Following on from a previous post I’ve been reminded about the importance of discipline in leadership from a number of sources.
A couple of weeks ago the Belfast Tempo group visited a business run by a family who are Christians. Reflecting on his practices, experience and passion the father reminded our group that Christian leadership flows out of a vibrant relationship with God. Making ethical decisions and treating staff well flowed for him out of time spent before work in prayer and God’s word. A similar commitment to spiritual discipline in seen in this interview with the theologian and former Bishop, NT Wright who has a rhythm of morning and evening prayer.
Discipline has many benefits in all aspects of our leadership. Discipline builds character and also develops our skills. The now CEO of the aforementioned family business was also describing to us the annual discipline of review and strategic planning that has enabled their company to grow in the midst of recession. Without the discipline of reflection, planning and prioritising we simply end up reacting and chasing our tails. Days I sit with my email open are often less productive than the days when my day is structured with (roughly) set times to respond to emails.
Michael Hyatt also talks about the benefits of a regular (disciplined) approach to exercise and to reading – habits that keep up our energy levels. Disciplined people are disciplined both in their thinking and their action.
For many of us the word discipline is not one that excites us. Perhaps thinking of it as building healthy rhythms into our leadership can be helpful.
I know that when I have a good rhythm of time with God, of exercise, of reading, of spending time with people who energise me then I am more engaged in work and enjoy my days more.
What are the things that if you built into a healthy and regular rhythm would help you operate at your best and enable you to serve those you lead most effectively?
Short interview with Chris Wright with some interesting insights on developing leaders and discipleship at 3.39.
Thanks to Medris Kinnon Productions
Good strategy almost always looks simple and obvious and does not take a thick deck of Powerpoint slides to explain.
It does not pop out of some “strategic management” tool matrix, chart, triangle, or fill in the blanks scheme.
Instead, a talented leader identifies the one or two critical issues in the situation – the pivot points that can multiply the effectiveness of the effort – and then focuses and concentrates action and resources on them.
Richard Rumelt
I love new year and all that it reminds us about the possibility of fresh starts and new beginnings – how God’s grace is continually poured out on us and his Spirit empowers us to begin again or work with him again on some stuff we’ve forgotten.
Don Miller in this blog on Reputation vs character issues a timely reminder that the start of a new year is an opportunity to focus on what matters – and that building character is much more important than building our reputations.
For (young) leaders a new year is a perfect time to recommit to developing the gifts and abilities God has given us – for the sake of those we serve. HBR have an excellent piece on 5 resolutions for aspiring leaders. The first two – find a mentor and form a leadership development group are at the heart of what we are doing through Tempo (now recruiting for a new Dublin group).
New year resolutions are something I’m not so hot on as they don’t tend to last. However, this article from the99percent takes a really helpful approach and recommends simplifying your approach to reflect, select and remove.
Reflecting on the year that is past, on what went well, on the difficulties, on what we have learned is a crucial aspect of leadership growth and a discipline I struggle with as an activist. Select refers to choosing a few simple goals that are specific and achievable to focus on. I found this really helpful as I chatted over dinner with my wife last night about what mine might be and we agreed 3 together. Lastly remove. Stopping doing something is difficult but to quote a leader I once interviewed “my noes give value to my yeses”. Many of us are simply doing too many things to do them well. Maybe this year we should choose one or two things that we fill focus on doing excellently and stop doing other things to enable that to become reality.
Wishing you experience the hope, joy and peace of advent and the incarnation this Christmas.
And some enjoyment from a few of my favourite Christmas discoveries.
First, something to watch:
If you liked that check out this year’s offering.
Then something to listen to: Bruce Cockburn – Cry of a Tiny Babe
My favourite Christmas song this year listen to it here on Spotify
Like a stone on the surface of a still river
Driving the ripples on forever
Redemption rips through the surface of time
In the cry of a tiny babe
And finally something to read:
Check out Brian Walsh’s rewrite of Mary’s song here or the Transforming Centre’s inspiring advent blog series.
Happy Christmas!
Are you in your twenties or thirties and looking to develop your leadership gifts, skills and abilities?
Would you like to do so in the context of a group of young leaders learning and journeying together as they explore how to lead missionally in 21st century Ireland?
If so (or you know someone who fits that bill) then Tempo is for you.
Tempo is 12 month holistic leadership training experience from Innovista Ireland which young leaders undertake alongside their current leadership responsibilities. You can read more about here.
A new Tempo group is starting in Dublin in February. For more information contact sam (dot) moore (at) innovista (dot) org
Graham is team leader of Fresh Expressions and you can check out more of their resources on www.freshexpressions.org.uk
I’m reading, thinking and talking a lot about vision at the moment.
From teasing out an understanding of vision with the teenagers we are piloting Future Leaders with to Tempo in Belfast this Saturday, it’s all about vision.
Vision is one of those misunderstood and abused words and concepts. It has become significantly cheapened with each ‘vision statement’ that hangs on a wall or gathers dust in a cupboard and is never enacted. Yet it remains a powerful concept.
I know of churches which have incredible vision statements which never get mentioned. I know of churches and organisations that are suspicious of the ‘baptism’ of too much that reeks of a business sector steeped in capitalism and values which often run counter to that of the kingdom of God.
I get frustrated by a ‘defence’ or theology of vision that only uses the ‘without vision the people perish’ verse. It isn’t a great translation which you’ll notice if you look at any other version other than the KJV. Vision in the bible is much more deeply rooted than one verse in Proverbs.
I get frustrated by a lack of vision, when people attempt what they think they can manage not what God is calling them to.
