“For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:11
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This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article of the same name, “The Truth About Christmas.” Here is the transcript of the podcast:
Have you wondered what Christmas is really about? On today’s episode, that’s the question we are going to explore. In this holiday season of activity and celebration, it’s easy for the real meaning behind Christmas to become lost or buried beneath it all. That makes it important to intentionally step back every Christmas and remind ourselves of what Christmas is all about.
I have so many wonderful childhood memories and traditions surrounding Christmas. Some of them are specific individual memories like the year my parents got us a family gift of an air hockey table. We had so much fun playing with that game as a family. Others are traditions that we repeated every year, like opening one present on Christmas Eve, and then on Christmas morning, opening stockings, followed by eating a big breakfast that my dad cooked, and then opening presents, and finally a Christmas dinner later that afternoon with extended family. My wife, meanwhile, grew up with different traditions, which included a big Christmas Eve dinner (often with extended family), and in addition to Christmas Day, celebrated Three Kings on January 6, a Puerto Rican celebration of the three wise men following the star to find baby Jesus.
When we got married and had kids, we blended some of those traditions together, and created new ones. Over the years, we would typically have a big dinner on Christmas Eve, and open one present before going to bed. The next morning, we would open stockings and have a big breakfast of homemade Belgian waffles (recipe courtesy of my sister-in-law Lynnette) with strawberries and ice cream, along with bacon and eggs. I also always have half of a grapefruit because my dad always had grapefruit on Christmas morning, and it reminds me of him. Then we finally would open the presents. Two weeks later, we celebrate Three Kings with our children.
But as meaningful as those things are, they miss the true, underlying meaning behind why we even celebrate Christmas in the first place, which is why we also always read the Christmas story during this season, usually on Christmas Eve before opening that first present.
What’s the Christmas Story? It’s found in Luke 1 and Matthew 1 and 2. It’s the story of when God, the Creator of the universe, sent His one and only Son to be born as a living human being, to live and walk this earth for about 33 years as both fully God and fully man. In doing that, He was able to live as a person like you and me, but live sinlessly in order to be the sacrifice for our sins when He paid the price on the cross with His death, burial, and subsequent resurrection. And His life on earth began as a baby born in a manger in Bethlehem. That’s what we are really celebrating at Christmas.
What that means for you is that the real story behind Christmas points to the means of salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Baby Jesus in the manger is the beginning of the whole story that ends at Easter, and it is of eternal significance to you.
Therefore, here’s what you need to take away. Jesus came as an innocent baby in order to become the perfect sacrifice for you and for me. Behind all the joys of family, gift-giving, and celebration that happen all throughout this season, this is the most important thing that we need to remember.
The bottom line is that we are sinners and, therefore, will be eternally separated from God, who is perfect. But Jesus paid the price so that we could be reconciled to God through Jesus’ sacrifice. My friend, if you have never placed your faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior, can I encourage you to take that step? Because that’s the real meaning and purpose of Christmas.
I can remember the first time my oldest child asked me if Santa was real. She must have been about 5 or 6 years old, and I am sure she had heard things from friends at school and wanted to know from her parents if Santa was a real person who delivered presents for Christmas. At this age, she already knew that Jesus was her personal Savior, having come to an awareness of her need for Jesus to save her when she was 4 and 1/2 years old. I know that seems young (and it is), but her decision was totally driven by her own questions and her own choice to follow Jesus, unprompted by us as her parents, and was followed at that young age already with the realization of how that shaped her choices.
But, back to Santa. When she asked us that question – “Is Santa real?” – I was faced with a dilemma. Do I lie and preserve the fantasy for a little child, or do I tell the truth and squash childhood imagination? In the end, realized that it wasn’t a true “either/or” choice, and so we chose to tell the truth while also preserving imagination and fun. Because she asked, we knew she was seeking to make sense of the world around her, so we told her the truth – “No, Santa is not real . . .” – but then framed it into a purpose of imagination and joy – “. . . but it’s fun to pretend and imagine the stories of Santa, so we do it just for fun at Christmas time. But the real person we celebrate at Christmas is Jesus.”
Why was this important for us? Because we wanted our child to grow up with an understanding of the difference between fantasy (the Santa Clause we talk about at Christmas) and meaningful truth (the significance of the birth of Jesus). That’s the most important message of Christmas. Not that we receive gifts, or that Santa knows who is naughty or nice, or that reindeer can fly. The real message is that at this time, over 2000 years ago, God entered into our physical realm in the person of His Son, born in Bethlehem to Mary and Joseph. He did this so that Jesus could live His life as both fully God and fully man (theologians call this the Hypostatic Union), and live it sinlessly, so that He would be qualified to become the perfect sacrifice to pay for our sins through His death on the cross, burial, and resurrection. In doing this, He paid the penalty for our sins and opened the door for us to be reconciled to God. And that’s the Gospel message: that Jesus paid for our sins so that we could receive salvation by trusting fully in His work on the cross.
