Tag Archive for: #leadershipezra

In thirty years of life and experience in leadership roles in Christian organizations, there are lessons that I learned (and continue to learn) from the life of ministry to which God called me.  Over that time, He taught me lessons based on stories, principles, and truths from the Bible that have been translated into personal application.  This series of articles focuses on a set of those lessons drawn from the book of Ezra in the Old Testament (and then published in my latest book), and this week, in part 7, I am discussing one of several lessons on the practice of leadership, this one is about the importance of seeing the big picture – and especially of seeing it from God’s perspective.

I enjoy puzzles. I enjoy all kinds of puzzles – word puzzles, number puzzles, brain games, etc. – but in this instance I am specifically referring to jigsaw puzzles, the ones that are pictures cut into hundreds of little pieces that need to be assembled. And I have a preferred method of assembly: first turn all the pieces face-up, setting aside those that have a straight edge (the outside frame); then assemble the outside frame; finally, begin to assemble the rest of the pieces, looking first for pieces that more obviously fit in the same section together. In the process of putting the puzzle together, however, one of the most important components is not the puzzle itself, but rather, the picture on the box.

It is the picture on the box that provides the perspective and the vision of what is being assembled. It provides a visual landscape that helps in determining the general context or place where an individual piece belongs. It’s a map that lets you see where you want to go. I once used the picture on the puzzle box to illustrate a lesson, by giving a puzzle to each of several small groups of people. Some of the groups had the puzzle box, so they could see their picture, but some of the groups did not (and some had all the correct pieces, but some had the wrong pieces or were missing pieces; that served to make a different point). Part of the purpose of the lesson was to illustrate the importance of “the big picture,” or the master plan, for managing a process, a task, or life itself.

The implication of this illustration is simply that a good leader needs to be able to see the big picture. Like puzzle pieces, each piece of the context, the environment, the organization, or the situation fits into a larger context, and a leader can best see how it fits when viewing the whole picture. In order to see the whole picture, that leader must be able to get on the balcony, zoom out, and get above the forest to be able to see clearly. Being able to do this will keep him from getting lost among the trees and will provide the perspective necessary to implement changes and adjustments.

However, for a Christian leader, there is an even bigger picture and a more important lesson: seeing the big picture from God’s perspective. I have discussed in other articles about the fact that God has a sovereign plan and purpose, and it is against this backdrop (of the clear evidence of God’s sovereignty) that we learn from Ezra how to see the big picture from God’s perspective, and even how that affects motivation and purpose.

The lesson emerges in chapter 7, a pivotal chapter in understanding Ezra’s leadership. The chapter details how Ezra had been granted permission by King Artaxerxes to return to Jerusalem (with another reminder of God’s hand in that circumstance in 7:6 – “and the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the Lord his God was on him”). But then the king went beyond granting permission, and wrote a letter that provided authority, protection, and significant resources for Ezra (7:11-26). After the proclamation of the letter, Ezra’s initial response is recorded in verse 27: “Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, who has put such a thing as this in the king’s heart.” His response clearly reveals that Ezra saw God’s hand in all that had happened. He was able to look beyond his own finite, human scope of vision and see the events from God’s perspective. He recognized that God’s purpose was over and through the circumstances.

As a result, he understood the real importance of what was happening, which in turn shaped his purpose and drive, and his communication to his team, which we see in 8:28: “And I said to them, ‘You are holy to the Lord; the articles are holy also; and the silver and the gold are a freewill offering to the Lord God of your fathers.” Ezra helped his team to understand that God had a sovereign purpose, and therefore the tasks that they were carrying out were being used by God to fulfill that purpose; therefore, their work was holy. Ultimately, an understanding of the holiness of their task (and of themselves) impacted their drive, their commitment, and their performance.

This story from the life of Ezra provides a great lesson for our leadership: while it is important – and even necessary – for a leader to be able to see the big picture, the Christian leader must take it a step further and see the big picture from God’s perspective. Then, when our understanding and determination of purpose are filtered through recognition of God’s purpose, it affects how we answer two important questions: Where are we going, and why are we going there?