I get frustrated by too much emphasis on the ‘vision comes from within’ line, or an overemphasis on vision coming from the leader – which can perpetrate unhelpful models of authoritarian leadership. The bible is very much about community and I believe that vision is best birthed and percolated in community. Vision is also not about my dreams about a better future. Vision comes from God. In our approach to vision in the Christian community we need to rediscover the disciplines of discernment and listening to God. We need to be soaked in the scriptures because our ‘picture of a better future’ is always a picture of how life should be, of how people and places and processes and relationships and structures would look if the Lordship of Jesus was given full expression. That is why vision is crucial, because vision is about eschatology, it is about the church being the church, it is about the Kingdom of God breaking into this world and being expressed and demonstrated. It is about hope. And it brings hope.
Maybe the Proverbs verse is more apt than we realise – where there is none of God’s revelation, none of his prophetic vision, the people throw of all restraints and live as they like.
As we discern God’s vision for the context we are in – or as we discern how God’s rule and kingdom should be expressed in our context we are following in the footsteps of the OT prophets as they painted pictures of life under the rule of the Messiah – “on that day…”. Vision is nothing new, although we may find different ways of putting it in a plan or on a wall or on a document. At it’s heart vision is the living picture of God’s kingdom coming on earth as it is on heaven. Vision is about hope – not the “I hope that one day” but the certain hope of the power of the resurrection breaking into a fractured world. And we certainly need more of that.
We need communities with the discipline to listen, the courage to submit to Jesus as Lord and to live that out vividly.
We need that clear prophetic vision that brings hope.
We need leaders to serve their communities by clearly discerning what God is calling us to in this particular place at this time (not what God is calling people in another country to do that we can replicate, or what He called people 200 years ago to).
“You will often find that people who are most effective are those who have taken the long route to leadership. They are often in the background as youngsters. You often find that the people sitting in the back row [of the college debating society] listening are running the country 30 years later”
Brian Maurer
Interesting perspective on Irish leadership, and one I’ve heard before. Does this mean that it is more difficult for young leaders in Ireland to be heard/respected?
From Leadership in Ireland: Insights from Contemporary Irish Leaders in the Public, Private and Voluntary Sectors ![""](http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=thesoapbox00-21&l=as2&o=2&a=1842181998")
Post to follow next week.
On Friday night the 3 amigos of myself, Mark Faulkner and Mark Gorman loaded our bikes into the van, and headed off into the rain on the 350km road trip to Skibbereen for the South Coast Adventure Race. As you know we were competing to raise funds for our Future Leaders pilot - equipping teenagers with the character and skills to be leaders of the future.
After registering and finally finding the bike drop ( a clearing in the middle of nowhere with a floodlight and few hundred very expensive bikes) it was back to the hostel to join our support team of Emily and Olivia. And get the pasta and tuna in for some night before carb loading. I fear we weren’t the sweetest smelling.
Eschewing the pasta we settled on a more conventional breakfast and it was off to the start line. As we were waiting for the bus to the starting point (a country lane in the middle of nowhere) then rain started. And got heavier. It was on the bus we learned that the 25km cycle we thought we were doing was actually a third longer at 32km…
Waiting to start
To be honest most people weren’t particularly interested in the pre-match safety briefing and race overview. Apart from “be careful, the roads are wet and greasy for cycling.” The rain was coming down hard and we needed to get moving. Within 5 minutes of puddles, both feet were well and truly soaked.
At the end of 4km were the bikes, some Lucozade Sport and the start of the first cycling stage. 24km including a rather ridiculously steep hill which had everyone pushing the bikes up. What goes up must come down and boy did that road plummet down – rather scarily. I’m not sure I want to repeat that out of control speed on a wet gravelly road anytime soon!
24km later (in the lashing rain) it was time to leave the bikes and tackle next 4km hill climb/run. The first 4km run took us around 23mins, this one took 45mins. At moments like this I regretted not taking more time to look at the route beforehand. The 200m climb wasn’t exactly a gentle one. It involved lots of steps – as in stone staircases! At least it was a downhill run through the trees and track from there on.
The next 6km cycle saw the sun come out and suddenly we were able to see and enjoy the surrounding countryside. The sun and wind allowed our soaking clothes to dry out a little which was a relief. Mark Gorman did comment that he wouldn’t be bothered about falling in while kayaking as he couldn’t get any wetter.
At the kayak transition point I was very glad to have the 2 Marks with me. After putting my bike down and taking my first bite of snickers, my left calf went into cramp. And then the right one. And my right quad a little which made relieving the calf cramp tricky! I spent the next 5 mins on by back with the boys helping sort out my cramp. Mark Faulkner had already completed his kayak and Mark Gorman, aware of my cramp issues volunteered to kayak with me in a double kayak in case my legs went again. 2 minor collisions and a meandering course later (that probably meant we kayaked about 3km instead of 1.5km) the quote was “we should never try to kayak together again”. To be fair, most of the double kayaks appeared to have more trouble maintaining a straight course than the single ones. Having dried out a bit we were now wet and cold again so were glad to get back on the bikes for the final 2km cycle back to base.
They hadn’t mentioned the obstacle course at the end in the race briefing. Gorman enjoyed the opportunity to steal a place or two, whereas I prayed and hobbled most of my way over, under and through the obstacles. We learned later that the hay bale was particularly nasty, with several people’s calved cramping on the way over.
The finish line was certainly a welcome sight, as were our support team, the hot showers and the largest steak burger I have ever seen for lunch.
Thank you to all who sponsored and supported us. Your support will allow us to make a difference in the lives of more teenagers like Robbie. It’s not too late to sponsor us at sponsor.ie or if you are a UK taxpayer at Justgiving.
You can check out the other photos on Facebook or here.
