by age, sex, and time of day. It reminds me of a blog post I shared about time management, where I noted, “You cannot add more Tick, Tocking! time to your day, but you can keep more of your day from Drip, Dropping! away.”
“We might think, ‘Well, hey, if I’m devoting myself all the time to looking out for others’ needs, who’s going to be looking out for mine?’ The Lord, of course, because He knows what you need even before you ask Him, and He has ways of meeting your needs that are more wonderful than you in your cleverness or strength could ever conjure or provide (cf. Matthew 6:25-34).” —T.M. Moore
“We all know that exercise makes us feel better, but most of us have no idea why. We assume it’s because we’re burning off stress or reducing muscle tension or boosting endorphins, and we leave it at that. But the real reason we feel so good when we get our blood pumping is that it makes the brain function at its best, and in my view, this benefit of physical activity is far more important—and fascinating—than what it does for the body. Building muscles and conditioning the heart and lungs are essentially side effects. I often tell my patients that the point of exercise is to build and condition the brain.” —Dr. John Ratey
T.M. Moore has a hard but good word for Christians: “If this day, and this expectation and hope [when we heard King Jesus say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’], are not the driving force for every aspect of our lives and work, then it is doubtful we have really understood the Good News of the Kingdom or received the salvation freely offered to us by the King. I say this again: If we are not motivated and driven, day by day, by the prospect of hearing ‘Well done, good and faithful servant,’ then we need to examine ourselves, whether we truly know the Lord of glory. That’s pretty hard language, I know, but let’s face the reality: If we have not submitted to Jesus as Lord of every area of our life, all the work we’ve been given to do, then we are still living for ourselves, not Him.” —T.M. Moore
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
The multitude of books written about business and leadership is nearly incalculable. If you began reading now and did nothing else you could spend the rest of your life reading business books and still have many unread at the end of your life. Yet the wealth of knowledge contained within these books still pales in comparison to the insights provided to us by THE book—the Bible. In today’s episode Greg and I are happy to announce we are working on a new project called Business By The Book, which combines biblical insights with real-world applications.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
I have been a longtime fan of John Maxwell. His ability to distill so many insights into accessible action steps is a true gift. High Road Leadership is no exception to this, and it is a timely read at this cultural moment.
I was recently talking with a friend about the stark divide in American politics today. I was recalling a time when a US President would nominate someone for a cabinet position or an opening on a judicial bench, and the vote in the Senate would be something like 89-8 in favor of the nominee. Now it is more likely that the vote will end in a 50-50 tie with the vice president stepping in to cast the tie-breaking vote. It’s become axiomatic that a senator’s vote has to be a “nay” if the president making the nomination was of a different political party.
As a pastor, I’ve even experienced people moving to a different church because someone else in the church is perceived to support something that they are against. It’s heartbreaking, to say the least!
This is why I said that Maxwell’s book is timely in this cultural moment.
As with all of his books, the focal point is leadership. More specifically, John Maxwell calls leaders to continue to grow in their ability to serve more people; with the emphasis on “serve.”
High Road Leadership challenges leaders on ways to take the high road. One illustration that encapsulates the ideas in this book comes from Maxwell’s observation on the well known story of the good Samaritan. The thieves took the low road by saying to the man they robbed, “What’s yours is mine.” The leaders who passed by the man who was injured took the middle road by exempting themselves from action by saying, “What’s mine is mine.” However, the good Samaritan who helped the injured man at his own expense took the high road in saying, “What’s mine is yours.”
High road leaders are always looking for ways to bring people together, to go above and beyond what would be culturally expected of them, to embrace those who are different, to find common ground that can unite disparate groups.
This is the consistent example and teaching of Jesus Christ Himself, but it is an attitude and lifestyle that is routinely ignored. Everyone seems to be waiting for “them” to go first, but high road leaders always take the Christ-like initiative of going first.
High Road Leadership is a practical guide to help all of us consistently operate on the high road. If you are ready to help heal what divides us, this book will become your go-to resource.
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Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Misunderstandings happen all the time. Leaders can help their teammates navigate these verbal landmines—and avoid a lot of trouble—by asking the clarifying questions that will bring the whole team together.
Check out the full conversation Greg and I had about unifying your team.
We would love to serve as your leadership coach, so get in touch with us. My book Shepherd Leadership also has some biblical principles that leaders can immediately apply to their organizations.
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“If we truly want to be considered successful, we must turn our backs on what is typically termed ‘success’ so that we can keep our eyes on our Chief Shepherd. See the One with all power using His unlimited power to stoop down to serve. That’s the posture servant-hearted shepherds continually aspire to take, and that’s the posture that God wholeheartedly approves.” (From the chapter ‘The Wrong Ladder’ in my book Shepherd Leadership)
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
The northern tribes of Israel had been defeat by the Assyrians and gone into exile because of their persistent and unrelenting sins against God. You would think that this would be a vivid enough warning to get the attention of the people of Judah, but sadly it wasn’t.
King Manasseh sinned and then doubled-down on his sinning. The prophets thundered their warnings, and Manasseh not only kept his sins going but he kept pulling more and more people down into sin with him.
Isaiah pointed to the example of Israel’s sin—
Woe to Samaria the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim [the ten tribes], and to the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley of those overcome and smitten down with wine! … But even these reel from wine and stagger from strong drink: the priest and the prophet reel from strong drink; they are confused from wine, they stagger and are gone astray through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble when pronouncing judgment. (Isaiah 28:1, 7 AMPC)
Notice the words like reel and stagger, as though intoxicated by alcohol.
Look at this description of Manasseh: “But the people [of Judah] would not listen; and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than the nations did whom the Lord destroyed before the Israelites!” (2 Kings 21:9).
The Hebrew word translated “seduced” is the same Hebrew word that Isaiah used for the staggering and going astray of a drunkard.
This is the power that leaders have for both good and evil. A sober-minded, godly leader can encourage people toward righteousness, but an ungodly leader who is intoxicated by his power seduces people to join him in his unrighteousness. Manasseh was described as “making Judah sin, by doing evil in the sight of the Lord” (v. 16).
Certainly there are people who choose a sinful lifestyle during the tenure of a godly leader, and there are people who steadfastly choose righteousness during the tenure of an ungodly leader. But the Bible issues strong warnings to those leaders who misuse their God-appointed positions of leadership to lead people astray (see Ezekiel 3:17-21, 33:1-9).
Leaders, be on guard that a position of leadership doesn’t seduce you to stray from righteousness. Don’t forget that God chose you for this role, so to Him you will have to stand to give an accounting of your leadership. I pray you can say that you soberly and sincerely pursued righteousness and led your people in that pursuit as well. I want you to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant” and not, “Depart from Me.”
This is part 86 in my series on godly leadership. You can check out all of my posts in this series by clicking here.
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Craig T. Owens 