I did it again.

One of my greatest repeated leadership failures.

I failed to L I S T E N.

Oh, I hear words.  I read emails.  I have conversations.

But sometimes I just don’t listen.

I don’t pick up on attitude.

I don’t read eyes.

I don’t notice lack of enthusiasm.

I don’t observe signs of stress.

Oftentimes in my haste, I miss the subtleties that are really the mark of good listening.

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,

James 1:19

And if I’m not listening, I really can’t lead.

If I’m not listening, I’m not aware of what the team needs.

If I’m not listening, I race to task and solutions and miss feelings and emotions.

If I’m not listening, I convey that I don’t value what the team is telling me (however silently they might be saying it.)

The first duty of love is to listen. Paul Tillich

How well are you listening to your team?

I get the question all the time “are you hiring?”  So I’m excited to say that we are!  Here are the details for our current opening.

Cross Point Church

announces the search for

Campus Pastor for Cross Point Dickson

We’re excited to extend the search for the Campus Pastor position at our Dickson, TN campus.  Cross Point Dickson launched in January 2008 and was the first venture into multi-site ministry for our church.  Cross Point Dickson has grown strong and steady for 2 1/2 years and we’re excited to find the leader who will help us take this campus to it’s next season of growth and impact.

Preferred candidates will have experience leading in a church of 500+ in regular attendance and preferably experience in a multi-site church model.

Any interested individuals should submit a resume, social media contact, website/blog info (if applicable) and cover letter to Cross Point Executive Director, Jenni Catron at jenni@crosspoint.tv.  (That’s me )

I look forward to hearing from you.  And please feel free to pass the word along to anyone you know who may be interested.

I’m really excited to announce the newest member of the Cross Point team!

Stephen Brewster officially begins today as our Creative Arts Pastor serving all four of our campuses.  Stephen (aka Brewster), his wife Jackie and their four fabulous kids – Isaiah, Ashlyn, Grace & Hope – have relocated to Nashville from Mobile, AL where Stephen was Sr. Director of Marketing at Integrity Music.

Stephen has a massive heart to help creatives reach their God-given potential and is equally passionate about seeing “the church embrace culture and began to take the lead in creating”.

He’ll be directly leading our central creative arts staff: Matt Singleton, Jarrod Morris, Miranda Telford and Matt Warren and he’ll be providing creative vision and direction to our creative staff and volunteers at all campuses.

Join me in giving the Brewsters a great big welcome!!

One of the challenges I find as a leader is sorting through all of the great resources out there for equipping yourself and your team.  There are so many GOOD books, articles, blogs, etc. that sometimes I feel like all I’m doing is reading or studying rather than applying anything that I’m learning.

I also struggle with choosing which books to study with my staff.  There are a lot of good business books out there from which you can draw some applications to church work, but is it worth having the staff read it too or should you do the homework and share the clif notes with them?

So help a girl out…

How do you clear through the clutter?

Do you have a system/process for determining what you study and/or what you study with your team?

What’s the best resource (book, blog, magazine, etc) that you’ve found this year?

I find myself processing a lot what I call the “grey” issues of leadership… the answers and decisions that are not so easy to figure out.  (I think that’s why they call it leadership, right?)

As Cross Point has grown, one of the big grey areas for me is the leadership of letting go.  I have a tendency to be a very hands-on, in-the-details leader – ok, I’ll just come out and say it… I can be a micro-manager.

I don’t mean to be.  Truly.  But I’m horribly wired to see details.  I see the direction we need to go and then I can – in a matter of seconds - rattle off every minute detail that needs to take place to get us from point A to point B.  Frankly, I wish I didn’t think this way.  Ignorance seems like bliss, but I just can’t seem to ignore details.

As Cross Point has grown, it has stretched me tremendously.  If I weren’t learning to let go, you would have probably found me somewhere in a corner curled up in the fetal position a very long time ago.

To be a leader of a growing organization you have to learn the leadership of letting go – the leadership of trust – the leadership of empowerment.

Cross Point Bellevue became a case study in this lesson for me.  There was simply too much going on for me to know all the details.  I had no choice but to trust, and thankfully we have amazing team that helps make that a bit easier.

I had to learn to know the “right” things and then I had to trust our team to handle the rest.

