One of the hardest parts of leading for me has been the things I’ve had to learn or do which may have been contrary to the way I would have naturally done them – or wanted to do them. But I’ve learned there are some necessary paradigms I’ve had to form to be an effective leader.
For example, I like to be in control of my surroundings. I don’t like the feeling of being out of control. (Strength Finders says control is a “strength” of mine.) We are shaped by our past experiences and several of mine have shaped this in me as a person.
Yet, as a leader there are many times I don’t have the privilege of being in control. To some this may sound like the opposite of being a good leader. Good leaders – some falsely believe – have everything under their control. Learning to empower people, however, has proven to actually be a better leadership model for me.
So I decided to share some of the hardest paradigms I have had to learn in order to be effective as a leader.
Many of my pastor friends need to learn these.
7 necessary paradigms for me to be an effective leader:
I had to develop the ability to say no more than I get to say yes.
I love to say yes. It’s easier. It makes people happier. It’s such a more positive word. And I’m a positive person – the glass is always half full for me – three-fourths even. But I’ve learned always saying yes makes me very ineffective as a leader and eventually leads to my burnout. How healthy is this for our team?
I have to live with sometimes being unpopular.
The natural tendency is to believe the leader is well known and, frankly, well-liked. I’ve learned, however, every decision I make seems to make some people happy and some not so happy. I’ve even made some people angry with some of the decisions I have made – even some which in time proved to be the best decision, but initially were hard to accept. Change always produces an emotion – either good or bad emotions.
I have to move forward sometimes in uncertainty.
I’ve never been able to have all the answers before a decision has to be made. If I could we would totally remove the faith factor and it would stagnate us. This doesn’t mean I don’t collaborate with others, do my homework, and certainly I should pray. But I’ve learned to be effective as a leader I have to be willing to go into unknown territories. I must even let people “experiment”. That’s hard for people who like to be in control.
I have to get comfortable challenging mediocrity.
In case you don’t know, you can ruffle someone’s feathers if you challenge the way they’ve been doing something. This includes if what they were doing wasn’t working and they’ve “always done it this way”. Yet, I’ve learned as a leader it’s part of my job to challenge us to improve – in all areas. Development must be a part of an effective leader’s day. Granted, sometimes we can push too hard or too fast, but it’s incredibly difficult to recover from complacency.
I have to lower my pride and admit I can often be wrong.
I came into leadership, as most leaders do, believing I had some answers to offer. And sometimes I do. But I’ve also learned my team often knows more than me. In fact, if I surround myself with the right team then my team always knows more than me – at least in the individual areas they lead. I have to yield to them and empower them for us to achieve our maximum potential.
I have to come to a reality I can’t be everywhere or do everything.
As a creative, my mind has a tendency to wander. If I’m not careful, I’ll try to be too involved in everyone else’s work and the work I’m supposed to do suffers. As a pastor, I want to help the discipleship ministry, the mission ministry, the music ministry, and the administrative ministry of the church, and every other ministry – in an in depth way. Granted, I need to be involved at some level, and part of my job as leader is casting vision for the entire church, but micromanaging never produces healthy or the best results. Disciplining myself not to always have an opinion has proven to be a more effective form of leadership.
By the way, I also had to learn this is another area where a leader may become unpopular – especially pastors. The established church often expects the pastor to know everything and be everywhere. But again, doing so makes a leader far less effective overall.
I have to realize that sometimes the best thing to put on my calendar is rest.
I’m from a generation and a family history of work. I’ve been working steadily since I was 12 years old and I work 6 days-a-week most weeks. Rest doesn’t come without discipline for me.
How can doing nothing be a good thing? It seems counter-productive to me. I’ve learned, however, without proper rest, (and exercise) I’m eventually very ineffective as a leader. There have been days – extremely busy days – where the best decision of my day was to stop take a nap and start again. Or jump on the elliptical for an hour. Taking proper care of my soul and body is needed for the days, weeks, and seasons of life in order for leadership to remain effective.
Those are some paradigms which come to my mind I have had to learn – sometimes the hard way – to be effective in leadership and to last long-term. I’m sure there are others. Feel free to share your own.
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This is an interesting list. It resonates with me personally. I can see some modification for particularly strong personalities:
*Regarding saying no, some leaders need to learn to say yes more often.
*Regarding being uncertain, while they still need to move forward, some leaders need to understand that the situation is less certain than they realize. It's always better to be more realistic about certainty than to be overconfident or underconfident.
*Regarding mediocrity, some leaders need to accept some mediocrity, at least for the moment, in order to allow subordinates to grow without crushing them.
*Regarding pride and admitting when you are wrong, this is probably true for about every leader. There are people who are overly apologetic and bear blame for being wrong when they aren't, but they aren't typically leaders.
*The last two have to do with accepting limitations. Some leaders got where they are by selling their bosses a bill of goods with regard to their capabilities. These leaders ore often lazy and need to be on point more often. They take too much rest as a perceived privilege of their station. A good leader needs to understand his or her limitations and plan for it in developing their leadership methods. This can be a matter of pride as well. I've seen leaders who take things on themselves that they aren't fit to do. One case that comes to mind as exemplary was a special project that was happening in an office where some soldering needed to be done. A subordinate working in the office for a period was an electrical engineer and had all kinds of experience soldering. The young office manager took the task on himself and completely botched it. If he wanted to learn to solder, he should have swallowed his pride and got the subordinate do the job while he learned from him how to do it. It's a simple example, but it will always stick out in my mind as to how to properly use the human resources you have available (including yourself) for the best outcome. A good leader knows when to step aside.