You have a plan for growth for your organization.
You have a plan to reach more people this year.
Do you have a plan for how you’re going to grow personally?
We have to have a different point of view than what is often taught or what is common in society about the value of a person, the value of a leader.
It’s critical to distinguish and separate the value you are versus the value you add.
As a leader and person, you bring value to your ministry, your community, your family, those you serve, and beyond simply by being you. Full stop.
Apart from that your gifting, unique perspective, and an ability to bring together the talents of many is the value you add.
I sometimes struggle with this, and many leaders we work with do too. We naturally orient toward what we’re accomplishing, the help we’re providing, and the results.
It’s essential to acknowledge both types so as to avoid getting caught up or confused unnecessarily.
Your actual value is distinct and separate from your responsibility and the return on investment, meaning the return on investment in your role.
Why must you grow?
John Maxwell gave us the law of the lid in an organization.
We see this always: people in an organization, particularly at the leadership level, are very dedicated. They want to see the organization succeed. They want to see a difference in the lives of the people they serve. But there’s a massive lid that holds that effectiveness down. No matter how high the dedication, the lid is actual leadership ability or, the way I would put it, leadership skills.
This is fundamentally one of the most powerful reasons why our coaching and guidance with leaders is used by God to make such a difference and why we see the results. Someone else is going there and doing the work. We’re coming alongside people.
But what are we doing with them? They’re investing in their growth. They’re investing in their skills and disciplines and ability, their capacity. And as their capacity goes up because of success, dedication, and commitment to the mission, their capacity and their overall effectiveness goes up.
Now, another aspect of the law of the lid that people tend to forget about is that if you’re growing an organization, you’re trying to attract other people onto the team, other people into the organization. The organization can evolve, and some people can grow. But if the leader isn’t growing, the organization can outgrow the leader, and then that leader becomes a lid.
Another way a leader becomes a lid is if they are not growing. Imagine a leader who is stagnated on a leadership rating scale; they cannot score full marks since they’ve placed a limit on their development. Keeping this same rating scale in mind, a ten will not go and work for a seven or work with them. To keep growing and raising that lid, grow your ability to track more and more impactful people around you.
Look at What’s Working … And What’s Not
You must reinvent yourself this year.
We have to reinvent not only some of the programs or projects but also ourselves.
Why do some people seem so capable of growth, and then others say they want to grow, but they aren’t willing to actually make adjustments?
Mark Miller said, “Many leaders fail to grow. But I’ve never seen a leader with an honest desire to grow who failed to grow.”
It’s easy to say you want to grow, but do you have the desire? That desire has to line up with the actions.
What are some of the specific systems, structures, and skills that you can use that will grow you as a leader and, therefore, grow the influence around you?
Mindset of Counteraction
As a Christian constantly trying to grow and understand scripture, finding scripture or multiple scriptures that keep you grounded on where your value comes from is helpful.
No matter how my responsibilities may change in my journey, no matter how the results might look on any given day or any given season, I am grounded no matter what anyone is saying about me, what others might be thinking about me, or how I’m feeling about all those things. I have this unshakable grounding.
For me, that scripture is Colossians 3, starting with verse 1, “Therefore if you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things of earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.”
Everything around me here, the things that you see, and the things I’m responsible for are not where my life is. My life is hidden. I’ve died. My life is hidden with Him. It is hidden in these heavenly places where He’s seated at the right hand of God, untouchable, unperishable, unreachable by anything around me.
Leader Responsibilities vs. Tasks
Most leaders usually have up to five proper responsibilities. Here are some examples I’m sharing with you: the organization’s financial health, hiring and keeping the best people, clarity of the vision and strategy.
How are you being held accountable by your board, the persons above you, or the Lord in your organization?
How are you influencing, implementing, or taking ownership of specific projects? Those typically are tasks.
Clarify your critical areas of responsibility and your project list for the year.
It’s Personal
Peter Drucker wrote, “Know thy time. The difference between time use and time waste is effectiveness and results. Therefore, the first step toward executive effectiveness is to record actual time-use.”
One of the first things we hear from everyone we interact with in any relationship with leaders is the complaint and time pressures. We all feel it. You can’t buy more time. We all think that. But most of us would rather complain about the lack of time to do certain things than have an awareness of how we are using our time. Time is the most precious asset that you have as a leader. You get to decide where you’re spending it.
Start measuring it.
Get an app and track your time for two weeks. Every 10 minutes or 15 minutes, where exactly did it go? At the end of those two weeks, evaluate how your use of time lined up with your priorities, with those responsibilities, with those projects, and make adjustments.
I get insights into how I need to adjust my time. Human beings need to gain an awareness of where time is going.
But one of the most significant contributors to being overwhelmed is undone work over time. Once you kind of know deep down or clarify something is essential to do, and then you continue to break that promise to yourself to move forward on it, that creates significant anxiety and overwhelm.
Your health goes down, your stress level goes up, and the more undone work you face over time.
Translating all these things into a growth plan is incredibly powerful.
You might look at what your core values are, what your strengths are, what your vision for life is, what your weaknesses are, and then actually think through who your heroes are.
Who are heroes, and what are the qualities that you admire? What are the performance barriers that you’re facing? What are those consequences as well?
While looking at doing things, you must also plan for recovery. You’ve heard me say before that I have to work at resting. I do not do well resting. Doing nothing is hard for me. I’ve struggled with that for years. I would go and go and go until I’d burn out or get sick or something like that.
I had to learn this the hard way. It is one of the most humbling things that I’ve had to go through in my life. I realized that I have all these plans in areas where I’m growing, but I don’t plan how to recover, rest, or get renewed energy.
I’m looking for things that help make me feel better. But when I’m not feeling well, I’m not feeling energetic; what are things that help me feel a little bit better, what are the things that fill my energy, and then what are things that drain so I can manage that carefully?
I look forward to hearing how these pointers guide your leadership and impact your organization. I pray they bless and nurture your leadership; report back as we keep moving forward together.