One of the most important things to understand about leadership is that one never arrives. There is always more to learn, more to read, more experiences to have and reflections to ponder. Someone once said that leaders are readers. That is so true and I make reading part of my growth plan. I cannot go it alone. Neither can you. There are people who have written books and blogs that can serve to help you grow. If you’re not doing that, I encourage you to begin.
One of my favorite bloggers is a pastor in Canada. His name is Carey Nieuwhof. Carey’s pastors in a church much like COTHA and have faced many things that we have. Weekly he has a podcast where he interviews other leaders from many different places. Taking the time to listen to this is always helpful.
Recently Carey wrote a blog on “overlooked practices that great leaders develop.” Over the next few weeks I will be reflecting on some of Carey’s points.
The first overlooked practice of Great Leaders is simply that they make complex matters simple. Perhaps you have had a teacher (maybe more than one!) who took a difficult subject like calculus or Spanish and made it easy to understand. They taught in such a way that you got it! These leaders don’t dumb things down; they simply make it accessible so that anyone can understand the concept or subject. I try to think of it in this way: I have to be able to say the sermon (message) in one sentence, or I don’t have the concept down to the point where I could claim that it was easily understandable. I have more fog to remove.
How do you do this? Have you ever thought that you may have overlooked an important practice of leadership?