Danielle Strickland shares why developing honesty is important for your leadership.
Life Habits – Be Honest
Month: January 2020
Life Habits – Be Committed to Learning
Mayor Aja Brown says you need to invest in yourself for your team to grow.
The Power of Doing Absolutely Nothing
Busyness (and the stress that comes with it) has become a defining aspect of our lives and work.
Ask someone how they are, and you’ll likely hear about how busy they are. We live at an exhausting pace. It’s tempting to think we need to run harder and faster and more efficiently to get it all done.
If you stop for a minute and get quiet, you may begin to feel just how tired you are.
We’re doing good things, right? We’re building into our businesses, our teams, our families for the better. So, more must be the answer.
There’s an interesting Dutch discipline that runs counter to this narrative of busy and more: the practice of niksen—the practice of doing absolutely nothing.
What, you say? Do nothing? Be idle?
This is the opposite of the productivity! Or so we think.
In the July 2019 TIME Magazine article titled What is Niksen?, Sophia Gottfried unpacks the concept: Whereas mindfulness is about being present in the moment, niksen is more about carving out time to just be, even letting your mind wander rather than focusing on the details of an action.
Research is showing the benefits of slowing practices like niksen:
- Enhanced creative problem solving
- Increased clarity
- Reduced anxiety
- Enhanced immune systems
Any of these sounding helpful or desirable to you?
At GLS19, Jo Saxton reminded us that our leadership lives in our bodies. She challenged us to pay attention to the stress and anxiety we are carrying in our bodies, minds and emotions. We cannot sustainably lead otherwise.
Let me be clear. I am terrible at this.
As a perfectionist, and a performer, I am tempted to hold up all my doing and achieving to show you who I am—to define my value and prove my worth.
As we brave the stillness, we find our way. We find what’s true. We find ourselves.
It’s taken major stops in my life—stops like breast cancer—twice—for me to learn the value of the slowing. Of paying attention to my body and to my soul. Because I can’t lead well, or at all really, without them.
And it’s terrifying, honestly. The stopping and the slowing. Because in this place, I’m not producing. I become empty. I do nothing. I wait. And I listen.
We are so unaccustomed to the stillness. It seems so unproductive, after all. In truth, it makes most of us terribly uncomfortable because we fear the quiet. If we are still, we won’t be seen, heard, pursued, valued. If we are still, we will hear the voice of self-doubt lurking just beneath the surface.
As we brave the stillness, we find our way. We find what’s true. We find ourselves.
Finding a New Rhythm
In the Bible, the psalmist invites us to “be still and know” (Psalm 46:10).
Know God. Know yourself. Know what to do next.
As leaders, it’s imperative that we craft a way of life for ourselves that is responsive to body and soul.
Jesus observed this rhythm, withdrawing often to lonely places after productive ministry seasons (Mark 6:31). Sustainability was more important than their stories of success.
What does practicing moments of stillness look like in your organization?
Perhaps you could take time in meetings, at the beginning and at key junctures, for prayer. Or you could establish a norm for you and your staff to take a day of solitude each month. Or consider scheduling regular periods for personal silence during your work week. Or perhaps you could make it normative to take all vacation time and completely unplug.
During strategic planning days and retreats, it is a regular practice for our Roots&Branches team to begin with an extended time of quiet. We each pray silently and listen for the ideas, thoughts and priorities that rise in our minds and hearts. When we come back together, each person shares what they’ve sensed in this time.
Without fail, we begin to see themes arise. Clarity comes. And we have a unified sense of direction.
Practicing Nothing
New rhythms require new practices. If you’re a beginner, a few minutes a day is a great place to start.
New rhythms require new practices.
I encourage you to begin with a five-minute sit every day and see what happens….
If sitting still is hard for you, take a walk in silence. If finding time is hard for you, write this rhythm into your calendar. As you build your muscle for rest, solitude and silence, try longer stretches of time. Experiment with new practices alone and in community.
Try it now for a minute or two.
- Shut off all media.
- Sit comfortably in your chair with both feet on the floor.
- Take a few slow, deep breaths.
- Settle into the silence.
- Do nothing.
If thoughts of all the things you need to do start flooding your mind, take a moment to jot them down and release them, knowing you can come back to them later.
- Breath. Release.
Slowly a new rhythm is formed.
By releasing yourself from “doing,” you will feel sustained and renewed.
And—ironically—your leadership clarity, vision and even productivity will grow by doing absolutely nothing.
007 Jo Saxton: For Wholistic Health
The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women by Valerie Young
Level-Up Your Leadership, Jo Saxton GLS Talk
Fort Wayne’s City-Wide Movement Unites Leaders Around a Single Cause Through the Summit
What started as a single event in South Barrington, Illinois, The Global Leadership Summit is now hosted in more than 1,500 churches, auditoriums, offices, board rooms, school gyms and even prisons, reaching more than 400,000 people around the world. It’s amazing to think about how this ministry has grown.