It is always important for a leader to determine and define the necessary and intended direction (where we are going), but part of understanding this comes from seeing the bigger picture of context from God’s perspective. When you are able to do that – to see the big picture from God’s perspective – you have an understanding of destination that goes beyond the visible and immediate future. You recognize a purpose that is bigger than you, that is bigger than your big picture, and which has an eternal impact.

What follows is an impact on motivation (why we’re going there). For people to respond, there must be a clearly established and communicated purpose and motive, one that makes sense to and resonates with people, and helps them to understand and believe in why they are doing what they are doing. When they can see that they are fulfilling a role in God’s plan, then the work they are doing is elevated to a new level of importance; more than that, it is elevated to an act of holiness. For the follower of Jesus, this provides true motivation.

So, seeing the big picture is important, but seeing it from God’s perspective is more important. The challenge for you and me is to learn to open our eyes to God’s presence and intentional involvement, not just in the history recorded in Scripture, but in our lives today. It is to see the events and circumstances that are taking place in our daily experiences from His perspective. And when our eyes have been opened, and we recognize His sovereign purpose and see the big picture from God’s perspective, then our responses, our purpose, our motives, and our motivation rise to whole new level.

In my thirty years of life and experience in leadership roles in Christian organizations, there are leadership lessons that I learned (and continue to learn) from the life of ministry to which God called me.  Over that time, He taught me lessons based on stories, principles, and truths from the Bible that have been translated into personal application.  This particular series of articles focuses on a set of those lessons drawn from the book of Ezra in the Old Testament, the same lessons that I have published in my latest book. This week, in part 6, we are taking a minute to step away from our discussion of your individual leadership and talking about the idea of Team Leadership. If we carry the “running a race” analogy forward from the last few weeks, this would be a little like a relay race, in which you are dependent on others for combined success. Here is the transcript of the podcast.

In this series we are diving deeper into principles and practices that connect biblical truth with wisdom and applying them to the practice of leadership. The purpose of the series, and of the website as a whole, is to connect faith, wisdom, and leadership in a way that will help you grow in your leadership and make an impact. That starts with realizing that God has a plan and purpose that can be trusted, whether or not we can visibly see His hand in it, and He has a part for us in this purpose.

We just finished a 3-week subset in this series in which I laid the groundwork for effective leadership. I used the analogy of the starting blocks in a race, when all the runners line up and get into position, and the starter yells, “On your mark, get set, go!” (I know that the starter actually fires a starter’s pistol, and doesn’t yell “go!”, but you get the idea.) Those three commands capture the ideas I discussed:

• “On Your Mark” – that’s all about getting to the starting line and in the right place. As a leader, that means getting yourself into the right frame of mind and equipping yourself for what is coming. It involves aligning yourself with truth by seeking and knowing God and knowing where He has placed you, and by establishing your foundational beliefs and values, and this is where your capability comes from.
• “Get Set” – that’s all about getting into position in the right form, so that you are best prepared to start well. As a leader, that means performing the actions that set you up to be followed and trusted. It involves living your life so that your actions and behaviors reflect those beliefs, which is another way of describing a life characterized by integrity, and this is where your credibility comes from.
• “Go” – that’s when the starter’s pistol goes off and you start running. As a leader, that’s when the work begins as you start leading your people and your organization toward your mission, vision, or change. It involves stepping out and doing the work of leadership. It’s hard work and therefore requires someone who is both capable and credible, and that’s why this step must follow the other two.

In one of my early experiences in school leadership, I was the head of a school that had been struggling, and the enrollment was very low. As a result, the school was operating with minimal staff, which meant that along with the teaching faculty, I had an administrative assistant and a one of the teachers who also served as the athletic director. Often, when I would walk back into the office area after spending time observing classrooms and interacting with students and teachers, I would comment to my administrative assistant that I was going to my office to have a administrative team meeting with myself. Although I was joking about it, the reality is that I did not have a team, and so there was little I could delegate and little opportunity for discussion with fellow administrators.

