Posts Tagged ‘awareness’

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Top Ten Leadership Commandments

June 26, 2015

Organizers of the conference a couple of weeks ago gifted us with some books. One of mine was “The Top Ten Leadership Commandments” by Hans Finzel, President and CEO of WorldVenture.

The book itself is fairly autobiographical, but the list is good as lists go. The sub-theme of the book is taking leadership lessons from Moses and extrapolating to present day problems.

The Top Ten:

  1. Thou Shalt Cling to the Vision
  2. Thou Shalt Not Serve Thine Own Ego
  3. Thou Shalt Practice Servant Leadership
  4. Thou Shalt Be Opposed, Resisted, and Misunderstood
  5. Thou Shalt Have a Life
  6. Thou Shalt Sweat the Small Stuff
  7. Thou Shalt Spend Time in the Tent (get away and meditate)
  8. Thou Shalt Lead to Leave
  9. Thou Shalt Never Give Up
  10. Thou Shalt Keep Thine Eye on the Prize

Those of us who have been a leader of something during our lives can look at this list and cringe in remembrance of things we missed. Maybe getting a little too full of ourselves. Maybe ignoring details. Maybe not taking time to refresh.

One of the hardest, at least for me, would be number 4. “I’ve thought this out, what do you mean that you don’t think it’ll work????” Or, worse, when a clash of personal agendas takes everyone’s eyes off the prize.

In the end, Finzel is optimistic and encouraging, even when acknowledging the pain. Go forth and lead!

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Being Humble Explained

June 24, 2015

When pride comes, then comes disgrace; but wisdom is with the humble. Proverbs 11:2

I have a friend who always brings up pride as the sin that lies at the foundation of most other sins. Perhaps he has become aware of himself and repented of past pride that almost proved his undoing.

Think about it a little. When are the times when pride has gotten between you and God? When pride has injured a friend or family member? When pride has stopped you from learning something new?

According to this proverb, humble is the trait juxtaposed to pride.

Humble is often misrepresented by those who think they do not want to lead a self-disciplined life. Or by those “social Darwinists” who believe in “survival of the fittest” and power is a virtue. They have led generations to believe that humble means weak.

But it is actually the opposite. Pride evolves from weakness. It is usually a compensation for the perceived lack of power or strength of the person. How many are they, who puff up with pride only to be deflated later. It’s only the true narcissists who continue in pride oblivious to the wreckage of the people around them.

It takes strength to be humble. One must be strong to put others ahead yet retain the strong spiritual core of a relationship with God. It takes someone strong in spiritual discipline who practices daily the spiritual disciplines of study, prayer, meditation, service, simplicity.

The other strength comes from putting aside the pride of believing that they know everything and acknowledge gaps in knowledge that can be filled through study or through the guidance of a mentor.

To be humble just means to put others ahead of yourself. It is a willingness to learn and grow every day.

I read this saying of a Desert Father that I wholly agree with, “I’d rather have a man who has sinned and repented than a man who has not sinned and thinks he is righteous.”

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Self-Criticism or Self-Justification

June 23, 2015

From the sayings of the Desert Fathers: We have abandoned the light yoke of self-criticism and put on the heavy yoke of self-justification.

How often do we read a proverb or a parable of Jesus and think, “This does not apply to me. I am OK. Never do that.” 

Worse, we read something and think, “Yes, I’ve done that, but….”

Criticism does not necessarily mean negative. It does mean dispassionate evaluation. The ability to put our mind outside ourselves, so to speak, and look at ourselves.

There was a time in my life where I think I had anger issues. I’d don’t remember clearly except for one incident. Maybe I was 10 or 11. I was fighting another kid in the neighborhood. Suddenly I saw myself from outside. It was a moment of epiphany. “What the heck am I doing?” I thought. I got up, quit, and became a personal pacifist from that moment forward.

Although the temper bred from insecurity still showed up from time to time. I can still remember the last time. With great shame, by the way. It was maybe seven or eight years ago. Maybe more. There’s a guy who can get under my skin. He did. I exploded. 

When I should have showed some anger I chose to look at the big picture and let it pass. There was no win.

That thought process is self-criticism. I’m not justifying by saying that person was at fault. I was aware. I didn’t act appropriately. It’s all on me.

Do you know people who have no concept of self-criticism? Especially people with narcissistic tendencies have trouble looking at themselves.

Ask a narcissist, “Don’t you seem to think of yourself first?”, and they will reply, “Yes, of course” as if to say, “Duh.”

I have met these–and even asked the question. And received the answer.

According to a recent study, the best way to get beyond this attitude is to listen–really listen–to others. Hemmingway once said, “When you listen, listen completely. Most people don’t listen.”

As I teach Yoga, I remind the class to listen to their bodies and minds. I want them to become self-aware. That is the first step toward developing the ability to look at ourselves critcally and reward ourselves for steps in the right direction and pull ourselves back onto the right track.

Put on the light yoke of self-criticism. Check your mind and body frequently.

