A Month of Gratitude, Day 8
December 17, 2008
The days have gotten busier as the close of my time at North Point draws to a close, and I haven’t gotten in as many posts in this series as I’d wanted. But from the time I started this series, I knew what the last two posts would be. Yesterday as I cleaned out my desk, I threw away seven years worth of conference notebooks. I realized how much teaching on leadership I’ve gotten over these seven years (not to mention getting to watch great leaders and learn from experience). So in this next-to-last post I’d like to share how grateful I am for the leadership lessons I learned during my time at North Point.
This list won’t be exhaustive, and I reserve the right to come back and add to these as I rembember more (as there are a lot). So borrowing a line from David Letterman…from the home office in Alpharetta, Georgia, here are the top leadership principles I learned at North Point:
- Leadership is a stewardship. Andy did a talk on this a couple years ago at a staff meeting and then turned around a few weeks later and did the talk at Catalyst. The bottom line was that God establishes all authority, that authority is temporary, and you are accountable. This principle keeps me grounded. It reminds me that I am still the prodigal son who has nothing but what God gives me, regardless of how “successful” I am or how big my title is.
- Think Gray. This is an idea that I picked up from Steven Sample, president of USC and author of the Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, at Willow’s Leadership Summit a few years ago. The idea is that you should delay making a decision until you have to, because to do so before that time would eliminate the possibility of getting new information that might affect your decision. People who have worked on my teams through the years probably think I’ve taken this one too much to heart.
- Leadership is disappointing people at a rate they can stand. John Ortberg said this at a Leadership Summit a couple years ago, and the idea really stuck for me. There is so much wisdom in just considering the timing of decisions and how they will be received by people.
- Trust is the foundation of a team, and when presented the opportunity a team member needs to choose trust over suspicion. This is the conglomeration of two complementary messages. The first was from Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team. This is a must-read for any manager or leader of teams. The second message of choosing trust over suspicion is a staff leadership lesson Andy did years ago.
- There is no substitute for hiring great people. This lesson came first from Jim Collins’s book Good to Great that pointed out that great companies focused on getting the right people “on the bus,” then focused on where to put them. I then learned this in practice through hiring great people. We were insane about hiring the right people at North Point. To prove it, we once interviewed 48 candidates before hiring the right guy. That’s not a typo – 48 candidates. It was painful, but in the end we got a phenomenal guy (who has actually changed roles since then but is a huge asset to the organization).
- Leaders challenge what is for what should be. Andy did a staff talk years ago called ‘Challenging the Process’ that drove this principle home. This principle is what drives leaders to change things and sometimes drives those around them crazy. Leaders are never satisfied with what is; they are always mindful of what should be.
- You don’t have to be certain about a decision, but you do have to be clear. There are almost no decisions for which you have total certainty. There is almost always an element of doubt and faith. Leaders have to make the best decision with the information that they have and then be prepared to adjust. We had the opportunity to meet with Andy recently, and one of the things he challenged us on as a team is being decisive. He said, “You can recover from bad decisions, but it’s hard to recover from indecision. People will follow you if you make a bad decision and correct course, but if you don’t decide eventually they stop following.”
- Words matter. What you say and how you say it is incredibly important, especially when you’re casting vision or trying to lead people to do something. It’s been a real privilege to watch Andy be relentless about honing the “one idea” in every sermon he preaches and see how hard he works to state that bottom-line in just the right way.
- Conflict is a good and necessary part of leadership. This one I learned the hard way – through trial and error. I have learned that there is a process to go through and a right way to approach conflict (Matthew 18:15-17), but it should not be avoided. In fact, it is best to try and keep “short accounts” – address issues that arise quickly so that they don’t become bigger.
- Leadership is all about being a servant. This is a lesson I continue to learn every day from my Savior. I continue to learn that in God’s economy, down is up, and that whoever desires to be great must be a servant of all. The more I have embraced that role and sought to serve those I lead, the more joy I have had in leadership and the more fruit I have seen in my work.
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Is it just me, or do a lot of leaders seem to practice the exact opposite of #7 ?
Brendt,
I don’t think it’s just you…