However, in another school experience years later, I was blessed to have a full team of administrators serving with me. When we did skill assessments, they revealed that we had a well-balanced and complementary set of skills and personalities, and the combination filled in all the gaps for the needs of the job. We intentionally cultivated excellent interpersonal relationships as well, and the result was a high functioning team that worked well together.

What a difference a good team made! Sometimes, you have limited access to other people, and you have to do everything yourself, but when you can have a team, it can be a tremendous asset. I say “can be,” because it’s not a guarantee. Teams are very capable of being dysfunctional, and I’ve been part of my share of those. For a team to work well, there needs to be the right combination of gifts and abilities, and a willingness to be collaborative. Without those, there will either be a lot of conflict and dysfunction, or there will be poor performance due to deficiencies. That was the blessing of the team I had – when you looked at the typical four quadrants of abilities that are categorized on profiles, our combination filled in every quadrant. In addition, we respected each other’s roles (such that no one wanted any of the other persons’ jobs) and built a positive and supportive relationship with each other. We had disagreements, but because of our attitudes and relationship, we were able to work through those and come out better.

The point for you is to recognize the value of team for your leadership, but only if it is the right kind of team.  In the Leadership Ezra website article that corresponds to this podcast episode, I talked about three types of people: those with leadership ability, those with wisdom, and those who are humble spiritual leaders. In addition to that, you also need to gather a team that fills out different abilities: at the very least, you need a visionary, a people-person, a detail planner, and a jump-in-and-serve person, and then whatever other skills are needed for your group or your task.

You may not always have the privilege of putting together and working with a good team, but if you do, you should take it.  Be intentional about it, and seek the right people, including the ones that every team should have as well as the ones uniquely needed for your team. Then cultivate the relationships between and among the team members. When you can do this, the end result is that what you have will be greater than the sum of the parts, a team that in combination with each other that is greater than the individual members.

In thirty years of life and experience in leadership roles in Christian organizations, there are lessons that I learned (and continue to learn) from the life of ministry to which God called me.  Over that time, He taught me lessons based on stories, principles, and truths from the Bible that have been translated into personal application.  This series of articles focuses on a set of those lessons drawn from the book of Ezra in the Old Testament (and then published in my latest book). This week (along with the last two weeks, and in honor of the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris) we are starting the race of leadership. Today, in part 5, it’s “Go!,” when the starter’s gun goes off and the runners take off and run the race.

In my first year as the head of a school, I was enthusiastic and organized, with big dreams and a plan that I was developing and implementing. At first, though, I kept finding myself getting frustrated, because I would have seemingly constant interruptions that kept me from getting to the tasks that I need to do in order to carry out my plans. I know now how foolish this sounds, but I was getting frustrated because people were getting in the way of the tasks. Eventually it dawned on me that people were part of the job, so to alleviate the frustration, I began to designate specific time periods each day for people. And of course, people couldn’t seem to keep their interruptions confined to the times I had designated (you can read sarcasm into this). Finally, God smacked me over the head by reminding me of a former pastor’s sermon in which the message had repeatedly emphasized that people matter to God. I realized that the work of ministry is primarily about people, because people matter to God (and therefore they should matter to me), even though tasks are a necessary part of the work of effective leadership. I finally understood that leadership is about both people and tasks, and that the real challenge is in undertaking the work of leadership in a way that accomplishes tasks well while also meeting the needs of people in a way that draws them toward God.

Years of research and study on leadership by many researchers have concluded that the work of leadership does indeed boil down to these two things: tasks and people. At its core, effective leadership must be able to manage and direct the tasks appropriate to the circumstances, and at the same time manage and direct the people involved in a relational way that develops them individually. Very simply, it means getting the job done well, while working well with people and making them better in the process.

