Leadership has similar times of transition. While we should always be growing as a leader, there are certain times where we transition into a new level.  During these times of new level transition, there are a few things to keep in mind:

Take a fresh look at yourself
We are wired in such a way that we live according to our own self definition. Does the current way you see yourself include being a leader at this next level?  In other words: Do you believe you can be (or already are) the kind of person who leads at the next level?  Maybe you need to upgrade your own self defined identity?

Exorcise old demons
As you transition into new leadership territory, you’ll have to battle old patterns and behaviors. Bad habits you thought you’d defeated long ago will suddenly re-surface and you’ll have to exercise mastery over them once again. Take the time to reconcile the past and get ready to move into your future.

Acquire new skills
Leading at the next level will require new skills. Once you’ve taken a fresh look at yourself and exorcised old demons, acquiring new skills comes pretty naturally. Be teachable and willing to experiment with new tools and approaches in this time.

When you find yourself leading at the next level, you may be doing a new job in a new position, using new tools and skills but the most significant thing that is new is you.

Withdraw and hope it goes away VS. Mastering the art of ignoring
Withdrawing to pray and get a heavenly plan of action is biblical & wise but withdrawing to escape is not good leadership – however, knowing what to ignore and what to confront is part of the art of leading that each of us have to figure out for ourselves.

Get aggressive and conquer VS. Powering up with purpose
By doing the former you may win the battle but you’ll lose the war. Even powering up with purpose has to be used in the right doses so know when to use emotion and when not to.

Construct political alliances VS. Develop team alignment
Political alliances require surrounding yourself with those who agree with you to counter any resistance to your agenda. This solution brings  short term relief at the cost of long term effectiveness because ultimately you attract followers and repel leaders. You are better off leading leaders who create healthy tension on the way to developing team alignment – it takes longer but produces better results in the long run.

Think of a time when you responded negatively to pressure. How did that turn out? What might have happened is you would have responded positively?

Pressure from people
Leading will always involve people. It’s been said, if you’re leading and no one is following you are just on a long lonely walk. Whether you are managing people or their agendas, there is a unique pressure that surrounds leading people that you just never really get used to. Often it comes from wanting to please the people you lead, but just as often it comes when you don’t please the people you lead (even when you did the right thing). The key is conquering any fear we might have of people – superiors, peers or direct reports. Ultimately leaders have to do what is right and that might not be what is popular.

Pressure for more resources
There is always a need for more… talented people, money, materials. It just never goes away. Financial pressure can be one of the most restricting things we face. Many think that at some point there will be enough resources for this pressure to ease, but the truth is that as long as there is a growing vision, there will always be a demand on resources. The pressure for more resources, while daunting at times, is better than the counterpart – the pressure of cutting back!

Pressure surrounding decisions
Let’s face it – you’re a leader because you make tough decisions. Many decisions we face could made by a well informed mature Freshman in college. But a few decisions are tough – really tough – and that is where you earn your paycheck.  These decisions come complete with all the pressure one would ever want. And that pressure doesn’t go away when you leave the office.  Good counsel, getting all the info possible, prayer and then making decisions confidently is how I deal with the pressure of decisions.

Pressure associated with the unseen realm
Whether your aware of it or not, there is spiritual pressure that influences our leadership. Living with an awareness of this unseen pressure is an important first step. But it can’t stop there, you should also know how to use spiritual weapons to combat spiritual pressure. Fortunately, the Bible gives us some ways to do just that: 2 Corinthians 10.3-5 and Ephesians 6.10-17 both have great wisdom for understanding and fighting spiritual pressure.

How have you experienced pressure in one of these areas recently?

First we talked about objectifying people and then looked at the dangers of an excessive need to win and today we examine how ineffective blaming can be to our leadership and the organizations we lead.

Blame Storming

Blame has been part of the human story from the very earliest of time and it never helps the other person (or us) get any better. I love this Direct TV commercial on blame storming:

Click here to view the embedded video.

When we blame others it actually invites them to resist our leadership and in turn provokes them to either deflect or shift responsibility. Holding others accountable can be done without aggressive blame storming and when a leader figures out how to do that, they can actually say things directly to people that doesn’t invite resistance but rather cooperation. Here’s some quick facts about blame:

Blame is an offensive way to place responsibility.

Most people are already in a defensive posture.

Blame provokes people to actually get worse.

You can recognize one’s responsibility without blaming.

Once blame begins, it invites more blame and soon the blame storming has reached full tilt until communication is all but dead. The key is that people respond to how you feel even more so than what you say. Speaking the truth with genuine affection and respect for the person will help disarm the defensive nature of the one you are holding accountable and end the vicious cycle of blame.

Leaders must stop being motivated by an excessive need to win. Leaders like to know the score and that’s a good thing.  But sometimes we are keeping count even when it doesn’t count and that unconscious drive to win may be keeping you from… well winning.

