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Podcast Episode 13 – Your Family Is More Important Than Your Job

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article of the same name, “Your Family Is More Important Than Your Job.” Here is the transcript of the podcast:

Have you ever struggled with balancing your work aspirations and family obligations? I have, and on today’s episode, that’s the question we are going to explore.  I think most of us want to grow and excel in our work, which requires a level of commitment.  At the same time, we want to invest in our families. It’s been said that no one says on their deathbed, “I wish I would have spent more time at work,” but the struggle is often in figuring out how to find the balance between investing in your career and investing in the people who matter to you.

I told part of this story in the article that I posted earlier this week, but it was really the beginning of when I came to terms with this, early in my experience as a head of school. (if you want to hear the story, you’ll have to listen to the podcast!). 

First of all, work is necessary and can have great value. One of the things God created us to do was work, which was evident in the Garden of Eden when God told Adam and Eve that one of the three things He wanted them to do was to take care of His creation.  At the same time, one of the other of the three things God wanted them to do was to build a family.  (The third was to fill the earth.) The problem comes when we pit those two things against each other, or sacrifice one for the sake of the other.  The other problem comes when we confuse a job with our calling to work.  The end result tends to be that we seek to find greater value in our work than in our family, and our family pays the price. 

If you have a family, part of your calling is that family.  Yes, God has called you to Kingdom work in your career, but He would not sacrifice your family on that altar, no more than He would let Abraham sacrifice Isaac.  In that circumstance, God was asking Abraham for willing obedience to serve Him and did not intend for Abraham’s family to be sacrificed in the process.  He wanted to show Abraham -and, by extension, us – that God is more important than your family.  But your family is also very important to God and functions as a picture of God’s character and nature to the world (again, at Creation, Scripture tells us that man and woman together reflect God’s full image). And so God wants you to protect and care for your family. 

God ordained that we should work at the beginning of creation, but He wants your work to be a calling, not a job, and therefore the content and context of what you do can change to fit the time and circumstances for which He wants to use you.  However, He also established the importance of family from the beginning. He is not a “lesser of two evils” divine being who gives these two things and then forces us to choose which is less damaging; rather, He always has a right and good way of doing all that He has established.  He therefore will not call you to do something that costs your family.  If that is happening, it’s because of expectations that you are placing on yourself, not that God is placing on you. When that happens, it’s time to recalibrate your expectations to align with God’s and to commit your work to His purpose, not your own.

Here’s what you need to take away:  if your job is costing you your family, you have a problem.  I would also say that if your job is a ministry, and it’s costing your family, you are out of alignment with the work God has called you to do.  Yes, God should be the most important thing in your life, but second to that is the ministry that He has called you to carry out through your family.

When I came to this realization in my own path in that first head-of-school role, I made some changes so that my work was not superseding my family.  I started leaving to come home no later than 5:00.  I set limits on what I would say yes to.  And I intentionally protected my family time.  Sure, there were emergencies and exceptions, but that’s what they were – emergencies and exceptions.  During the next 25 years, God moved me to three more schools, and now to a new phase of ministry. By God’s grace, I have preserved and protected my family, and I believe my ministry to my family has had more of an impact on the lives of others than anything else I have done.  So I still say to people: your family is more important than your job.

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Your Family Is More Important than Your Job

I originally shared this post on LinkedIn as an article about 10 years ago, and it’s the article that has far and away had the most views, reactions, and responses.  I have made this statement to many people and to all of my employees in the time since then, but recent events in my life over the last year caused me to introspectively self-reflect on whether I was personally applying this, or if I had drifted from this truth.  The result was a necessary transition in my life, prompted by God working in me and in my circumstances.  It is still true, and in this holiday season, where we often have a stronger focus on family, it seems to be a good time to share this again.

