Leading with Clarity

January 10, 2012 Leave a Comment

Yesterday, I wrote about my desire as a leader to have all the answers. I think this really comes from a need I have for clarity. Does any of this remind you of yourself, or is this just me?

  • At the end of a meeting, I want to know exactly what the next steps are and who is in charge of those steps.
  • I need to know exactly how I am spending my workday.
  • When I have “down time” at home, I think of a million small projects I need to try to take care of.
  • I want to know exactly how to get to where I’m driving at the beginning of my drive, even if it is a 6-hour drive.
  • A meeting without an agenda is a meeting that should be canceled.

Last week, I was facilitating a full day meeting in which I was responsible for the agenda and moving things forward. Within the first five minutes of the meeting, the agenda was completely re-written (which was a good thing since my agenda missed the mark.). I knew going into this project that it would be tough, that there were no easy answers, and that we needed to make progress. However, I didn’t know what progress looked like for this team.

As the meeting progressed, I began to get more worried. Where would we end up? What are we going to be talking about? What are going to be the next steps? As calm as I looked on the exterior, my interior was racking its brain for a solution or two. My emotions were high.

During a break, I shared some of my emotions with one of the team members. I asked him the following question (which was really a question for me): If we walk out of this meeting not knowing what do to, does it make this meeting a waste? His response: trust. Trust? Trust?!?! Come on! Fast forward to the end of the day, we had three specific next steps to move forward. Trust.

Yes, I need clarity in life. Clarity is a great gift. But I learned that day that ambiguity can be a great gift as well. But I did need to trust:

  • Trust the process
  • Trust the team
  • Trust the Holy Spirit

I’ll tell you what – by lunch time that day, I was not trusting any of those things. My desire for clarity trumped trust. Looking back, I realized that trust trumps clarity. As a leader, not all the answers come clearly, but I need to be comfortable in the unknown from time to time.

I just hope that “time to time” does not happen too often!

Filed Under: Attitude Tagged With: ,

Have All The Answers?

January 9, 2012 2 Comments

A strange thing happened when I was first hired as a full time youth ministry coordinator. As a 22-year-old young adult just out of college, I was hired to be the “expert” in youth ministry for my church. At least, that’s what I thought I was hired for. I came into the parish having all the answers to make youth ministry happen. Parents came to me hoping that if I could just start an awesome youth ministry program, their teenage son or daughter would have faith and start coming to mass again. The Pastor deferred to me when any youth ministry question came up. I was asked to serve on the Liturgy Council so that we could integrate youth more fully into mass. Every where I looked, people were looking to me as the “expert.” I had to have all the answers!

Well, actually, the reality was that I didn’t have very many answers at all. I wanted to have the answers, but I just did not have the experience and wisdom. However, people had an image of me as a leader. I thought I had to live up to that image. So what did I do? I pretended to have all the answers.

Needless to say, that didn’t work out well. It’s funny how when we are giving leadership, people automatically look to us for answers. They think we have the answers. We clearly do not have all the answers. But the pressure is real. I’m no longer the 22-year-old youth minister, but I still feel that very real pressure everyday. So what do we do?

  1. Learn to say “I don’t know.” When someone comes to me asking for guidance and wisdom, I’m always shocked by their response when I say those magical three words. I think they are going to look down on me. The fact is, many people really respect you when you admit that. It takes a humble heart for a leader to admit the truth that they don’t have the answer.
  2. Pray for the answers. There has been a relationship in my life recently that has been strained by something I did. The funny thing is, I had no idea what I did. But I know I did something wrong. I didn’t know what the answer was. After racking my brain for weeks, I finally decided to take it to prayer. I asked God for wisdom and guidance, and to reveal what it was that I did. Almost immediately, the answer came to me. All of a sudden, it became clear what I did wrong. Wow, I thought to myself. I need to take this stuff to prayer more often. Do I think God will reveal the answer to me every time? Absolutely not. But in this situation, it really helped.
  3. Jump off the pedestal. Don’t let people put you on a pedestal. It’s easy to be “raised up” when you are a leader. That’s fine on occasion. But I need to remember that I am serving God in my ministry as a leader, and that helps remind me who really gets all the glory. Jesus was sometimes raised up on a pedestal. He took himself down from there. In the end, Jesus was raised up, but not on a pedestal. He was raised up on the cross.

I don’t have all the answers, but I’m learning as I go.

