Leaders live in a constant state of tension. 

They live between what is and what could be.  They straddle the known and the unknown.  They wrestle the probable with the possible.  They balance status quo with innovation.

They have to understand where we are and yet convince us it’s worth taking the next step.

There are numerous tensions great leaders navigate each and every day.  And living with these tensions is a tension in and of itself.  This constant tug and pull stretches you to either expand and grow or to snap under the stress.

These tensions of leadership fascinate me.  Well, really they frustrate me.  But in studying that frustration, I’ve learned that identifying and naming these tensions allows me to see them as part of  my leadership growth rather than a nuisance to avoid.  I don’t think the tensions ever go away.  Leading through these tensions is at the heart of what we do as leaders.  It’s the essence of my “grey leadership theory”.

So for the next several weeks, we’ll discuss a specific leadership tension each Monday.

Here are some that I have on my list:

• Excellence vs. Perfection
• Intentionality/intensity vs. Passivity
• Tender vs. Tenacious
• Ownership vs. Stewardship
• Ambition vs. Self-control
• Who vs. What (in hiring)
• Criticism vs. Coaching
• Policies vs. Filters
• Transparency vs. Vulnerability
• Fans vs. Followers
• Head vs. Heart
• Communication vs. Bureaucracy
• Ownership vs. Control
• Independence vs. Co-dependence

What leadership tensions are you facing?  Let’s add them to the list!

I’ve always been pretty studious.  I love to learn, love to read, love to go to classes, etc.  Oftentimes I find that I am slow to act because I need to feel confident that I know exactly how to do something before I actually do it.

Learning vs. Doing is a constant tension that I wrestle with as a leader.

As a leader, you constantly find yourself facing new challenges.  In order to grow with your growing organization, you may have to:

• Be willing to jump into projects that you’ve never done before
• Take leadership of a department that you’ve never worked in
• Navigate relationship circles that you’ve never been exposed to
• Solve problems you’ve never experienced

In each of these situations, you will find yourself wrestling with the need to learn how to do it and the need to move quickly.  Some of us are prone to get bogged down in study and analysis and don’t act quickly enough.  Others of us are too quick to react and don’t analyze the situation enough first.

Where do you typically land?  Are you slow to study or quick to act?

What new tension are you facing right now as a leader?  How could you more adequately balance ‘learning vs. doing’?

Most of the great teams that I’ve either been a part of or observed have one thing in common – they feel like family.  They are comfortable with each other in a way that only comes through true commitment to one another and their purpose.

But even great families have their dysfunction.  Patrick Lencioni said it this way in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, “The fact remains that teams, because they are made up of imperfect human beings, are inherently dysfunctional.”

So what is your team’s dysfunction?  Do you know what it is?

The trouble with dysfunction is that we can get so used to operating within it that we don’t know it’s there.

It’s unlikely that you’ll every completely remedy your team’s dysfunction, but you do need to know what dysfunction you are prone to.  And although it’s painful to admit, as the leader you are more than likely responsible for either creating or perpetuating the dysfunction.  (Sorry, painful but true.) 

Dysfunction undetected or neglected will eventually wear on the unity and camaraderie of your team.

“Like a car with an engine that can’t fire on all cylinders, a business that’s dysfunctional may move forward for a while. But eventually it stops running.”  “With a close-knit staff, it’s easy to make allowances for people’s tempers or bad moods or refusal to take responsibility. But, sooner or later, that kind of thinking catches up with you and the business.”  from Microsoft Business

So how do you identify your dysfunction?

1) Seek outside counsel.  It could be a business leader in your church who has experience coaching teams.  It could be a consultant you hire.  There are also great tools such as the aforementioned Patrick Lencioni book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (and corresponding workbook).

2) Survey new staff.  It’s a healthy habit to have new employees do a survey about staff culture.  They have fresh eyes and are not desensitized to the dysfunction yet.  Many organizations do these surveys at 3 months and 12 months of employment.

3) Identify your own dysfunction.  Your past experiences both personally and professionally have formed your habits and operating methods.  It’s important to always be challenging your personal growth and development.  Career coaches and personal counselors can be valuable resources for you.

4) Pray for wisdom and discernment.  This probably doesn’t require further explanation.  We can’t lead without being led by God’s spirit.