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Reflection Empowers Your Day, Your Life

June 19, 2015

Life requires a rhythm. Almost all successful people rise early and get important thought work done. They are in bed by 10.

I usually am up by 5:30. Make coffee and a piece of toast. Read from various sources, meditate & pray, plan the day. Usually I write this blog. Then I am off for a workout–run in the park (or a treadmill), weights 3x per week, short Yoga series. Then off to the coffee shop to write.

There are three pauses that can make all the difference in your effectiveness, balance, and outlook. They are daily, weekly, monthly. I also set aside a couple of days between Christmas and New Years to think about the coming year.

The monthly pause comes easier for me. Take a Sunday evening at the end of a month. Gather you to do lists and notes. Review your lists and notes–checking what you’ve done, not done, and wish you had done. Take a longer view of what you wish to accomplish this year and where your focus should be for the month. Perhaps take a note card and write six things that you wish to devote energy toward in the coming month. Carry this card and refer to it daily. This period of reflection could last an hour or two. Probably no more.

The weekly pause comes less easy. Sometimes Sunday evening comes with a sigh of relief, and I unwind and go to bed. But even 15-30 minutes to review the coming week’s calendar and to do lists before you go to bed will feed information into your unconscious mind and help you start the week productively.

Benjamin Franklin kept a meticulous time planner. He asked himself daily two things. When he arose, he asked, “What good shall I do today?” At the end of the day he paused to reflect, “What good have I done today?”

Sometimes days and weeks get hectic. We fall into bed exhausted. We awake exhausted.

Sometimes we take that pause for reflection. It calms us and focuses us. And we are better prepared for the day.

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Every Day Is a New Day

June 10, 2015

She wakes up in the morning already tired. The cares of yesterday already dragging her energy. One day just proceeds in dreary succession after the previous.

We have been there. We lose hope for anything better. God? We used to be aware of his presence.

A saying of a Desert Father who said that every  single day he made a fresh beginning.

How can we break that cycle of despair and make a fresh beginning of each day? We still have those old problems.

One thing we can do is breathe. In the Greek (actually as in other languages) the word for breath is either the same or similar for spirit. Ancient people have consistently paired intentional breathing with inculcation of the spirit.

We arise early. it is a dicsipline–also can be made a habit. 

We find our favorite chair or maybe floor pillow. We sit. Breathe. Deeply inhale. Slowly exhale. We focus our mind on our breath. We relax.

That is one way to begin a morning fresh.

Then we can read. Read in the Bible. Read a devotional book. Read a motivational book. Something for the restoration of the soul and nourishment of the mind.

With the perspective we gain, we can look at yesterdays problems with fresh eyes. We can look at what we can change and what we can ignore and what we can live with.

Every single day we can make a fresh beginning.

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From Optimism To Disillusionment

June 9, 2015

The Stages of a Project:

  • Enthusiasm,
  • Disillusionment
  • Panic and hysteria
  • Hunt for the guilty
  • Punishment of the innocent
  • Reward for the uninvolved.

All of us who have done project work have seen a variation of this joke. Unfortunately, many of us have seen some variation of this in real life. We thought this was a modern thing.

In the sayings of the Desert Fathers, an Elder used to say:

In the beginning when we got together we used to talk about something that was good for our own souls, and we went up and up, and ascended even to heaven.
But now we get together and spend our time in criticizing everything and we drag one another down into the abyss.

How often do we do this? We join an organization. We start a new company, committee, church, project full of enthusiasm. Then someone starts criticizing. Something about criticizing causes it to spread like an invasive weed.

How often I have witnessed its destructive force on people and organizations.

How often I have caught myself crossing the line from analysis to criticism only to say to myself, “Fool, what have you just said?”

There exist at least two problems. One is leadership. Somewhere the leader lost focus or allowed the group to lose focus of the vision. The other that it is easier to criticize than create.

We run into an obstacle–that fearful thing that happens when we take our eye off our goal according to Henry Ford–and instead of saying this is a problem where we need to find a solution we throw our hands up in dismay and wail and cry and criticize.

Those whom you gather around you are important to your own well being. Gather those who talk about something good for your souls. Leave as quickly and decisively as possible those who spend time criticizing.

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What If We Were All Disciples

June 8, 2015

A disciple is someone who follows a master trying to be like the master, live like the master, talk like the master.

Jesus called the people around him at the end and gave them a vision. He wanted them all to be disciples and to make disciples of others. He also said that his disciples would be known by society at large by their love.

Maybe it was when the speaker stopped teaching and started “preaching” that my mind latched on to this idea. What would the world be like–what would it have been like–if all of Jesus’ followers actually were disciples?

Suddenly my thoughts were captured by my failures as a disciple. Have I been a good one?

That is the crux of the matter. It’s not pointing fingers at others. It’s looking first at the log in my eye before helping the other remove the spec. The German writer Thomas Mann wrote, “If everyone swept their own porch, the whole world would be clean.”