In the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, the Summit is having a unique, city-wide impact. What started in a church venue, it is now gathering 2,000+ leaders at a convention center in the Allen County Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne. They describe the Summit as a catalyst and a platform to bring change to make their city a better place to live.
“It will never get old,” says Lori Whitman, Spiritual Development Coordinator at Parkview Health in Fort Wayne, Indiana. “The moment happens when the lights dim, the doors close and all of our leaders are together for two days to be renewed, encouraged, empowered and loved. I look at it and say, look at what God is doing, He is so good!”
When I see this many leaders together in a room, taking the time for themselves, it brings me to tears.
Growing up as a pastor’s daughter, Lori has a special place in her heart for encouraging and empowering leaders. In her key volunteer role as event manager for the Summit in Fort Wayne for the last 16 years, she’s been able to do just that. “I’m a pastor’s daughter and have worked for high level corporate leaders and pastors for most of my career; the one thing I know is that they give and give, and rarely take time to feed themselves. The Summit is perfect to give them this space—and it’s in our city, so there’s no transportation, lodging or meals to have to figure out.
“Through the Summit, I’m growing to love people more, learning how to empower people to a degree where I hope they feel valued and have purpose. When I see this many leaders together in a room, taking the time for themselves, it brings me to tears. We are seeing people’s lives changed.”
The Summit united leaders around a vision for the city of Fort Wayne
Through the Summit, the GLS & Beyond, a 501c3 non-profit was formed. The GLS & Beyond board of directors realized that the Summit is a unique platform to see the change they longed for in their city. “It was an aha moment at one of our board meetings,” said Lori. “The president of The GLS & Beyond, Sherri Miller, asked the question, what are we doing with the Summit? What is our calling with this endeavor? Are we to do something more?”
Our eyes and ears became open to the lost in our city…
They quickly realized that God was calling them to change their city through the gospel!
No one could have predicted what was about to come out of their meeting that day. “Our eyes and ears became open to the lost in our city and how we are honored to have over 2,000+ leaders in our midst at the Summit, many of whom do not know Christ,” said Lori. “We stopped the meeting and just prayed, asking God to reveal to us what He was stirring in us.”
After the meeting, Mike Packnett, CEO of Parkview Health and Larry Lance from Youth for Christ of Northern Indiana said, why don’t we get together next month and invite a couple others and continue to seek God in this? So, they did, and 27 people showed up for the next meeting.
A city-wide movement is born
“We loved our time together, so we said, let’s do this again next month,” said Lori. “And a year and a half later, we have over 250 leaders from all different backgrounds in attendance for an amazing time of worship and prayer meeting once a month at 7:00 a.m. The power that comes over that room is like nothing I’ve ever experienced! Just recently, more than 650 leaders came to an evening prayer event! The worship band had 10 churches represented, we had intercessors leading times of prayer and I don’t think anyone wanted it to end!”
The outcome of these meetings resulted in planning ways to reach their community. “The Summit has given us unity. These leaders have attended for years and have grown to love each other and they are fired up about coming together to reach our community for Christ,” said Lori. “Pastors, non-profit leaders, corporate leaders, government leaders, and education leaders are on board. These days we are headed into a training mode to get everyone on the same page. We are looking at our community and asking the questions, what is there to do, what can we do and what will we do together. Our goal? To reach every man, woman and child with the opportunity to hear the gospel. A place to start will be right in our neighborhoods, loving each other, shining Jesus on a personal level with those around us.
“On my wall are Craig Groeschel’s words from this past Summit,
We have everything we need to do what we are called to do.
It’s time to step INTO our calling and leave doubt and insecurity behind.
Stop, Ask, Wait, Listen, Move.
“In Fort Wayne, God is speaking loud and clear. He’s divinely bringing a unity and a community spirit that we have not seen before. We’ve been watching Him pull it all together for years–and we know that now is the time.
“Go to the Summit! Bring your team–be fed, encouraged, empowered and just sit back and let us treat you to two days that you really can’t afford not to have! Be with other like leaders, network, enjoy building community. It is truly the place to be in August and you are missing out if you don’t attend!”
Life Habits – Stay Curious
Researcher Jason Dorsey challenges you to adopt a posture of continuous learning.
Generation X
Jason Dorsey, an expert on generations, discusses the unique characteristics of those born between 1965 and the late 1970s, also known as Generation X.
GLSnext Event Series Live on February 4th
While The Global Leadership Summit is two days of fresh, actionable leadership content designed to ignite transformation, the GLSnext Event Series are strategically positioned throughout the year to inspire continued growth. Additionally, GLSnext Events will include time for discussion and a Q&A session.
Live Tuesday, February 4, 2020 at 2:00-3:45 pm CT, Don’t miss the opportunity to learn from 2019 Summit favorite, Jason Dorsey, as he dives deeper into how you can harness the power of a multi-generational workplace.
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Additionally, Nona Jones, Head of Global Faith-Based Partnerships at Facebook, will be joining us to talk about the role social technology plays in building healthy communities and healthy connections.
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Get your questions ready for the live segment of Q&A discussion with Jason and Nona, hosted by none other than Summit faculty, Danielle Strickland. You won’t want to miss the opportunity to develop your leadership as you kickoff 2020!