 

“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” I Peter 4:10 NIV

We know that leadership starts with being a servant.  If you’ve been given the gift of leadership, you have received it in order to serve others with that gift as this scripture explains.

So what does that look like for you today?

Who are you serving?

How are you serving those you lead?

How are you serving those you’re accountable to?

How are you serving your family?

How are you serving the forgotten?

There will never be a level of leadership that positions you above service.  Serving is the very reason you have this leadership gift.

How can you make serving a habit of your heart?

This beautiful bunch of friends call ourselves “The Golden Girls”.

Their are plenty of similarities to our personalities and The Goldens from the 80′s sitcom but what’s really ‘golden’ about this bunch is the value of the friendship we’ve shared for 15 years.

3 marriages

3 children

2 amazing dogs (Mick & Buddy) and countless numbers of pugs that Shelby (aka Rose) has fostered.  (Seriously her heart is bigger than her house.) 

A few cats

Several houses

A season where Susannah (aka Sophia) moved to Greenville, SC

Several beach trips

A few quiet escapes to the mountain

The Bell Buckle Craft Fair (EPIC!)

Numerous trips lugging crap that Rachel (aka Blanche) collects at the flea market

Long nights of talks, walks, Scrabble games and specialty drinks

Many many meals and endless laughs.

This time it was The Golden Girls & Kelly Clarkson

Do you have a sacred group of friends to do life with?

This week I finished an unusual yet captivating book called Inciting Incidents: 6 Stories of Fighting Disappointment in a Flawed World.

Each author found a way of digging beneath my casual engagement and compelling me to confront the emotions of disillusionment, isolation, loss and hope that they so artfully shared.

This book was raw, beautiful and redemptive.

You can share your story on the Inciting Incidents website.  Be sure to check it out!

Every time I see a mom and daughter walking down the street in matching mini skirts and skimpy tank tops, I can’t help but cringe.  Fairly or unfairly I’ve made the assumption that mom has worked so hard to be her daughter’s friend that she’s forgotten to be a parent.

She’s elevated the desire to be liked above the need to be respected.

I’m sure the motives were good.  She wanted to stay connected to her daughter’s life as she enters the horrendous teenage years.  She wanted to remain a confidant so that the important things would be shared.

But more often than not, this approach doesn’t work… at least for long.  Secretly her daughter wants her mom to be stronger, wiser, and more mature.  She needs a confident role model to look up to, not a wannabe peer.

In an attempt to connect, that mom has actually lost influence and respect.

I’ve seen leaders do this too.

In a desire to relate, we become buddies to those we lead.  We try to take our proverbial “boss” hat off and just be friends.  We socialize.  We jump into the office antics.

And some of that is good.  But there is a fine line.

Our teams want to feel like we’re the wiser, stronger, responsible ones of the bunch.  They want to feel the support of our strength.  They want to know that when times get tough, it’s gonna be ok.  We’ve got their backs.

There is a time and place for us to lighten up and have fun, but there are also important moments where we need to be a leader, not a friend.

What do you think?  Can you be both leader and friend?

 

Today was the official launch of our newest campus:

Cross Point Franklin

I’m so incredibly proud of Brent, our Franklin Campus Pastor and Eve our Volunteer Director, as well as their families who have poured hundreds of hours into prepping for this day.

I’m blown away by the volunteers who have prayed and pleaded for Cross Point Franklin to become a reality.  Their passion was what sparked the launch of this campus.

Today everyone on our team was hyper aware of the importance of the day.  They knew that many people would walk through those doors for the very first time.  They understood that there would be some who had never entered the doors of a church or others who have been gone from the church for a very long time.

They realized that every encounter mattered.  That every experience carried significant weight.  That this might be our one shot to share the love of Jesus.

The Cross Point Franklin volunteers did not squander their moment today. 

They greeted with joy.  They asked questions.  They helped people find their way around the campus.  They showered people with love and acceptance.

It was beautiful!

Today our team looked through the lens of a first-time guest.  We were hyper-aware of how it feels to attend church for the first time.  We remembered the awkward and uncomfortable moments and did our best to quell those fears.