Filed Under: Attitude Tagged With:

Inclusion of Women in Ministry

January 6, 2012 Leave a Comment

Something weird happened on my flight back home recently. I was sitting in a row just behind first class and I noticed that there were sixteen first class seats. Of those passengers, fourteen were male and two were female. At the same time, I was listening to the soundtrack of Hairspray. One of the messages of Hairspray is that of inclusion and equality. There is a song titled “Come So Far (Got So Far to Go).” The message of the song is simple: we’ve made progress when it comes to inclusion and equality, but we have a long way to go. As I looked at the mostly male first class passengers, I couldn’t help but think about our church. As church, we have come so far when it comes to the inclusion of women, but it seems like we still have a ways to go.

What does this reflection have to do with leadership? There are a couple things that I have to come to grips with in my own way of thinking. Recently, I have asked myself some poignant questions:

Am I bias towards males? It has not escaped my observation skills to recognize that my entire team (of 3 people) is male. One hired personally by me, the other was already there when I was hired. We are also the only three males in an entire department of sixteen people. For a hierarchy that is dominated with male clergy, I have gotten used to the idea that the majority of professional lay ecclesial ministers in the Catholic Church are female (at least in my area). That is a great thing! The question still stands, am I biased towards males? Deep down, I really want to say no. But deep, deep, down, I know the answer is yes. Why? I don’t know. I’m sure our culture played a role in this, as well as stereotypes. My feminist Catholic mother would probably be upset to read this. Ask yourself the same question: are you biased towards males when it comes to your leadership in ministry? Are you biased towards females? How does this play itself out?

What can I do as a male to further women inclusion and remove gender biases and stereotypes? This is a much harder question to answer. I do believe it starts with first asking yourself the above question. If we study our church and ministry intently for a few minutes, I think we start to see the subtle ways that we are bias. I am reminded in the Rite of Baptism how we are all baptized to be priest, prophet and king. In our Catholic culture, all these words are male:

  • Priest: Yes, there are female priests in other denominations, but when a Catholic thinks of priest, we think male.
  • Prophet: There are female prophets in the Old Testament, but most are male.
  • King: Clearly male.

What other ways is our church biased towards males? Once we can name some of these things, we can begin to make changes in our organization and ourselves.

I honestly don’t have a lot of answers in this blog post, mostly deep questions. Maybe you can help me answer some of these questions. Please share your thoughts in the comment section.

Filed Under: Attitude

New Roman Missal Transition: Leadership Lessons Learned

January 5, 2012 Leave a Comment

Now that we’ve launched this new Roman Missal in the Roman Catholic Church, it’s worth taking a quick time-out to reflect back on our experience and glean some leadership wisdom from the experience. This is what I learned from the experience, for better or worse:

  1. The transition was not as hard as we thought it would be, at least in the area I minister in. This is connected to #2.
  2. Good preparation made the transition easy. At least in my local church experience, there was good preparation that allowed the parishioners to be ready.
  3. We assumed the average person in the pew would be more affected by this shift. We thought it would be more traumatic for them, but the fact is it wasn’t, so the transition was actually easier because of that.
  4. New words, same liturgy. We still need to focus on the important aspects of liturgy: hospitality, preaching, and music. Many people come to church for those reasons, not because of the specific words we pray.
  5. It’s been harder for our brother priests than it has been on the typical lay parishioner. Why? More of their words have changed. Eucharistic prayers, collects. A lot of words have changed that the priests say. Us lay people have some changes, but they are minor. (Now just imagine if they changed the Our Father. I’m pretty sure that might have caused anarchy! Or, if I read my thoughts above, maybe not.)
  6. People are willing and able to change.  Sometimes we get this false idea that people don’t change. The fact is sometimes people don’t change. Most of the time, they do.

These lessons can help us with any major change that we desire to bring to our church as leaders. Let’s remember this so that we can more effectively lead change in the future.

What have you learned during the transition to the new Roman Missal? Take a few moments to share your comments below.

Filed Under: Attitude, Leadership Tagged With: ,

New Year, New Ministry

January 4, 2012 Leave a Comment

The start of a new year brings an interesting energy that usually only comes around in January: energy, motivation, and enthusiasm. There’s something about a new year that gives us permission to look at the future of our ministry differently. We start the new year excited and ready to kick-butt. Hence the emphasis on New Year’s resolutions.

This is a good time and a bad time for those of us in ministry. Good time in the sense that we get disciplined and start thinking and doing things differently. Bad in that often that energy and motivation is not sustainable much past January. We must find the balance.