Life Habits – Be Persistent
Gabriela Faria shares why perseverance in your leadership matters.
You Need This Key Relationship to Thrive in the New Year
For several years, the Global Leadership Network and I partnered to conduct a series of leadership retreats on Lake Michigan. We invited groups of pastors and business leaders for a day and a half of coaching in a beautiful place, about four or five times a year. I loved the experience and the deep interaction with these leaders in an intimate and confidential setting, where all could get real.
Since we were having so many leaders come through on an ongoing basis, I decided to do some research, so on the first night I gave them a questionnaire. There were several areas I wanted to explore to get a picture of how they lived, led, worked and grew, as well as what they struggled with. I learned a lot from gathering this data.
But one finding from the research stood out to me more than all the others. Three of the questions we asked were highly correlated.
Here are those three questions:
1. Do you have relationship(s) that are totally confidential, where you can be 100% transparent and with person(s) who are not stakeholders in what you do? And you let them know everything about how you are doing with totally honestly?
2. Do you have relationship(s) with the sole purpose of helping you get better as a leader? Like a coach, a mentor or a therapist who helps you heal or build skills?
3. Have you have had any condition in the last 2 years that has gotten to “clinical” levels? Like depression, burnout, stress, a habit or addiction, anxiety, etc.
The data came back with these findings:
70-80% of the leaders said that they did NOT have a committed relationship where they were safe to be 100% transparent, and the relationship was totally confidential and not someone who depended on them in some way.
70-80% of the leaders said that they did NOT have a coaching or mentoring relationship that was solely committed to and skilled at helping them improve as a leader.
Honestly, these two findings totally surprised me. I could not believe that that many high-level leaders were virtually “going it alone,” receiving no help. It was shocking to me that they were that alone and without anyone who just built into them. But after seeing those scores, the results of the third question did not surprise me at all:
70-80% of the leaders said YES to having some condition of pain, distress or reduced functioning, which had reached clinical proportions.
The findings from the third question did not surprise me at all, because that is what happens when no one is building into the leader who is always giving and pouring him or herself out for others. In other words, if they were going it alone, getting no help, they were going to ultimately end up suffering in some way.
How could it have been any other way? Leadership, or life for that matter, was not designed to be done without help, support and coaching relationships that build into the leader. Ask any Navy SEAL.
I spend most of my working days coaching and consulting with CEOs and other high performers. These days, there appears to be a growing appreciation for the value of coaching in the business world.
The highest performers are the ones who use coaching the most.
Not surprisingly, one of the things I have seen over the years is that the highest performers are the ones who use coaching the most. With my clients over the years, it is the superstars who I would hear from them the most. They utilize our relationship the most, go the deepest and reach out most frequently. Over most of their careers, they have always had someone like me, a coach or mentor whose sole role in their lives was to come alongside them and help them get better.
Think of it…what NFL football team or Olympic team would not have a full squad of coaches to help their highest performers get better, bounce back, improve and stay sustainable?
In corporate America, many companies now spend a lot of money making sure their CEOs and high-level leaders always have good coaches and mentors to help them. Their boards know it is crucial.
But the sad reality is this. One sector has not benefitted from this trend: the Church.
Most churches do not look out for their leaders with the same level of shepherding as many companies do. The church makes sure its leaders are there for everyone else, helping others get better, including their own staffs, but often, no one is committed to helping that leader. That is sad, and it is alarming as well. No wonder burnout and leaving ministry is as high as it is, as well as the stagnation scenarios where some leadership improvement could turn everything around in a church or ministry.
So, please learn from my informal research. Your well-being is directly related to whether you have relationships that exist to help you get better.
The entire New Testament and all of the research ever done tells us that getting to your highest level of performance requires others who encourage you, support you, teach and correct you, coach you, instruct you, heal you, weep with you, motivate and inspire you, mold you and shape you and on and on. If you try it any other way, it will not work. At best, you won’t reach your potential. At worst, you will crash or burn.
Do not let that happen.
As I wrote in The Power Of The Other, any person who is a closed system, trying to meet their own needs, will not succeed. But when you can commit to finding the right “others” who will build into you, you will get to levels you never thought possible. The right “others” will bring two key ingredients to you: new energy and new intelligence. That combination will always be required to get you to the next level.
If you don’t already have a wise counselor to help you get better, make it your mission in 2020 to find one.
So, I have one piece of advice for you today.
If you don’t already have a wise counselor to help you get better, make it your mission in 2020 to find one. It might not be easy, and as Proverbs 4:7 says, you might even have to pay for it. The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding. (NIV)
Don’t be one of the 70-80% who are suffering! Find a wise counselor, a therapist, a leadership coach, a mentor or a group. Create the team of “others” that you need.
If you are being “fed and led,” the “feeding and leading” that you do for others will be multiplied. You will have “put the oxygen mask on yourself first,” so you will have adequate breath to do all that is being asked of you. Go for it!
God Bless,
Henry
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