This statement – “Your family is more important than your job” – is one of the most valuable lessons I have learned in my leadership development.  So important, in fact, that over the years it has been one of the more frequent statements that I have shared with others in conversations about job decisions, especially when they have come to me struggling over what the best decision is for their family.  The lesson initially came home to me shortly after I had stepped into my first senior leadership role.

I had been working in an organization where I had been very effective, and had played an important role in helping to bring about valuable and significant change even though not in a senior leadership role.  It seemed that I had been able to have positive influence on the organization and on many people within and connected to the organization.  Looking back, I can see that my ego was being fed, and I was becoming prideful in my perspective.  In the development of my personal work ethic, I had been taught to work in such a way that I would become more important to the organization than the organization was to me, but in my pride, this grew into the sentiment that I was invaluable to the company.  I began to believe that if I were to ever leave, the organization would suffer and would take a noticeable step backward.

And then it happened.  I was given an opportunity to become the leader of another organization, one that was experiencing struggle and decline.  Although I had anxiety about whether or not I was prepared or capable, and about the unknown of this new experience, I was also excited, and anticipating the change to again be an agent of change.  My family was very supportive and excited along with me, encouraged me in this opportunity, and embraced the prospect of this new experience.  So, we loaded a moving truck, packed up our family, and moved a thousand miles away to a new home and a new life.

As I left the previous company, I secretly believed that my loss would hurt, and even had the arrogance to think that it would require two people to replace all that I was doing.  I imagined in my mind that I would soon be hearing about how much they missed me, and how much they realized I had meant to them.  But then, the unthinkable happened – they moved on without me!  They hired someone else with his own set of skills and passion, they adjusted, and they continued to move forward.  Meanwhile, I was struggling to win the support and trust of a skeptical group of people who had no idea what I had accomplished or what I could do. (Side note here: factoring in God’s sovereignty and purposeful plan affects how you view these circumstances, and how He can be trusted to do what’s best for everyone involved – not just you – including those at the place you are leaving.  At that time, I still had a lot to learn in my understanding of this.)

It was then that I began to realize I was not irreplaceable.  I figured out that, other than in my own mind, none of my accomplishments came with me.  Don’t get me wrong here – the experience came with me, which was very valuable in helping me to do the job well.  But this new group of people didn’t know and didn’t care what I had done someplace else.  And all of a sudden, the only thing I had left to support and encourage me was my family.  I realized that I had actually been pouring my energies into accomplishment at work at the expense of my family.   I also realized that at any time I could lose or leave that job, but if that happened and I lost everything that came with my work (including recognition and accomplishment), I would still have my family.  Like switching on a light, I suddenly understood that my family was more important than my job.  Life moves on, jobs and careers change, and although I may have some influence and leave behind an impact, just about he only thing that goes with me moving forward is my family.  So if my job is costing me my family, the job needs to go before my family does.

I believe wholeheartedly that this is one of the most important lessons you could learn.  It is a “meaning and contentment of life” type of statement. No one is irreplaceable.  When you leave an organization or a job, remember that they will move on without you, but your family will be the one thing that goes with you.  Never forget that your family is more important than your job.

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Quote Your Dad

“You will never regret living for God.”

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Podcast Episode 12 – Regretfulness or Thankfulness?

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article on a related topic, “Thankful Trust.” Here is the transcript of the podcast:

Have you ever struggled with uncertainty and regret? I have, and on today’s episode, that’s the question we are going to explore.  What we are really going to be talking about is a mindset.  Specifically, your mindset when you face an unknown future and wish you knew tomorrow’s answers today, or when you reflect on your past experiences and wish that things could have been different.  In these circumstances, the real question is whether or not you can and should respond with gratitude instead of uncertainty or regret.

Let me tell you the story of the last year of my life (if you want to hear the story, you’ll have to listen to the podcast!). 

