A People-Focused Leader

It’s probably no surprise to you all that I love learning about being a better leader. I’ve gravitated towards leadership over the years. At first, I would say that I fell into it - leadership that is. It’s not that I boisterously made my way into every group to be their leader. Kind of the opposite. I began just by making myself available to help. I served in my student ministry playing guitar, running sound and slideshows, and then when there formed a servant leadership team, I joined that as well.

That’s how I learned to view leadership - serving - and over time, I’ve seen that that is the kind of leader I want to be. A leader whose concerns are for caring for their team and pushing them to be able to do their jobs. It’s common to see leaders that only care about themselves - serving themselves, or having the people below them serving them. Working for these leaders make you feel drained because you take on all the pressure without any reward for your hard work. However, working for a people-focused leader instead helps you go even further than you could on your own. Your capabilities are greater when you have an army working alongside you and a leader ready to go with you.

I want to be that kind of leader. The one that goes alongside you. And I believe you should be that too. You don’t have to be in charge to lead serve those around you.

Watch History

Break Free From Bad Habits

In my endeavors to be a better leader, I’ve gotten so much insight from The Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast. Craig Groeschel serves as the lead pastor of Life Church that now has over 45 locations across the U.S. A few years back he began this podcast to help more leaders become better leaders and it’s been really great following the episodes.

In this episode, he begins a 2-parter sharing bad habits that leaders often fall into. I’ll share an abbreviated version of the show notes but you can get your own copy of the full document by watching the youtube video and following the link in their description.

1. The Habit of Doing Too Much

Doing too much not only steals your energy but also suffocates your productivity.

• Evaluate: Use Craig’s four tiers of efficiency to categorize every task into one of the tiers. Focus on spending more time on tier one and two activities, and less time on tier three and four. Watch the full episode breaking down the four tiers here: https://go2.lc/LGFourTiers 

• Eliminate: Growing impact starts with subtraction not addition. Stop asking yourself “Can I do this?” Instead, ask yourself “Should I do this?” Just because you could do something, doesn’t mean you should.

• Delegate: If you’re unwilling to delegate, it will inevitably become the bottleneck that strangles your team’s potential.

• Automate: Look for anything you can streamline or automate. One area many leaders forget is automating your decisionmaking process. You can pre-decide what you say yes to and what you say no to.

To be great at what you do, you don’t let others determine where you spend your time. You intentionally invest your time where it will get the highest return.

The best leaders never just do more. They do more of what matters most.

2. The Habit of Avoiding Conflict

Conflict is inevitable in leadership, yet many leaders fall into the trap of ignoring it.

So how do you handle conflict well?

• A. Change your mindset about conflict.
  You have to think about conflict at work like conflict in a marriage. Conflict is inevitable in a marriage. All couples fight, but healthy couples fight clean. The same is true in leadership. It’s not if you’ll face conflict, it’s how you face it.
  
  Change your mindset so that conflict doesn’t mean the end of a relationship, but rather it’s an opportunity to strengthen the relationship.
  

• B. See problems early and solve them quickly.
  When someone wrongs or offends you, go directly to them immediately and work to restore the relationship.
  

• C. Be willing to hash it out and walk out united.
  Healthy conflict isn’t about winning or losing. It’s about growing and learning. Whenever there’s tension, do your best to give your team members the benefit of the doubt, and seek to restore the relationship.

3. The Habit of Doing What You’ve Always Done

Craig would suggest there are two exceptions to this quote:

• If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll often get less of what you’ve always got.

This is also known as the law of diminishing returns.

As time goes on, the world changes and what worked yesterday might not work as well today. When this happens, leaders are often slow to notice or double down and try to do an outdated idea better.

The greatest threat to future success is often past success.

• If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll occasionally get more than you’ve always got.

Some leadership habits are like investing. Over time, the results compound and accelerate.

A Follow-Up Podcast

When it comes to being a person-focused or team-focused leader, there’s a consistent name you hear about, and that is Simon Sinek. Simon has written many books on leadership like Start With Why, The Infinite Game, and Leaders Eat Last. I haven’t gotten around to reading the books but they are on my list! I have listened to many of Simon’s talks on the matters though.

Simon brings a different perspective to being a business leader and to what the purpose is of business and leadership. In this conversation, Groeschel and Sinek discuss leadership beliefs that need to be foregone in the current age.

I love listening to Simon because his leadership advice is so refreshing because it’s so people-focused. I highly recommend taking the time to listen to this as well as more from Simon Sinek and Craig Groeschel.

Add to Watch Later:

• Navigating Belief, Skepticism, and the Afterlife | Alex O'Connor

• LIVE DEBATE: Cliffe and Stuart Knechtle vs Alex O'Connor and Phil Halper

• The Money Making Expert (NEW): The 7,11,4 Hack That Turns $1 Into $10K Per Month! Daniel Priestley

Psst. I made a Playlist on YouTube for the videos I’ve mentioned here so that you can always refer back to it!

Reading List

We Who Wrestle With God by Jordan Peterson

Section 3 is so fascinating! We depart from The Garden and move on to the story of Cain and Abel. However, before we really get into the story, we must seek to wrap our minds around Work. Why do we work? What does it mean to work? What it the ultimate purpose of working? Peterson describes Work as “Doing what needs to be done, instead of what I want to do for the sake of present gratification.” In light of Genesis 3 and the decree given by God that we will toil for the rest of our days, what is the purpose? Peterson argues that “God is the ultimate up in the upward aim. The work that truly redeems; the work that is truly pleasing to God - that is the complete sacrifice of all for what is truly highest.”

What I gained from that chapter, (yes that was just a chapter) was that work is always positioned towards something - some goal or purpose. However, work is only ‘worth it’ - for us and for the grand scheme of things - when the ultimate purpose is positioned in the highest upward call. This book is incredible. Jordan unravels every concept to explain every possible meaning found in the text/the stories.

The Growth Log Library

I’ve compiled a list of the books that I mention in case you want to pick any of it up. Full disclosure, these are affiliate links. Doesn’t cost anything extra on your end, I just get a kickback if you use my link to make a purchase.