Was everything done exactly as I would have done it?  Probably not

Were there some surprises?  Sure

Did the campus launch extremely well?  A resounding YES

Here are some things that I didn’t know until the campus opened:

• Who our volunteer leaders were for each ministry area
• What color the classrooms were going to be
• What our furniture looked like
• How the office was going to be set up
• How many volunteers were signed up to serve the first day
• If the toilet paper was stocked, if the coffee was brewing, if there were trash cans in the building

These are just a few… and I’m sure there are many more things that I don’t even know that I don’t know.  I also know that I didn’t lead through this without my share of mistakes.  I leaned in too heavily in some areas and was unnecessarily absent in others.

But, what I’m discovering is that every leadership journey and experience will be different and I have to choose to listen and find a way to grow in the middle of it… and discern what to let go of.

How about you?  What have you learned to let go of in your leadership growth?

Leaders emerge in the heat of the moment.

That statement may not sound overly profound, but I’ve never found it to be more true than this week.

My boss began making critical decisions from the moment we realized the worst was inevitable.  That’s leadership.

Three Cross Point guys found a way through waste deep rushing water to rescue a widow who was neck deep in water in her home.  They literally carried her several blocks through that water to safety.  That’s leadership.

My husband and the rest of MNPD SWAT team worked a straight 36 hours and then have been working 12 hour shifts indefinitely to protect our city.  That’s leadership.

The Cross Point staff have given up their weekend to lead volunteer teams in disaster relief.  That’s leadership.

Hundreds of volunteers have gone into neighborhoods and helped families who were paralyzed by shock begin to make sense of what they need to do.  That’s leadership.

People all over our city have rallied to find ways to raise funds for disaster relief.  That’s leadership.

This may be one of the longest, scariest, most stressful weeks of my life… and yet I’ve been so inspired by the leaders who have stepped up to pull our city through this.

I’m so proud of the people of our community!  I love you Nashville!

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Proverbs 4:23

A few weeks ago Pete shared a message about understanding the intent of our heart.  (I posted the highlights of that message here.)

The message was really powerful, but one thing in his closing prayer really caught my attention… he prayed that we would manage people from our heart.

What does that mean to manage people from my heart?  What does that even look like?

As a leader, I recognize the value of relational leadership, but managing from the heart… I think there is a whole other level here that I need to uncover.

If the heart is the wellspring of life, then it’s the place where my life overflows… where the deepest parts of me are revealed… where what’s truest about me exists.  If I manage from my heart, it needs to be an overflow of my character.  It means I’m managing and leading my team in a style that is unique to me… and as a result it’s authentic.  It’s not an imitation of other leaders that I admire or a set of principles I’ve read in a book.  It’s an overflow of my heart and character.  It’s an overflow of the closeness I have with God and the discernment and guidance He gives.

Am I managing from my heart?

And do I like what the overflow of my heart looks like?

Great leaders lead from an abundance of love for others. I want to be that kind of leader.

What does managing from the heart mean to you?

Trust is one of life’s greatest commodities. My friend’s 10 week old baby girl already knows to trust the sound of her mother’s voice and the safety of her daddy’s arms.

Earning trust and extending trust become a natural part of our life rhythm.

The same is true in our leadership.  Trust is foundational to our leadership relationships.

While there is much that can be said about earning the trust of those you lead, I want to focus for a minute on earning the trust of those that lead you.  Oftentimes I believe we overlook the importance of earning the trust of the person who is empowering your leadership.

To earn leadership trust, I believe you need to display these three things well:

1. Accountability
2. Communication
3. Consistency

Accountability

Leadership is a big responsibility and contrary to what many new leaders assume, it doesn’t come with autonomy.  In fact, I believe leadership requires greater accountability.  As a leader you have to determine who you are accountable to and then find out what accountability means to them.  For some that may mean checking in daily, for others it may mean weekly.  Know their expectation and then live up to it.

Communication

Learn what your leader values and then make sure he/she knows about it.  I suggest you over-communicate first and then get feedback from them on what they really want to know.  The more you are looping them in, the more confident they’ll feel about your leadership and the more quickly you’ll earn their trust.  I’ll add one caution though: communication doesn’t mean popping into their office repeatedly throughout the day.  Respect their time and their schedule and work within that.  The most important thing you can do each week is come prepared with a thorough update for your weekly meeting time (assuming you have one).  Never come unprepared to a meeting with your boss – NEVER!  Unpreparedness erodes trust.

Consistency

Be consistent.  Consistently do what you say you’ll do.  Consistently deliver on what is asked of you… and in the time frame it was requested.  Unpredictability erodes trust. If you can’t be counted on, you can’t be trusted.