My future is unknown to me.  But not to God.  However, because my future is unknown to me, my present fear causes me to sometimes second-guess my past. When I do that, I am just like the Israelites after they were freed from bondage in Egypt, the first time they ran into difficulties and a food shortage.  Almost immediately, they started regretting their choice to leave Egypt and started crying for what they used to have.  In the same way, when I am being led by fear, I can start to question or even regret my choices.  But if I am being obedient to God and following His clear direction, I need to trust Him with an attitude of gratefulness for his purpose and provision – even when I can’t see it yet.

That’s where today’s question takes us.  What is our mindset, and on what is our mindset based?  When we are being faithful and obedient to God, He will not fail.  His plan cannot be prevented.  And He sees the future and knows where He wants me to be tomorrow and why.  Furthermore, there are times (and for me, this is one of those times) He doesn’t want me to see beyond tomorrow.  Again, this was modeled by the Israelites when God’s response to their fear was to promise them their daily food in the form of manna, but only for what they needed that day, and no more. For me personally, at this specific juncture in my life, but for a purpose that He knows, God is choosing to give me my manna on a daily basis, and I have to trust Him that it will be there the day after that, and the day after that.  But I also have to do it with an attitude of thankfulness that should arise from my confidence and trust in His goodness and purpose for me.

So, here’s what you need to take away: If you are being faithful and obedient to God, then you need to:

  • Place your uncertainty about the future in God’s hands, because He has a certain purpose.

  • View your past difficulties and current struggle with thankfulness, knowing that it is factored into the purpose God has for your future.

I am reminded, finally, of something my dad once said related to the topic of regret.  He was pondering the challenges that we experience in our lives, that cause us to sometimes question things, and he said, “You will never regret living for God”

I believe that is true with all my heart, therefore I am choosing in the present to walk in thankful trust of God, in view of both future uncertainties and past circumstances. And so, I am thankful that He has me in the position I am today, living completely in dependence on Him and trusting the purpose, plan, and timing of what He has next for me.  My friend, what about you?  As you face your past, your present, and your future, are you choosing to live in thankful trust?

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Quote Your Dad

“If you think you’re leading and no one is following, you’re just out for a walk.”

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Podcast Episode 11 – How Do You Learn to Lead?

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article on a related topic, “My Simple Diagram of Leadership.” Here is the transcript of the podcast:

Have you ever struggled with understanding how you are supposed to lead? I have, and on today’s episode, that’s the question we are going to explore.  Every leader must lead for the first time sometime, and regardless of bravado, charisma, or confidence, you don’t know everything that you are going to know in 10 years.  Leadership is a learning process, and therefore, in that process, you are learning how to lead better than you did yesterday.  However, there are lots of theories and models in the leadership world of how you are supposed to lead, so how are you supposed to know what works? I think that ultimately, the real question is not so much, “How are you supposed to lead?”, but rather how are you supposed to lead?” 

For most of my life, I have been a larger person.  I also told myself and others that I was simply big-boned, that I carried my weight well, that I was “solid” (in a self-complimentary way).  In reality, I am in love with food.  I love to taste almost anything, I am a habitual grazer, and I would rather eat too much than throw food away.  As a result, regardless of how I phrased it, I was very overweight and unhealthy.  Then, in my mid-40s, I was confronted with three things: the needs of my wife, who was facing a health crisis caused by cancer; my own developing health issues caused by my eating habits; and a conversation with my son who confronted my gluttony.  I knew I needed to change, but I also knew that there were a myriad of programs and plans out there to help, but how was I to know what would actually work?  In the end, I figured out that I could do several simple, time-proven things, while at the same time being true to myself.  I counted my calories, ate smaller portions, ate breakfast in the morning to kick-start my metabolism, weighed myself every day, and did very moderate exercise.  But I also had coffee with milk and sugar every morning, and a small piece of chocolate every evening, and I ate food that I liked.  The end result?  I lost almost 60 pounds in 4 months.  And I have (mostly) kept it off since. 

