leadership 101

I am, by nature a guy who doesn’t particularly enjoy confrontation.  However I know that its part of life and needs to happen from time to time.  That being said, I still don’t like it.  Here is the most basic thing that I have learned about leadership, people and confrontation; the longer you wait to work things out, the more difficult it will become.  I am not simply talking about the initial discussion but also what the discussion is about.

I am certainly no expert on all things leadership and am quite certain that those who work with me attest to this truth, but I refuse to allow a test of my leadership define the type of leader that I am, and that is a lesson that every leader has to learn at some point.  The confrontation that most of us are busy avoiding is, I believe the very thing that keeps momentum held back and leaves every situation cloudy at best.  Once things are cleared up momentum begins to build and the whole team is able to move forward.  That’s what confrontation does inevitably, it bring s clarity.

So my encouragement for any young leader working with other leaders is go ahead have the talk, get things clear and move forward, its really not going to be as bad as you think!

out of sync out of touch

I feel like I have not done a good job at writing.  i was looking back over my last post and realized it was on fathers day last year.  I will try and do a better job, but can make no promises really! 

Do you ever have that feeling like you need to be put in your place?  Notice I said “put in your place’ and not that I needed to someone to handle the task for me!  I have found that the Holy Spirit is quite capable of doing His job If I will just stop and listen….but I often don’t.

My Life is good.  In fact its better than good its really fantastic.  Sometimes I fail to see just how fantastic it is.  I have a beautiful wife who is loving, supportive, caring, all the things that a man could want in a wife.  I have two amazing sons who I adore and I’m pretty sure they both know that.  I have a great job working with great people doing what I love to do.  But I seem to find things to complain about, often. 

As the arrival of Victoria Eden-Marie Burrows is approaching I began to take an mental inventory of how fortunate and blessed I really am.  I don’t want to waste another moment complaining about how I wish certain aspects of my like could be different…..I want to live!  

Complaining really puts each one of us out of sync with the world around us.  It says essential that our plight is worse than those around us.  I have stopped and looked around, and found that its simply not true.  I am, at this moment sitting in our local Joe Muggs(we have no Starbucks) and I am watching people come in and out.  People who I used to go to church with,  police officers, single moms, you get the picture.  My complaining keeps me from being able to be an arm extended and a voice of hope, it keeps me out of touch!  If I am out of touch with those around me then I render myself ineffective, and I refuse to be ineffective! 

My effectiveness is not determined by just by how good my plan or strategy is….my effectiveness is determined in part by how much my actions match my words.  I want my actions to match my words to, match my life, to impact those who I come into contact with.