As a leader, let’s take advantage of the new year while being realistic of our time and energy:

  1. Re-examine your ministry goals. For many of us, we run on an academic calendar. That means we create our goals in April or May for the “new year” that begins in July. We’re half way through that year. Look your ministry goals. Are you where you want to be? Have you spent energy where it needs to be spent? This is essential to continued success in ministry. For a sense of what to do during this time, read my blog entry on Priorities.
  2. Begin anew by working on your daily, weekly, and monthly disciplines. In January, our discipline for our work is high. Take advantage of January to turn that discipline into a habit. 21 days to make something a habit, right? Well, good news: January has 31 day!
  3. Focus on the top 20%. I often stray away from the important for the urgent. What are the items that bring the greatest return? Focus on those priorities, the top 20% that bring 80% of the results in your ministry. That’s where we build energy and momentum.
  4. Create momentum. January allows us to take advantage of the “big mo”: momentum! Starting things off right allows us to create momentum by doing the other things on this list. Once you create momentum, you keep working that momentum into February, March, April…

Time to start the new year off right! How do you do that? Share with all of us in the comments section.

Filed Under: Attitude, Leadership

Don’t Manage Time… Part #3

December 30, 2011 1 Comment

This is the fifth and last post in my blog replay for 2011. This entry was originally posted on August 19, 2011.

…Manage your calendar. Managing time is impossible!

I’ve written some ideas already in Part 1 and Part 2. I recognize that there are tons of books and resources that help us manage projects, tasks, calendars, and even time. The important thing for you and me to do as we read resources like this one, is to figure out which ideas work for you every time. Don’t get caught up in using other peoples’ ideas if they don’t work. Use what works.

To end this series, here are a few more things I do on a regular basis that have really helped me in managing my calendar.

  • Schedule in time to personally and professionally grow each day. If I don’t schedule it, it won’t get done. There are four things I try to do everyday as I attempt to grow to my maximum potential. Read for 30 minutes each day a book or resource that will help me; file away good thoughts and quotes to think on later; spend time thinking through ideas; and write everyday those thoughts so that I don’t lose them in the future (that’s why I like to blog!)
  • Schedule meetings during my least productive time. For me, this is in the afternoon. The morning is when I’m the sharpest and am able to focus well on projects that I’m working on. I lose steam in the afternoon for intense focus. It’s not that I’m not being fair to the people at my meetings. It’s that I’m an extrovert, so when I gather in a group, I gain energy from their presence and they give me the pick-me-up I need to focus and accomplish a lot.
  • Ask for information in advance. If I know that on my to-do list, I’m going to work on the agenda for the pastoral council meeting on Thursday, then I need to ask for agenda items in advance of my Thursday planning time. That way, when I’m actually creating the pastoral council agenda, I have all the information I need to get the task done.
  • View my calendar in the week view. It’s easier to read and less intimidating.
  • Never schedule to the minute time with family. I do all this managing of my calendar for my ministry/work hours so that I can spend as much quality time with my family as I can without bringing work home. My goal is to never bring work home. That’s why I plan the way I do.
  • I don’t do any of this when I’m on vacation!

John Burroughs wrote:

“I find each day too short…
For all the thoughts I want to think,
For all the walks I want to take,
For all the books I want to read,
For all the friends I want to see.”

But if I manage my calendar well, then maybe, just maybe, I won’t find the days too short to do all that I want to do.

Filed Under: Attitude, Leadership Tagged With: , , , ,

A Leader’s Response to Negative Feedback

December 26, 2011 1 Comment

This is the first post in my blog replay for 2011. This entry was originally posted on August 29, 2011.

Recently, I announced a big change in my ministry about an event that has been happening for many years. It was a change that I had been thinking and praying about for two years. I had literally hundreds of conversations about this shift with other leaders in ministry. The time was here. I made the change.

When the announcement came out, I decided to avoid my emails for a few hours just to focus on other things. Maybe I was just being chicken. Later that night, as I started to read through some of the emails, many were very supportive of the change. That made me feel good. I liked reading those emails. But I had some emails that were not supportive of the change. They weren’t attacking emails. They were merely not supportive. I didn’t like reading those emails. But this is where my internal battle began.

How do I, as a leader, respond to negative feedback? I was in a feisty mood that night already. As I read the emails, a lot of, shall we say, less then constructive thoughts floated through my mind. I certainly did not write those thoughts down. But it got me thinking about what would be the best way to respond. Here’s what I learned:

1. Never respond right away. Too much emotion was clouding my mind that would not have produced a well-written response. I needed to wait. So I slept on it.