Having the complete trust of your leader is an amazing gift, but don’t expect it.  Earn it!

Do you agree?  What would you add to the list?

I’m a responsible person.

Most days that part of my personality is a blessing, but it also has the potential to sabotage my leadership if I’m not careful.

One of the “grey leadership” issues I’m currently working through is the difference between taking responsibility and taking personal responsibility.

As Executive Director at Cross Point I am responsible for the effective management of the staff, the stewardship of our resources and the execution of our vision.  Where this gets grey for me is when I shift this responsibility to feeling personally responsible for every activity or decision that happens at Cross Point.   When a poor decision is made, when a staff person takes the heat for something that they shouldn’t have been blamed for, or when something critical falls through the cracks, I have a tendency to take these issues personal.  I immediately go into evaluation mode wondering where I failed, where I didn’t give clear direction, where I could have helped before the incident happened?

Recently I was talking through a particular situation with my husband, trying to make sense of the feeling of failure that was overwhelming me.  My very wise husband stopped my thought process and told me that I was taking it too personal.  (Yeah, go ahead an imagine how well I responded to that. )

But after I calmed down to listen, he spoke some wisdom that I needed to hear:

My responsibility is to give clear direction, articulate expectations and coach along the way. That is my responsibility.  I can’t feel personally responsible for misses that were beyond my immediate control.  Rather than wallow in feeling like I failed somewhere, I need to lean in and coach our team through whatever the circumstance.

I’m currently reading the book The Leadership Pipeline with our leadership staff.  This book is really challenging me to consider the value shifts that I need to make to reach the next level of my leadership.  I realize that I’m having to make a value shift in regard to responsibility.

I am not personally responsible for every action of our staff, but I am responsible for making sure I am providing direction, coaching and clear expectations.  Not taking personal responsibility does not mean that I am not engaged or involved. It just means that every miss doesn’t become a personal setback for me as a leader. We will miss it.  We will miss it often and I can’t let our misses turn into a personal defeat.

What about you?  Do you assume more responsibility than you should?

If you are in the second chair, you have not been called to a place of comfort; you have been called to a place of leadership.“

This quote is from one of my all-time favorite books entitled Leading from the Second Chair: Serving Your Church, Fulfilling Your Role, and Realizing Your Dreams (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series) by Mike Bonem and Roger Patterson.

Leading at any level is difficult, but being a second chair leader – that leader that isn’t the CEO, Pastor, President, etc, but is the next tier of leadership directly serving these types of first chairs – has it’s own unique set of challenges. In my opinion, most second chair leaders have to balance many of the challenges of strategic planning, future development and business administration details with an awareness and intentionality to relationally leading the staff on a daily basis. The Second Chair is the leader that the team needs feedback, encouragement and direction from on a daily basis.

But, the see-saw of going back and forth from business to staff relations can make any good leader a little dizzy and unfocused.

Because I’m wired to be “task first”, I have to be very intentional to see-saw over to the relational side. The heaviness of the business, management and develop stuff can easily keep me grounded on that side if I let it. Remember when the big kid would get on the see-saw and keep you dangling in the air? Yep, that’s me. I’m the big kid on the business side holding down the see-saw while my staff are dangling in the air on the relational side dieing for a chance to come back down.

Odds are we all lean to one side or the other. Most of us are wired to be “task” or “people” first. Striking a balance between the two and having the discernment to know when to lean into one or the other, is a leadership skill that is developed over time.

Since I lean to the “task” side, I have created a few questions that help me know when and how to see-saw back to relationship.

My relationship questions:

• What does the team need from me today? Encouragement? Direction? A listening ear? Practical help?
• What tasks do I have and how can I take care of them so that I’m energized and able to focus on the team?

If you are naturally a relationship person who needs help see-sawing over to the task side more consistently, here are a few questions you might ask yourself:

• What is one thing I can do today that will help better prepare our organization and staff for the future?
• What is the best time and place for me to work on my leadership tasks and how can I adjust my schedule to create intentional time to work on these priorities?

Here’s the deal, the see-saw will never be perfectly balanced. Remember how hard you tried to scoot up or scoot back on the see-saw to balance the weight so both you and your friend would be floating in mid-air? A lot of work for short reward.

Embrace the see-saw… just remember to not get stuck on one side or the other!

How about you? Which side of the leadership see-saw do you have the potential to get stuck on? Task or Relationship?