In the marketplace, leaders of different departments and divisions often make the case to “have a seat at the table”—meaning that they, as the leader of the particular division, should be on the leadership team. By being “at the table,” they would be able to influence the direction of the overall team and give the…
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Pay Careful Attention to Time
The Apostle Paul encouraged us to pay careful attention to how we live these really short lives. Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise— making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. And don’t get drunk with wine, which…
How to Build a Leadership Pipeline (A Framework)
You need a leadership pipeline to scale leadership development. Wise leaders insist on having systems for what is important. If church leaders believe following up on guests or givers is important, then they put a system in place to ensure it happens. If marketplace leaders believe that annual goal setting or financial scenario planning is…
Vapor, Inches, and Making the Most of the Time
Jordan Grumet is a hospice nurse who wrote Taking Stock based on conversations with people who were in their final days. He believes the dying have much to teach us about living—that evaluating our limited time helps us have fewer regrets at the end of our lives. Journalist Oliver Burkemen wrote Four Thousand Weeks to…
A Framework for Leading in a Way That Develops Leaders
According to Dave Ulrich’s research and experience, there are five indispensable functions of leadership: personal proficiency, strategist, executor, talent manager, and human capital developer. A human capital developer is someone who develops people for the future. What does it take to have a team, a ministry, or an organization that consistently develops and deploys leaders?…
The Ridiculousness of Disobedience
The book of Jonah is considered a literary masterpiece, and in the first several verses the words profoundly confront us with the ridiculousness of our disobedience to God. The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because their evil has come up before me.” Jonah got…
The Leadership Code: A Framework for the Transferable Tasks of a Leader
The belief beneath the cliché “leadership is leadership” is that leadership is a transferable skill—that what it takes for someone to be effective as a leader in one field can be transferred to a different field. In the book, The Leadership Code, Dave Ulrich articulates that as much as 70% of leadership is transferable. Meaning…
A Big Question Technology Raises and Theology Answers
In our highly connected and technologically savvy society we have heard it said, “Do we really want those tech companies to know everything about us? It seems like they are everywhere and know everything!” We are uncertain about Big Data for one of two reasons: we aren’t sure we trust the people who know everything…
A Framework about the Different Directions of Leadership
When many people hear the word “leadership,” they think primarily about a leader leading his or her team. In reality, there are other important directions of leadership. Dee Hock’s instruction to leaders about leading more than their teams is the impetus of this framework. What I Appreciate About This Framework I love that the framework…
Walking With the Wise: 4 Qualities to Seek
As a teenager, my parents, concerned about the influences I was choosing, would sometimes ask me, “If your friends would jump off the Mississippi River bridge, would you jump with them?” Of course, I answered, “No,” but the reality is that wherever those closest to us go, we tend to follow. Whoever those closest to…