Archive for category: Faith

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it serves as a reminder that you need to be prepared for the moments when you need to take charge.

On a beautiful Sunday morning, we were walking into church. As we were making our way down the sidewalk and approaching the stairs to the entrance, my 3-year-old granddaughter suddenly and forcefully told my grandson where he needed to step, took my daughter’s Bible and told me to carry it, took my daughter’s hand, and said, “Now we’re ready, let’s go!” I watched this happen and jokingly commented, “Well, somebody has to take charge!”

This reminded me of an experience I had when I was in high school. It was between my junior and senior year, and I was attending a week at a summer camp in a different state and didn’t know a single other person there. I am by nature an introvert, and I struggled with confidence at that time in my life, so I was doing my best to stay in the background. As the week began, the campers were divided into two teams for a week of activities and competitions. My team gathered to prepare for the first activity, and there seemed to be only confusion. Did I mention that I was also very competitive? I wanted to win, but all I could see was disorder, so finally, I stood up, got everybody’s attention, and started directing a plan. At the end of the week, my team had won, and the staff selected me as the camper of the week. If they only knew how much of a reluctant leader I was! But when the need was pressing and no one was leading, I took charge.

Often it seems like leaders are dominant personalities, who naturally seem to take charge. Those dominant leaders need to be sure to consider and involve others when they take charge. Less frequently, there are leaders who seem to be more reserved and introverted, which is my tendency, but that doesn’t negate or remove the necessity of taking charge when it is needed. Regardless of the type of leader you are, there is a Bible verse that has been significant in my life that underscores the prerequisite to taking charge. Ezra 7:10 says, “For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the Law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel.” Before you can be ready to take charge, you first have to prepare your heart, which involves two things:

1. Cultivate the right person inside, by developing your character and integrity. Even more importantly, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, learn to know God personally and intimately and align your inner person to Him.
2. Exhibit the right person outside, by conducting yourself with external behavior that reflects the internal character you have been developing. Live outwardly in a way that matches who you are internally.

That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from watching my granddaughter take charge of the situation as we were walking into church. No matter what kind of leader you are, you need to be prepared and ready to take charge when it is needed. That begins by developing your character on the inside, and then by living and acting with integrity on the outside. Without ignoring other leadership and organizational skills that are required to lead well in a circumstance that requires it, if you have done those things, you will be ready. It may be easy for you or it may be hard for you, but either way, you have been personally prepared and you are ready to take charge.

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it serves as a reminder that you don’t see everything.

I thought about this when I was reflecting on my past experience as an educator. I recall one particular experience in my first year as a teacher when I was standing in the hallway having a face-to-face conversation with a student. I don’t remember what we were talking about, but I do remember the satisfaction of feeling like I was connecting with students. Then, a principal walked past us, stopped, looked at the student, and kindly told him to spit out his gum. The school had “no-gum” policy (because who wants to put their hand under a desk and stick their fingers unto someone else’s used gum), and yet I was looking directly into the face of student and I hadn’t even noticed that he had gum in his mouth.

Although the principal was gracious about it, as a new teacher I was mortified. Something that I was supposed to handle was happening right in front of me, and I didn’t even see it. I know that this was likely not the first time it was true in my job (or in my life in general), but I think it was the first time I realized that I could miss things, sometime obvious things and sometimes important things, and not even know it. Now, it would be fair to say that with experience I got better at seeing things I needed to see as a teacher, but in part that was because I did a better job of focusing on those things . . . and in the process would miss other things that were not part of my focus. No matter how much I improved at seeing some things, I still didn’t see everything.

This is also going to be true for you. I don’t know if you are humble enough to accept it, but regardless, it is still the case, because your brain has certain tendencies. Simon and Chabris demonstrated this in a research experiment involving a basketball, a focused task, and a man in a gorilla suit (if you’re interested, search for Simon and Chabris’s 1999 study, “Gorillas in Our Midst”). The study showed that conscious perception requires our intentional attention because we tend to see what we are looking for, but often see only what we are looking for, and we tend to not see what we are not looking for. Think about the last time you looked everywhere for something you had misplaced, only to find it right in front of you. In your mind, you remembered it looking a little different, or in a specific place, so unconsciously that’s what you were looking for, and therefore didn’t notice when it was in an obvious place where you had already looked.

Because that is the tendency of your brain, it is important that you not be too quick to assume that you have seen everything and then to jump to conclusions. Proverbs 18:13 tells us, “He answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him.” One of my counseling professors shared that verse with my class and encouraged us to keep it in front of us when we were listening to patients. And for years as an educator, I kept it on my desk as a reminder when I was listening to discipline situations involving students. It’s because you don’t see everything that you need to make sure you are gathering all the information before you respond.

And that’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from a recollection of not seeing that a student was chewing gum right in front of my face. You don’t see everything. Partly that is because you can’t focus on everything at once, so you tend to pay attention to what you want to see, and to not see what you are not looking for. For that reason, you need to be careful to hear and receive the observations and information of others, and to not jump to conclusions before you get it. Don’t make decisions or react with your response before you have all the information, because remember, you don’t see everything.

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it teaches us a lesson about what happens after the honeymoon.

I once saw a quote that said, “If you truly love someone, you love them twice.“ It reminded me of something my brother said to me just before I got married, when he told me that he loved his wife before he married her, but after he married her, he had to learn to love her all over again, but this time even better and more deeply. After I got married, I truly understood what he was talking about. You see, when you first get married, everything initially seems to be perfect and full of roses, and you are enamored with each other. That time is typically called the honeymoon period. But then you become aware of the scars and the flaws, which can bring challenges and conflict, so you have to learn to love who someone truly is.

The same thing happens when you step into a leadership role. Often, what may be really appealing at first becomes a struggle when the honeymoon period passes, and you realize all the things that were hidden beneath the surface that you were not aware of, but now you have to deal with or help heal. Don’t be too quick to leave when those things emerge, because now it’s your opportunity to help the organization grow well out of those scars. When my wife and I were first working together in a Christian school, we saw people leave for other opportunities, but come back fairly quickly. They had run into difficulties and become disillusioned, and wanted to come back. One of the effects that we observed, though, was that both they had changed and the school had changed in the time that they were gone, so it was and never could be the same.

One of the things we learned from that was to allow time when you make a change or step into a new leadership role. The Kübler-Ross Change Curve is the phenomenon of an initial dip that happens during a change. The dip in the change curve represents the decline in morale, performance, and productivity that occurs immediately after a significant change is announced or implemented, before it eventually curves back upward and becomes better than it was before the changes started. Too often, after the honeymoon and when the dip begins, people bail or give up before the dip has turned back up, and will try to go back to where they were before. When that is the case, they have given up too soon, but they also cannot reclaim the past. And that is what my wife and I observed and why we determined that we would not let the initial dip after a honeymoon period deter us from continuing forward when we moved into a new school leadership role.

That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from what my brother taught me about learning to love your wife well. After the honeymoon is over, there will be initial struggles and challenges that can cause you to feel like giving up. Don’t be too quick to do that. Relationally, if you work through those issues, the relationship will come out stronger. Organizationally, you will learn what you need to do to strengthen the organization and to strengthen your own leadership. Just remember that it’s always more difficult after the honeymoon is over, but if you don’t give up, that’s when your commitment and leadership have the opportunity to step up. If you do it well, what you will have will be much better than what you started with.