That’s the truth about Christmas. It’s the season that brought Jesus into our midst, which in turn would make salvation available to all who believe, not in the “jolly old elf” who brings us presents, but in the real, divine person who came to save us from our sin. My friend, if you have not placed your faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior, as the one and only means of salvation from your sin and reconciliation with God, I urge you to do that today. Acknowledge your sin and accept the payment of Jesus. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16
“It’s not about cleaning; it’s about getting it clean.”
This is what my wife said to me early in our marriage when I was trying to help with the housework and had cleaned the bathroom. She walked in and looked around, and that’s what she said. It’s a great lesson for leadership. In any job, doing work is not the same as doing the work that needs to be done and doing it right.
This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article of the same name, “Fill In the Gaps.” Here is the transcript of the podcast:
Have you ever felt like you had to know how to do everything, and do it well, in order to be a good leader? I have, and on today’s episode, that’s the question we are going to explore. Whether it’s because of pride, perfectionism, fear of rejection or failure, or being a people pleaser, it’s the tendency to think that we must be the expert in every facet of leadership and organizational needs. This false ideal is what is called the “myth of the complete leader,” according to an article I read in Harvard Business Review’s “10 Must Reads on Leadership.”
In my first role as the head of school in a small midwestern Christian school, the administration consisted of me, the receptionist who was also my administrative assistant, and the athletic director who was also a teacher. So in reality, most of the time, when my administrative assistant was serving as the receptionist and the athletic director was in class teaching, I was on my own. Often I would joke (and usually out loud) as I was walking to my office that I was headed to an administrative meeting with myself. The small size of the school necessitated that I wore many administrative hats (and one year also taught a class), but that also made it easier for me to think that I had to be do everything, and do it well. “Surprisingly” that turned out to not be good leadership. I had to learn over time to identify other people who could do things better than me and tap into those resources (like getting the church’s volunteer accountant to help me learn to build and maintain the budget).
The truth is, you can’t do everything well. My dad (his name was Jack) was good at a lot of things, but whenever someone tried to portray him as good at everything, he would say, “I’m a Jack of all trades but a master of none.” God has gifted us all in different ways, but no one person has all gifts, so no one person can do all things exceptionally well. The challenge for leaders has been the pressure to appear knowledgeable and excellent on everything related to their organization or job. Whether that pressure is self-imposed or others-imposed, it’s not realistic and can result in poor leadership over time.
What that means for you is that you need to take off the mask of perfection and completeness and learn to fill in your gaps with others who are more gifted in some ways than you. I have been married to my wife for almost 36 years, and throughout my whole marriage I have told people that because of her, I am a much better person than I would have been without her. She has filled in my gaps and strengthened my leadership in the process. I am convinced that most of the Jobs I have had have come after my prospective employer met Nora, because she made me look better. Similarly, having people around you who fill in your gaps will make you look better and help you lead better.
Here’s what you need to take away: Stop trying to do everything. There are people around you with gifts and abilities who can do things that will complement your leadership if you will humble yourself, accept that you can’t do it all (and realize that most people aren’t expecting you to), and let other people help fill in those gaps.
The bottom line is that none of us is a complete leader. We will be stronger in some areas than others, and so our leadership will be better if we let others do things that they do well, that we don’t. That’s how our gaps get filled in, we become much better leaders who are operating in reality, and the organization as a whole improves. Think about it – if doing this makes the organization better, doesn’t that, in turn, reflect on your leadership? So, find the right people to fill in the gaps.
One of my favorite lines from the movie “Rocky” takes place when Paulie (Rocky’s best friend) is having a conversation with Rocky in a meat locker. Paulie is asking Rocky what he sees in Adrian (Paulie’s sister), and gives a straightforward question when he asks, “What’s the attraction?” Here’s the line I love, which I think is incredibly profound: Rocky replies by saying, “I don’t know, she fills gaps, I guess. . . She’s got gaps, I got gaps, together we fill gaps.”