What’s the point of this story?  It’s this:  there are dozens, if not hundreds, of plans, programs, and magic pills that all claim to help you lose weight, but in the end, it boils down to a few simple things regardless of the program:  eat healthy and in moderation, find a way to hold yourself accountable, and make it enjoyable. 

The same thing is true for leadership.  There are as many leadership theories as there are diet plans, so you do you know what to do?  The key is to do two things: 

1) Learn the fundamental leadership principles and practices that everybody needs to know, and

2) Make it personal by implementing those things in a way that fits who you are.

For example, as an introverted head of school, I knew I needed to interact with parents at events, but it is not part of my nature to “work the crowd.”  So what would I do?  I would position myself someplace where most parents would pass by me – at the door to greet people at a school event, or at the entrance of the bleachers at a ballgame – and let those interactions happen organically. 

So, here’s what you need to take away: you need to intentionally learn the fundamental principles of leadership, and you need to continue to learn and grow in your leadership for the rest of your life.  But at the same time, you need to be you.  That latest book you read likely has some great principles that you can implement, but you are not the author, and those principles won’t necessarily fit you the way they fit that person.   Therefore, you need to make it your own.

The question we come back to is, “How are you supposed to lead?” Do the few things that everyone should learn to do as a leader, but do it in a way that reflects your strengths, your personality, and your nature.  Over time, you will learn new principles, develop your own gifts, and become the leader you should be.

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My Simple Diagram of Leadership

A number of years ago, in my doctoral studies, I took a course called Issues in Leadership Theory. Throughout the course, we, the students, were assigned essays on various theories, ideas, and characteristics of leadership, with which we were expected to interact and then write reflective responses. The goal was to build a broader understanding of leadership and of the effective practice of leadership.

I was taking this course while serving as the administrator of a K-12 school, one that had experienced some great difficulties and needed to be revitalized. I was on the ground floor, in the middle of leadership activity, trying to build and/or rebuild momentum, enrollment, programs, morale, and even (literally) a school building. There were many issues, needs, and deficiencies that I was wrestling with (like, how to start a hot lunch program, how to expand brand recognition in the community with no advertising budget or director of development, and how to attract new excellent teachers, with a persuasive vision, while retaining the existing excellent teachers who were resistant to change). Although I did not fully realize at the time the extent to which it was happening, I was actually in the process of developing my leadership style and principles of practice. And so, over the duration of that leadership course, as I read, interacted, and responded to the assignments, while at the same time implementing and learning the practical application of those lessons in my job, the ideas that resonated with me began to come together in my mind to form my own personal theory of leadership.

As I put those ideas together in a way that seemed to make sense to me, I began to see leadership as a process that occurs within a context, which I visually illustrate below in a diagram called Jeff’s Simple Diagram of Leadership (I like diagrams and illustrations). The basic concept is this: In any situation, there are leaders and followers. Sometimes who they are can change, but both of the individuals/groups are necessary. The leader must have knowledge of the context/environment in which the leader and followers exist (present). He must also have knowledge of the organizational history (past) and organizational vision (future). With this knowledge, the leader engages in the process that is a continuing cycle of analyzing past, present, and future in order to move people and the organization toward a desired growth, change, or direction.

Now that time has passed since I first formulated these ideas, I believe that this simple diagram is a very accurate picture, and in many ways was even prophetic, of how I have learned to lead. I have come to understand and value the extreme importance of story and culture, both in organizational history and in understanding the people with whom I, as a leader, work, and therefore have learned the value of listening and asking questions (past). I have experienced the importance of the role of relationship in the context and environment in which the leaders and followers interact, and in the process have developed my own relational skills (present). I have learned that I have the ability to see “the big picture” of what the organization ought to be and to communicate this in an understandable way (future). Along the way, I have discovered one of my greatest leadership strengths is the ability to make connections between these three – past, present, and future – in a way that makes sense to people. And now, as I look back, I can see that in each organization in which I have worked, my leadership has followed this pattern and process and has resulted in significant and positive change.