A short list of ways an excessive need to win may show up:

Adding too much value – feeling compelled to always add your input on an idea or project
Often this demotivates the other person by stripping them of the ownership of the idea/project and actually hinders progress in the team/organization

Making destructive comments – little pokes we take at others that subtly tear them down
The motivation here is to position ourselves above the other person ever so slightly by our witty sarcastic put downs which we forget the second we say them but you can be sure they don’t. Destructive comments are hurting your work environment.

Withholding information – keeping valuable information to yourself  to try to gain an advantage
Withholding info actually decreases your value to the organization and people you serve. You become indispensable by sharing skills & contributing to the tribal knowledge. There’s always a place on the team for someone dedicated to make others better!

Negative qualifiers – beginning our responses to others with words like “however” or “but”
This is an attempt to consolidate power in our favor and in essence tells the other person “you are wrong – I am right”. Negative qualifiers kill the creativity of a team.

What we have to realize is the ultimate victory is when we make other people winners.

Today I’ll share the first one: objectifying people

The problem with seeing people as objects is that your NOT seeing them as people – people with needs like yours, hopes like yours & made in the image of God. Here’s some ways we can view people as objects:

When someone challenges your agenda…  You see them as a THREAT

When someone reinforces your agenda… You see them as an ALLY

When one fails to matter to your agenda… You see them as UNIMPORTANT

When you see people as objects, your view of reality gets distorted and you are unable to serve them for any other reason than selfish gain.

If we are going to lead well we have to stop objectifying people.

Read Leadership and Self Deception for more on seeing people as objects.

Guest Blogger this week: Aaron Davis, executive pastor Elevate ChurchThis week I’m in Florida at a church planter’s conference so today’s leadership lesson is from Aaron Davis, one of our executive pastors at Elevate Church. He brings some great insight in the area of knowing what type of leader you are:

Recently I have been reading some books for an Executive Pastor Coaching Network I am a part of and we were discussing leading and managing a growing church. It made me begin to really think about the contrast between leading and managing.

Most organizational thinkers would say, leadership focuses on setting the organization’s overall direction and aligning and motivating people; management focuses on planning and budgeting, organizing and staffing, controlling and problem solving. This is very true and most organizations, churches included, stop here when it comes to staffing and structuring.  By stopping there you are really only getting direction and implementation (leading and managing), while this can maintain an organization it is hard for that organization to grow.

Something I came across recently has shed some incredible light on the way we staff and run Elevate Church, it is that the two roles above PLUS one are more useful in guiding and helping to achieve our mission. Leader – manager – administrator, these are terms/titles that I have heard before but not in this sense:

A leader communicates the church’s vision, purpose, and direction and mobilizes people’s energy in support of it. A manager deploys people (and resources), through specific roles, jobs, and tasks, to achieve the mission’s purpose and sees to it that the organization permits and helps the people to succeed. An administrator facilitates the workflow of the organization and attends to its efficiency.

The obsession of the first role is direction, the second is effectiveness, the third is efficiency. All three roles – leader, manager, and administrator – are executive roles and most any organization needs all three. However, leadership is the most important role. The point here isn’t to value one of these gifts over the other. (That would be a fruitless exercise because all are needed for a church or any organization to function properly.)

I think it’s essential to identify how we are gifted and to also consider those we are responsible for in our ministry roles. I invite you to evaluate your church or organization and identify those roles that help you achieve your mission.

This thought is resonating with me often in this season of ministry.  At Elevate Church we are seeing incredible growth and it seems God is preparing us to have a strategy to reproduce the DNA of Elevate in other venues for the purpose of touching lives and I want to offer some thoughts on the various facets of the above proverb:

We can teach the very best of what we know, but we reproduce the best and worst of our self/church/organization.

To pass on what we know allows us to contribute to those who want to learn from us. To empower others to carry our DNA allows us to invest in emerging generations.

You might be able to fake head knowledge by quoting all the latest books and re-tweeting the wisdom that comes across twitter, but when it comes to actually reproducing yourself nothing is hidden.

It is a privilege to teach others, but lasting honor comes from reproducing  yourself in others.

It is harder work, takes longer and requires more investment to reproduce who you are than teach what you know.

It isn’t either teach or reproduce it is both teach and reproduce – both have value.

Know what application (teaching or reproducing) is needed in the right moment with the right people.

You can teach best practices to anyone willing to learn, but you must have compatibility and alignment for DNA transfer.

If you are going to teach what you know,  know something worthy of teaching. If you are going to reproduce who you are, be something worth reproducing.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on teaching what you know/reproducing who you are.

The longer you lead and the more you find success in leading the more it really becomes less about what to do and more about what not to do.

Here’s some questions to ask that should generate a list of what to stop doing:

What needs to be done but by someone other than you?
What are you doing that is no longer yielding results?
What are you doing that is draining your energy and hurting productivity?
What is that thing that you like to do but needs to be given away or cut altogether?

Make a list and learn to stop doing the things that need to be delegated, cut, outsourced or given away?

We can feel threatened at every turn or we can be  a threat to the kingdom of darkness – insecurity will sabotage you as a leader.

The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion. -Proverbs 28:1