I have often used this phrase when providing marriage counseling. When I would meet with a couple, I would use as an illustration a ring that my mother-in-law had, which was made up of separate bands, each with alternating spaces and gemstones, that, when put together, made one beautiful circular band of gems. Then I would quote the line from Rocky, and explain how, in a marriage relationship, a husband and wife each bring different strengths and weaknesses, and that part of their individual role in building a successful marriage was to fill in each other’s gaps so that they would be better as a couple than either one could be as an individual.
This same idea should be true in teams but often is not. Rath and Conchie (Strengths-Based Leadership) realized this in their study of teams and leadership, finding that “rarely are people recruited to an executive team because their strengths are the best complement to those of the existing team members.” (2008, p. 21) When they looked for teams that were successful and functioning well, they discovered that “while each member had his or her own unique strengths, the most cohesive and successful teams possessed broader groupings of strengths.” (p.22) From this, they learned that “although individuals need not be well-rounded, teams should be” (p. 23), and therefore “it serves a team well to have a representation of strengths.” (p. 23)
The truth of the matter is, no one individual leader can be the best at everything that is needed. When one person tries to “do it all,” the result is, as the old saying states, “a jack of all trades but a master of none.” But when a team is assembled that is comprised of differing strengths and abilities, the members of that team fill in the gaps for each other. It makes sense, then, that good leaders “understand what they’re good at and what they’re not and have good judgment about how they can work with others to build on their strengths and offset their limitations.” (Ancona, Malone, Orlikowski, & Senge, 2011, p. 181) These leaders gather teams that offset the leader’s limitations. The result is that the combination of individual strengths makes a better whole.
As a leader, you need to know your limitations and your capabilities. Where you have limitations, or gaps, it is a misuse of your abilities and your time to try to fill in those gaps on your own when you have people around you who can fill in those gaps for you. This means it is part of your responsibility as a leader to be intentional about placing people on your team who will provide the best combination of necessary strengths and skills. It is also your responsibility to be active in developing those strengths and skills in your team members. In the process, when you identify a deficiency in the team that cannot be filled by a current team member, you need to find the right person who can fill in that gap and complete the team. In the end, the best teams are not necessarily a simple combination of the best individuals, but rather the combination of people who fill in all the gaps.
Ancona, D., Malone, T. W., Orlikowski, W. J., & Senge, P. M. (2011). In Praise of the Incomplete Leader HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Leadership (pp. 179-196). Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
Rath, T., & Conchie, B. (2008). Strengths-Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow. New York, NY: Gallup Press.
This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article of the same name, “The Theory Behind the Theory.” Here is the transcript of the podcast:
Have you ever struggled with trying to figure out whether or not a leadership principle was good? I have, and on today’s episode, that’s the question we are going to explore. In fact, early in my leadership experience, I noticed that some leadership principles and practices seemed to ring true to me, or seemed to particularly resonate with me, but at that time, I wasn’t thinking about why that was so. That eventually led to my own wrestling with how to know what principles and practices were good ones, which in turn led me to the idea of the theory behind the theory.
I shared the story in the article that I posted earlier this week about the experience that led me to the realization that there is “biblical theory” behind any good theory proven to be true. It started when I read a book by Margaret Wheatley called “Leadership and the New Science.” (if you want to hear the story, you’ll have to listen to the podcast!).
When you start from the presupposition that the Bible is true, that God is real, and that He is the Creator of the universe, it shapes your foundational beliefs. One of those beliefs is the understanding that, as the Creator of the universe, of the world we live in, and of you and me, it makes sense that He knows best how everything should work, and how everything should work best. He created with intentional design, and there is order that governs the internal operations of all things (these become the laws of science). Therefore, when something works well, it is because of the God-created design behind it.
What that means for me is that I now understand that when there is a leadership principle that is effective, that means that behind it is a truth based on God’s intentional design. It works because it stems from how God created things to work. So if something works well, I can learn and see God’s design behind it – this is the theory behind the theory.
Here’s what you need to take away: as a leader, understanding leadership theory is important. When I was researching for my dissertation, my advisor kept stressing that I needed to identify and communicate the theory behind what I was saying. Understanding the theory – or, the why – is important to becoming effective and growing, because theory translates into practice. However – and this is what I kept saying to my advisor – I can see deeper theory – God’s truth and design – behind any effective theory. As a Christian leader, you will be better if you study God and His Word to such an extent that you recognize biblical truth behind any good leadership theory and practice.
The bottom line is that good leadership has biblical truth behind it, even if that is not recognized by the leader. My challenge to you is to become so knowledgeable of and intimate with God that you recognize it; that you see the theory behind the theory.