2. Affirm the person. When I finally did respond the next day, the first line of the email was in affirmation of the passion that this individual showed in the email. This person was at least passionate enough to write a response to me. That’s saying something about this person! I wanted to affirm them for taking the time and sharing their thoughts with me.

3. Find areas of agreement. I did not disagree with this person’s thoughts completely. In fact, we were in agreement in some areas. I decided to point those out early on in my response back to this person. The hope is that this step will open the door to continued dialogue and understanding.

4. Share the your perspective. I believe I have a valid perspective in this situation. However, I believe that this person also has a valid perspective. This was an opportunity for me to share some of my thoughts and vision that could not be communicated in the initial announcement.

5. Don’t expect support. In the end, I let this person know that I did not expect my email to change their mind or all of a sudden have them become 100% supportive. That would be unrealistic.

The goal to responding to negative feedback is to not change their minds, but to keep the dialogue open. Dialogue with people who disagree with me are the times I learn the most.

How do you response to negative feedback?

Filed Under: Attitude, Relationships Tagged With: , , ,

Blog Replay

December 22, 2011 Leave a Comment

Jon Acuff wrote a great article on his blog titled, “5 reasons to hit pause on your blog this Christmas.” In essence, he says that instead of creating new content the week between Christmas and New Year’s, you should replay some of your best content that week. You can read his article for the “why’s,” but I’ve decided that I’m going to do just that.

I’ve had a lot of fun writing in 2011, so it will be fun for me to go back and re-read some of them and post some of the best ones. I hope you will find that valuable as well.

So, starting December 26, 2011, look out for those replays! I hope they will add value to you and your ministry.

Filed Under: Attitude, Equipping, Leadership, Relationships Tagged With:

Being Authentically You

December 15, 2011 Leave a Comment

I love this story! It’s all about being ourselves and not faking it in our ministry. Enjoy!

 

A turkey was chatting with a bull. “I would like to be able to get to the top of that tree,” sighed the turkey, “but I haven’t got the energy.” “Well,” replied the bull, “why don’t you nibble on some of my droppings? They’re packed with nutrients.” The turkey pecked at a lump of dung and found that it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fourth night, there he was proudly perched at the top of the tree. But he was promptly spotted by a hunter, who shot him down out of the tree. The moral of the story: BS might get you to the top, but it won’t keep you there.

Filed Under: Attitude Tagged With:

Simple (& free) Ways to Appreciate Volunteers

December 8, 2011 Leave a Comment

Guest blogger Stephanie Kurtz shares a volunteer’s perspective on appreciating our volunteers. She is the kind of volunteer every ministry would want and was once a youth ministry coordinator.

I recently wrote a blog about appreciating volunteers and started thinking how that is easier said than done.  In the busy world of ministry, there is often a lack of time to get everything done as it is, and when we want to add another task, it can seem daunting!  Not to mention, if affirmations don’t come naturally to us, it can be difficult to share those with others.  I’ve developed a list of ideas that are either free or nearly free that can help make our volunteers feel appreciated for their work.  Trust me, as a volunteer, it’s some of these little things that help us feel valued as your volunteers.

Ideas to say “Thank You”

  • Say it before the event
  • Say it during the event
  • Say it after the event
  • Tweet it & tag your volunteers
  • Facebook it on your FB page
  • Thank volunteers in your parish bulletin
  • Text a random thank you on an “off day”
  • Send an email
  • Ask your pastor to thank your volunteers
  • Host a thank you dinner after a big event

Ideas to acknowledge your volunteers:

  • Talk positively about your volunteers
  • Spend time at volunteer meetings to acknowledge their successes
  • During parish announcements at mass, share a highlight about one of your volunteers
  • Post a “volunteer of the week” acknowledgement in a section of the parish bulletin
  • Make others aware of how much your volunteers help you

Ideas to show you care:

  • Remember special occasions in your volunteer’s lives (birthdays, anniversaries, the day their grandmother passed away)
  • Send birthday cards to volunteers
  • After a big work project/test that the volunteer was doing, send a note to ask how it went
  • Get to know volunteers: who is their spouse, family, favorite food, etc.
  • Pray for your volunteers

I hope these ideas help you and make your volunteers feel appreciated for all the work they do to support your ministries.  Comment below and share some of your own unique ideas with us on how you have shown appreciation to your volunteers!

Filed Under: Attitude, Equipping, Leadership, Relationships Tagged With: ,