In that particular school in which I was first putting these ideas together, I must admit that I made many mistakes (truth be told, I have made mistakes in every role in which I have worked, but that’s part of the growth process). For example, this is where I learned the importance of taking time to listen to people and understand the culture before initiating change (by making the mistake of making changes too quickly without first understanding the environment). However, I grew in both my knowledge and practice of leadership, resulting in a number of significant positive changes, including, among other things: doubling of enrollment; restoration of financial stability; initiation of a large-scale building program; establishment of a school board, a hot lunch program, an after school program, and a parent-teacher organization; development and expansion of honors and advanced academic programs; and establishment of a student internship program. In a sense, it was a practicing lab in which my particular leadership ability and skills were nurtured and grew.

Since that time in my life, I have further developed effective leadership skills and practices that have enabled me to be an agent of change in several other schools and organizations. I have personally identified many of the basic principles that underscore my approach, which include principles such as: learn history and culture; people matter to God, so it is important to build relationships and care about people; see the big picture; recognize God’s sovereignty; know that to influence change, you have to change the way people think; communicate; empower; serve; be willing to do things differently. Over time, I have also seen my simple diagram of leadership emerge and remain as the crux of my personal theory of leadership, with the three key words of story, relationship, and change reflecting my leadership.

I have found what works well for me, and it involves some fundamental ideas that should be true for every leader, but it also is expressed in a way that matches who I am. I would encourage you to do the same – identify the core leadership principles that matter and learn how to package and use them in a way that best incorporates your strengths so that you can become the best leader you can be, by being yourself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Quote Your Dad

“It’s better to be proactive than reactive.” (Jack McMaster, usually when giving me advice related to parenting my own children)

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Podcast Episode 10 – First Get the Whole Story

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article on the same topic: First Get the Whole Story. Here is the transcript of the podcast:

Have you ever been guilty of jumping to a conclusion before having all the information, and then regretting your response?  I have, and on today’s episode, that’s the question we are going to explore.  There’s a verse in Proverbs, chapter 18 and verse 13, that speaks to this topic when it says, “He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him.”  Therefore, I want to take a few minutes to talk about the importance of hearing before answering, to avoid the folly and shame that comes when we do the opposite.

  I have probably been most guilty of doing this to my own children. Usually, it looks something like this:  I hear a noise, or I see a mess, and I immediately jump to conclusions about what my child must have done or said, and I react.  Too many times, that response has been followed by learning that I answered before hearing the whole story, and my response was wrong.  A great example of this is one carried out by my father to me when I was a young teenager, and one that I would tease him about for years afterward.  In this situation, my elementary school-aged sister was playing with her dolls and her dollhouse and asked me to play with her, with her dolls.  I was doing something else at the moment, so I told her I couldn’t.  Unbeknownst to me, she then went to my dad and told him a story of how I had said very mean and hurtful things to her.  He came into the room and proceeded to give me a painful consequence, catching me by surprise.  It was only afterward that he heard my side of the story and had to apologize for reacting wrongly to me.

Now, my dad was a wonderful father, so don’t judge him for this unless you can say unequivocally that you have never jumped to a conclusion, made wrong assumptions, and reacted differently than you should have before hearing the whole story.  But this is often our natural tendency, and it takes intentional work to exercise the discipline of seeking the whole truth and the full story.  And that’s what we should be doing in every context and situation: setting aside our preconceived bias and beliefs, seeking to hear and learn the full story, and then determining the best response.

As a leader, this needs to characterize our responses. I know that there are situations that require a quick and decisive response, but hopefully, your leadership experience has equipped you to be prepared to respond to those kinds of situations out of your breadth of leadership when you don’t have time to gather more information in the moment.  I also know that if we can be too slow sometimes, taking the time to gather so much detail that it paralyzes momentum.  But in most cases, you need to take some time to get the whole picture before formulating the right response.  I can tell you, in my role as a school administrator, when I had to discipline student behavior, I never regretted carefully getting the whole story first.