The Sunday Lesson I hope we take from today is that every Sunday is the first Sunday for someone.  Every week someone attends one of our campuses for the first time.  Every week someone is insecure, confused, lonely or scared.  Every week someone is looking for a place to belong and be accepted.  Every week we get the opportunity launch a campus for someone new.

I pray that we begin to see every week as launch week… because it matters that much every week!

Community is Messy.

If you’re in a small group, have led a small group or are a church leader who helps facilitate small groups, you understand this phrase.

So does my friend Heather Zempel.  She knows that community is messy but she also knows that community is life-changing and worth every ounce of mess it creates.  As discipleship pastor at National Community Church in Washington, DC, Heather leads through the messiness of community into life-changing beauty.

Heather unpacks the mess in her new book Community Is Messy: The Perils and Promise of Small Group Ministry.  She was gracious to answer a few questions for us about the book:

Why did you write Community is Messy?
Anyone who has led a small group for more than two weeks has discovered that mess happens. For those who serve as small group directors, discipleship pastors, and volunteers who champion group life in their churches, navigating mess is often the unlisted but most demanding part of their portfolio. I wrote Community is Messy to encourage those group leaders and group ministry leaders that mess may not be a hindrance to community but a catalyst to the cultivation of deeper community. My prayer is that leaders can embrace the mess and the promise that God can write his story of redemption through the mess.

You had an unorthodox path going from engineering to ministry. How does your background inform your understanding of community?
I have two degrees in environmental engineering—not a very traditional path into ministry. But small group leaders and environmental engineers have a lot in common. Both strive to engineer environments where growth happens. When I think about community, I picture treatment lagoons and pig farms. When I think about spiritual growth, I consider the differences between static friction and kinetic friction and remember the diversity of strengths in physical properties reflected in the modulus of elasticity. That’s all in the book.

You talk in the book about valuing people over programs. Why is this important?
In the church, we tend to invest lots of time, energy, and resources into developing and maintain programs. I think we do that because programs are easy to measure. The problem is that people aren’t discipled by programs. They are discipled by relationship. I would much rather pastor people than manage programs, but that takes focus and regular examination of priorities

What’s a story of mess from your own life that reveals God’s redemptive work?
There’s always mess in my life, and I think it gets especially messy when we wear multiple hats with people—pastor, mentor, leader, boss, friend, etc. Here’s one that happened just a couple months ago. I was talking to a young leader about her calling, and I sincerely thought I was building her up with encouragement. When I came to the end of everything I knew to affirm her, I said, “I don’t know what else to say.” She responded with a look that seemed to be a mix of anger and hurt and said, “You’ve said enough.” At that moment, I didn’t know whether to jump across the table to strangle her or to hug her. Everything in me wanted to strangle her, but the little pastoral instinct I possess informed me that the words I had intended for good had been received negatively. That situation led to a number of productive conversations about how I lead, how she grows, how I grow, and where God is at work polishing off the rough spots in both of us. Many times, messes that are navigated with prayer, honesty, and a commitment to honoring the other lead to growth on all sides.

You can get your copy of Community Is Messy HERE.

 

It was one of those morning runs where I would have done anything to not be running.  I felt like I was pushing myself up a monstrous never-ending hill mountain.

At one point I caught a glimpse of my shadow on the asphalt and realized my problem.  My posture was all wrong.  My shoulders were tight and my posture was completely upright – almost to the point of leaning back as if I was trying to hold myself back.  Given the level of pain and frustration the run was giving me, the last thing I intended to do was create more resistance for myself.

Sometimes we’re our own worst enemies.  The tension or stress that we’re facing subconsciously starts to inhibit us more than the actual challenge that we’re facing.

My painful run was made more painful because I was allowing the tension to add more resistance.  With a quick mental reminder to loosen my shoulders and relax into my stride, the resistance lessened.

The same is true in our leadership.

Whatever the challenge we’re facing, we must be aware of the resistance we create for ourselves – oftentimes completely subconsciously.  Rather than holding ourself back out of insecurity, fear, dread.  We need to lean in and keep attacking whatever challenge we’re facing.  It’s a posture of engagement rather than retreat.  It’s an attitude of confidence rather than defeat.

What challenge are you currently facing?

What resistance might you be creating for yourself?