I wrote that on an engineering blog several years ago. Those darn literal engneers. One wrote back that there would still be vast areas of geography that wouldn’t be clean.

That, of course, is a metaphor. Our own porch is our own life, our thoughts, our actions, our words. 

But let’s speculate. What if all people who call themselves followers were actually disciples? What if we were all known by our love instead of our politics, or our unfounded opinions, or our stubbornness, or our fears and angers?

Maybe I’m a dreamer, but that would be a great step toward actualizing God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

And forgive me for my mind wandering during church 😉

Reminds me of the little boy who sat in class staring out the window. The teacher noticed and stopped talking. Eventually the little boy noticed the unusual silence and came into the present world. “What were you doing?” the teacher asked. “Thinking,” said the little boy. “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to think in school?” replied the teacher.

That’s me.

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Why Become a Leader

June 5, 2015

Betrayal, failure, working excessive hours, exhaustion, worry, fear.

By the time you finish Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth by Samuel Chand, you wonder why anyone would want to be a leader. He has written eleven chapters that contain about 30 stories of leaders who experienced all of that and more.

He doesn’t take the easy route out, either. No simple formulae. No quick list of top ten tricks and tips.

There is no easy solution. People are people. Some lie to you and then betray you. Some betray you yet continue to smile when you meet. It happens. It’s happened to me, it’s happened to you.

What you know is that you have a vision of how you want to make a difference. And it takes an organization to make that difference. You want to build a business, a ministry, a church, a non-profit. You begin to hire people and you think they share the vision. Then someone will turn on you. Or there will be a market setback. Revenues dry up. There are big challenges.

What Chand shows is how people worked through all the crises. You will suffer some degree of pain as a leader. It is inevitable. One would hope not to suffer as his examples did. You have to have examples out on the extreme a little in order to have enough drama for a good book.

But we all get in the middle of something and discover the pain.

How you handle the pain is the key to growth and success or decline and failure. Pain is inevitable. Overcoming it is probably a myth. But we must work through it to emerge on the other side as a stronger and more energized leader.

Many people had only intellectual knowledge of potential negative side effects of leadership. Experience drives real understanding. Especially experience reflected upon and viewed as a tough teacher.

Why lead? Because we have a vision and want to make a difference. Is it worth it? Yes.

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What If I Change My Mind

June 4, 2015

But, what if I change my mind?

The flight attendent last night asked the mandatory question of those in the exit row of the airplane. The guy beside me said yes, as we all did because we wanted the extra leg room. Then he said, “But what if I change my mind?”

He was joking, but I found the question appealing.

Now, I am not going to touch the Baptist’s “once saved always saved” doctrine.

But what if we changed our mind?

“OK, God, you win.” Followed by, “What you are asking me to do is too tough. What if I change my mind?”

Or, change the other way. Moses thought he’d defend his fellow Hebrews, then changed his mind and fled to the wilderness. Then God changed his mind–with much reluctance on Moses’ part–but now Moses grew into the role.

Or Jeremiah. God asked him to speak, much like he asked Moses to speak. Jeremiah protested. God put the pressure on. Jeremiah changed his mind.

Elijah? God put the pressure on, and he changed his mind.

Paul the Apostle? Same deal. I believe this, oops, excuse me, I changed my mind, now I believe this.

I bet there is a book lurking in this phrase.

Where do we need to change our minds today?

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Drawing From The Deep Source of Life

June 1, 2015

She was confronted by the owner of the company where she worked. His demeanor was angry as was his usual way of relating. Frustration boiled over him like an untended teapot on a hot stove. 

He was accusing her of many examples of wrongdoing. She was confused. The accusations were either greatly exaggerated or outright fabrications. She has told someone something. Huh? The accusation was vague. She had done something–it had never happened.

Then at a deep internal pause, the idea crept into her consciousness–she had been betrayed. Someone was out to get her, promoting themselves at her expense.

There are only a few choices at that point. She was on the defensive. The other person had the initiative. She could fight back, but the owner was famous for never backtracking. She could refuse to play the game and just continue doing the best work she could–oh, and also begin quietly probing contacts for job openings elsewhere.

I have just begun reading a book called Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth by Samuel Chand. He opens with a chapter on betrayal.

While I was contemplating my own experiences with betrayal, this verse from Jeremiah was part of a daily devotional:

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of the drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit. –Jeremiah 17:7-8

I love this metaphor. Jesus uses a similar one when he says, “I am the vine, and you are the branches.” Or also when he talkes about the Living Water.

When I’ve had some of these painful situations or when I’ve observed others going through the trials, I’ve seen where there is that life force that flows through life that provides strength and perspective.

Leaders who lack that life force drift into operating by pride, greed, narcissism. Parents not connected to the life force of God parent through intimidation (screaming) or by bribery. Others crumble into despair, depression, bitterness, anger, and hatred when going through trials.

I love to sit in contemplation of God’s Living Water flowing through my body and mind and soul. It’s the pause that refreshes. Then I can go and create.

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