So here’s what you need to take away:  It is important to gather all the facts and information, as much as is reasonably possible, before determining your response.  This applies to addressing conflicts between people, determining strategic next steps in a plan, or responding to a challenge you are facing.  

So, I will circle back to the verse I started with:  “He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him.”  If we don’t learn to look before we leap, or listen before we respond, we will likely make decisions that lead to messes that we have to clean up, and apologies that we need to make.  Therefore, when you are confronted with a situation that you need to address . . . first, get the whole story.

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First Get the Whole Story

Early in my experience as an educator, I heard my administrator say to parents (tongue-in-cheek), “If you don’t believe half of what your student says happened in the classroom, we won’t believe half of what they tell us happened at home.” Like many humorous comments, this contains a morsel of truth. People have a tendency to represent facts in such a way as to paint themselves in the best possible light, and children are no different. Often over the years, I have fielded phone calls from parents who were contacting me because of what their child said happened in class (things like, “my child told me that the teacher said this in class!”). I quickly learned to redirect their concern to the teacher, so that the parent could hear the whole story. Nearly every time, the parent has come back to me and said, “Now that I have the whole story, it makes a lot more sense.” (And most of the time, the story the child told at home was an effort to cover up or misdirect from wrong choices of behavior made by the student in the classroom.)

There are two particular passages in Scripture that have greatly helped me to understand this idea. One is Proverbs 18:13, which says, “He who answers a matter before he hears the facts—it is folly and shame to him” (Amplified Bible). The Message says it even more plainly: “Answering before listening is both stupid and rude.” This verse was first shared with me by a professor when I was completing a marriage and family counseling internship, as an exhortation to probe and question thoroughly before drawing conclusions in the counseling setting. For quite a while, I literally kept the verse written on a notecard, taped on top of my desk, as a reminder. I have since learned that this verse applies to many circumstances, not just to a counseling session. When you deal with people (and most of us do), you will have the experience of people telling you the story from their own perspective, which will likely mean that it may or may not be true (as I shared in a previous post, “Either It’s True or It’s Not”). It is foolish and stupid to react or respond without first getting the whole story

The second verse is James 1:19, which says, “So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.” As many grandmothers have shared with their grandchildren, “There’s a reason why God gave us two ears and one mouth; we should listen twice as much as we speak!” This verse has been a constant reminder to me to be careful to listen first, although, in the process of my growth as a leader, it was a lesson that sometimes came the hard way.

For example, in one particular organization in which I worked, I made a spectacular blunder that loudly and clearly drove this lesson home to me. I was leading a small group of event planners in planning for one specific event, and everyone in the group (except me) had been involved in that organization for several years. As the leader, I felt that I should take charge of presenting good ideas, so I began the first meeting by telling the rest of the group all of my ideas. My enthusiasm (combined with the fact that I had not yet established trust or relationship) resulted in the rest of the group shutting down while giving verbal support to my ideas. However, over the next few days, I began to hear from others that the entire committee was frustrated with me, and the event was now in jeopardy. I had to go back to the committee and apologize for speaking without listening, and then I had to make it safe for them to talk. When I did that, I learned so much about the history and tradition associated with that event and could see that I had been on the verge of causing damage to the culture. I needed to take the time to listen, understand history, and get the whole story.

The added bonus is that when you take time to learn the whole story, you are much more likely to be able to discern if it is true or if it is not.  In Deuteronomy 18:21-22, Moses provided some direction to the people of Israel to help them understand how to discern this, when he said, “And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.” He made the point that if you take the time to observe and get the whole story, beginning to end, you can tell if it is true or not.

It is easy for a leader to assume that leadership means taking charge and giving direction. However, I believe that these principles from Scripture give us a very different picture: leadership should be characterized by listening. Ask questions. Make it safe for people to share. Validate. And make sure you get the whole story before you react.

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