Leader Growth

Balance is a Huge Mistake!

For several years, I served in an organization that was incredibly balanced in their approach to life, work, style, ministry – you name it. You’ve heard of core values – I think this organization had one core value – balance. Life was good – most people were happy.

After some time, I began to realize that this emphasis on holistic balance was actually stunting the personal growth of the individuals within the organization (and ultimately the growth of the organization).

Consider the enormous potential of your life and the collective potential of those with whom you serve. When you consider this potential, balance is a huge mistake.

Two Things Leaders Do With Free Time

If you’re a leader, more than likely you have a ton of free time. And I’ve noticed that, when it comes to free time, the most effective leaders give it away.

Leaders like Michael Hyatt, Seth Godin, Jeff Goins, and Jonathan Milligan (and there are many others) do two things with their free time:

Home Depot – How Did I End Up HERE?

A number of years ago, I purchased a commercial property that needed significant renovation. The entire project took about five years to complete. During those five years, I made approximately 24,352 trips to Home Depot. Ok, I made that up – but it seemed like that many. It was so many trips that I could get in my truck, put my mind on auto-pilot, and eight minutes later be getting out of my truck and walking into Home Depot.

It was a great system until one night my wife and I were going out to eat. We left the house and eight minutes later…Home Depot parking lot. Before I realized what I had actually done, Sarah assured me that we were NOT going to document trip number 24,353 prior to our dinner date.

Talk is cheap – Communicate

To effectively communicate I occasionally have conversations with our team leaders about two critical components of teamwork – communication and structure. Recently, I had the opportunity to see effective communication at work…

One evening our office sent out a carefully drafted email to several thousand prospective students. Within hours, students began responding to the email resulting in three straight days of record applications. I was reminded of several principles of communication that are critically important to any organization seeking to accomplish its mission and vision…

Six Secrets of Great Teams

Jim Collins‘ book, Good to Great, profoundly impacted my life. But I’ve always wondered, Why did he use the bus illustration? On a bus the only person working is the driver – that doesn’t seem fair! And even though Collins emphasizes figuring out where you want to go after all the right people are on the bus, the driver still has sole discretion as to whether you head there or not. (I think we’ve all worked for a boss like that.)

Several months ago, I came across a video of the Canadian rowing team. It’s only a couple minutes long – watch it real quick. Within the first few seconds of watching the video I realized – This is it! This is a great illustration of team leadership!

Check out these six secrets of great teams…