In practice, though, this is hard, and leadership is more complex than this, because there are lots of variables in both tasks and people: different personality types, different circumstances, different strengths and weaknesses, different obstacles, different tasks, and so on. And beyond that, it takes lots of work to develop a vision, then make plans, and finally implement the vision and plans in a way that most effectively accomplishes the tasks and leads people. The reality is that the work of leadership is daunting. However, the book of Ezra can and does help with this, providing some valuable lessons that help us identify important principles that make the work of leadership more effective. In his story, we find lessons that are beneficial for our own personal spiritual growth, but that are also applicable to our role as leaders. Specifically, Ezra chapters 7-10 illustrates ten actions that are necessary in leadership: three things to get and seven things to do.

First, there are three things to get:

1. Permission: Getting permission can come from superiors, who give the necessary approval needed before getting a green light to go, but it also needs to come from below, by getting buy-in from followers. If they haven’t agreed to follow your lead, very little movement is going to take place.
2. People: Getting people involves the task of identifying the necessary strengths needed for the task, and then assembling the best group of people to accomplish those tasks.
3. Resources: Getting resources involves gathering those things – tools, supplies, finances, or people and skill sets – that must be assembled before beginning the tasks. First identify what you have available and then identify and solicit any additional needed resources. Figure out the resources you have and the resources you need.

With those three things in hand there are then seven things to do:

1. Give recognition: Give credit where credit is due, immediately and at the front end of the process. First and most importantly, give honor to God, acknowledging that He is ultimately sovereign and responsible. People also need to be recognized and feel valued, believing that they are important to the process and the vision, and so recognizing them early (and often) affirms their value and enhances their level of commitment. Therefore, it is important to recognize the benefactors, the idea-makers, the planners, the leaders, the contributors, and the participants.
2. Give people a voice: Give people an opportunity to speak and be heard, then listen to what they say. Often, those who are on the ground floor, or in the trenches, have an awareness and understanding of the obstacles, the needs, the details, etc., that the leadership does not clearly see because they are further removed from it. Therefore, there is great value in intentionally soliciting input and validating concerns and viewpoints; and where appropriate, that input should be used to modify or adjust the plans.
3. Select the leaders: Gather a team that reflects the two purposes of oversight and representation. Those who are charged with oversight are people from among the leadership who have the task of overseeing and managing both the planning process and the implementation of the plan. Those who are charged with representation are people from among the followers who serve to represent and act on behalf of the people. Both kinds of leaders must be people submitted to God, and both are necessary for the work, therefore both need to be included in the teams you assemble.
4. Define the purpose: The idea of purpose is related to the two questions of “Where are we going?” and “Why are we going there?” Answering the question of “where” happens when people can see the big picture, the overall goal. Answering the question of “why” happens when people understand motive, and it must be a motive that resonates with them. In any task, the motive must be clearly established and communicated.
5. Determine the direction: Once the purpose has been established, direction can be given, both near (in the short-term) and far (in the long-term). Determining the right way to go (direction) naturally follows determining purpose, because once you know where you are going and why you are going there, you can then identify the path you need to take to get there. Like mapping out a road trip, this includes determining the next step or stop, and then the one after that, and so on, as well as determining the overall route.
6. Establish the process: The process is the flow, the way in which everything takes place and connects together. The process of implementing a plan takes time and also brings many challenges, but there are important factors that – if communicated at the front of the process – will in turn help the process to flow well. These factors are: boundaries, including both limits and freedoms; methods, or, how the process will happen; and timing, including a schedule, checkpoints, and completion. Establishing these factors early will serve to greatly enhance the smoothness of the process.
7. Provide the structure: A procedure provides the necessary guidelines for implementing a plan. The first procedural step is to meet, gathering the necessary people together to clearly communicate and initiate the plan. The last step is to celebrate (giving credit to God), and in between the first and last steps are incremental goals, or benchmarks, that need to be achieved (and should also be celebrated). Along the way, it is necessary to periodically assess progress and communicate.

At its most basic level, the work of leadership centers around and involves both people and tasks, and it is hard work that requires an intentional plan which includes these three things to get and seven things to do. It is, however, also incredibly fulfilling to be an instrument in God’s plan in that work. As His instrument, our desire and effort should be to do this work with excellence, and understanding these ten components will help us to do so. And when you reach the destination, don’t forget to celebrate, and don’t forget to give credit to God.