It was when I was in graduate school doing research that I think I finally fully realized what it means to say, “All truth is God’s truth.” It clicked when I was reading a particular book that was drawing lessons on leadership from the principles of Chaos Theory. As I worked through the book, I began to see – underlying its principles – a clear representation of God’s sovereignty. Then I began to recognize, in many of the books I was reading, that the truths that most resonated with me were truths that I could see were expressions of biblical truths. Aas my advisor and my instructors kept pushing me to identify “the theory behind the practice” for much of my research, I realized that the reason why there was truth in these theories, evident in how they worked in practice, was because of what I would call the “theory behind the theory”: original truth, found in God’s Word.
As an example, this became apparent to me again when I was reading a book called The Happiness Advantage, by #ShawnAchor. This particular book is in the realm of positive psychology, and is based on research; in it, Achor describes seven principles related to the way that your attitude, choices, and behavior can benefit your personal growth. More pointedly, the first principle in the book (‘the happiness advantage’ principle), discusses how a positive outlook improves fulfillment and success. Within this principle, he explains:
- How happiness gives your brain – and your organization – the competitive edge
- That when we are happy, we are smarter, more motivated, and thus more successful; happiness precedes success, not vice versa
- That happiness (a positive mood in the present and a positive outlook for the future):
- Primes and enhances creativity and innovation
- Is an antidote to physical stress and anxiety
- With intentional effort, can raise your daily baseline level of happiness
- That our brains are hardwired to perform at their best not when they are negative, or even neutral, but when they are positive.
- That happiness and optimism fuel performance and achievement
The reality is . . . this is true. A positive attitude helps you do better, an optimistic outlook helps you respond to defeat and difficulty better, and a joyful approach helps to prevent discouragement. You probably don’t need to see research to believe that this is true, because you’ve seen it lived out in practice in your life and experience. And that’s what takes me back to my point. You believe that this is true because you have seen it in practice, but a book like The Happiness Advantage provides “the theory behind the practice,” the research that explains why it is true in practice. But there is theory behind that theory, found in the Bible long before any studies in positive psychology were ever conducted.
Specifically, Proverbs 15:13-15 says this:
13 A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken. 14 The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouth of fools feeds on foolishness. 15 All the days of the afflicted are evil, but he who is of a merry heart has a continual feast. Proverbs 15:13-15
In particular, verses 13 and 15 in this passage point out two very important truths. Verse 13 points out that your internal emotions and attitude directly impact your external response and reaction: positive on the inside leads to positive expression on the outside, and negative on the inside leads to brokenness on the outside. Then verse 15 points out that your outlook on and experience of life are a direct reflection of how you perceive your life circumstances: a “woe is me” or “I am a victim” mindset sees every day as bad, but a positive outlook finds value in all circumstances. So it is true that choosing to have a positive mood has great benefit for your life, but the reason why it is true is because it is God’s truth, found in the very design of human nature in how God created us to be.
Now, the practical application is that you can improve your performance (and as a byproduct, your results) by intentionally cultivating a positive outlook and response to life and its circumstances. But I also want you to understand that the real theory behind it, the theory that backs it up, is truth that originates from God’s Word – a merry heart (positive attitude) makes a cheerful countenance (external expressions of happiness) and has a continual feast (positive view of and response to life).
Then, I would encourage you to take two more steps in this line of thought. First, begin to look for other places where you can see that there is biblical truth behind other leadership principles that also appear to be true when put into practice. Second, reverse the process by looking for biblical principles that can be translated into leadership principles, with the confidence that if it is a biblical principle, it will be true, and, therefore, will have legitimate and credible application to leadership. My hope is that, at the bottom of your own study and research, you too will see that all truth is God’s truth, and will learn to identify principles that work, because they are principles that reflect His truth.
This thought process is the foundation of my book, Leadership Ezra; the idea that there is biblical theory on leadership that can be found behind effective theories of leadership. Leadership Ezra is a book that draws out specific leadership principles that are reflected in the Old Testament book of Ezra in order to apply them to effective leadership practice today. It connects illustrations and principles from the Bible to the practical application of leadership from the experience of one specific time period of activity in the Old Testament. In this book, I seek to find the “theory behind the theory,” and then to connect truth from the story of a set of events in Scripture to the practice of good leadership; specifically, to the leadership principles and practices that are often considered as “best practice,” that are seen in the story of Ezra, reflecting a biblical basis that underpins good leadership. My goal was to start with an understanding of Ezra, the leader, then explore what we need to do to prepare for leadership and explore practical leadership principles and ideas. At the core of it all, I hope to be able to communicate what it looks like to lead well from a foundation of biblical truth. To see for yourself, order your copy on Amazon.