It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)
Greetings to you!
Each week I send out a short leadership blog that's called "Tuesday at 2:00pm". The purpose of this is simply to provide a brief thought on leadership that you can read and think about in just a few minutes. I send it out every week at 2:00pm (PST) and encourage you to make an appointment with yourself to pause and think about the thing I'm writing about.
Russ...
LEADERSHIP QUOTE:
"The true measure of leadership is INFLUENCE - nothing more, nothing less." John C. Maxwell
What does this stir up? Either write me HERE or comment at the end of the blog post HERE.
A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:
We're going to explore this word INFLUENCE over the next number of weeks. I'm hosting a Global Leadership Summit in Georgia in March with Leader Mundial, and the theme this year is The Influence of a Leader. While we have a number of topics, books and presentations to address this, I wanted to simply look at some quotes that explore this more.
A definition of Influence is simply this: "The capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something."
Basically to "shape" something.
Here's a story of influence. I've shared this in the past, but it's such a good story, I want to tell it again.
When I was in High School, my dad was a pastor. He hired me as the church janitor, and my job was to clean the church during the week, and get it ready for Sunday Services. I usually spent a few hours on Saturday cleaning, then I showed up early on Sunday to dust and to make sure things were set for the day.
My dad showed me what he wanted done, and being a teenager, I looked for ways to do the minimum required and keep my job. Sometimes I didn't vacuum all the floor, or I wouldn't empty out all the trash cans. I remember trying to just get through it as quickly as I could, and sometimes I didn't really care about the quality.
My dad would point things out to me, and he'd remind me what I had committed to do.
But then, on Sunday Morning, if something wasn't done right, he would just do it. He'd dust the piano that I hadn't cleaned. He'd empty out the trash, or line the chairs up the way he wanted them to be.
He just did it. And I watched him.
Soon I realized that this job that I had was important. My dad really cared about what the sanctuary was like on Sunday Morning, and while he was the Pastor, he cared about the little things like picking up leaves and trash that blew into the entrance way overnight.
I watched him do it, and then I began to do it. I didn't want him doing my job, so I tried to do it better.
His simple attention to detail taught me something, and challenged me.
Here's the funny thing: Today, when I'm hosting an event, I pay attention to the little things, in fact I obsess about them. If something isn't right, I fix it. If there's paper on the floor, I pick it up. I care what things look and feel like.
Guess where I learned that. From my dad.
There was some teaching, but there was a lot of just "showing me" what was important.
This is influence. He shaped the way I worked and the way I think about preparing a room for something important.
WHO has influenced you in some way, large or small? WHO taught you or modeled for you something that has become important to you?
DEEPER STILL:
INFLUENCE
I want to share 6 ways to influence others, one each week.
Here's the first one...
#1) BE TRUE TO WHO YOU ARE
People are influenced by your CHARACTER and who you really are. You might be able to fake it for a while, but your true self shines through.
Here's a humbling story....
I was a 21-year old Youth Pastor, fresh out of college, not much experience. I was driving a student home after youth group one night, and a car cut me off and for some reason I swore! My reaction was intantaneous, it was out of character for me, but I was surprised and alarmed, and I have no idea why I responded that way, but I was embarrassed and humiliated at the same time. Here I was the new Youth Pastor and I had blown it.
I apologized to this student, Ray. I was deeply sorry, and asked for his forgiveness. I then told him that that would never happen again. He laughed it off and it really wasn't a big deal for him.
Years later, he shared with me that my apology had meant a lot. He hadn't seen someone make a mistake and then take ownership for that. He shared that he actually learned a lot from me, and it all started in that moment.
What was a moment of humiliation for me turned into a moment of influence for our relationship. I taught him that I was human, that I made mistakes and that I owned those mistakes.
He had never seen that before.
And I never cussed in front of him or any other students after that.
• Be Consistent
• Admit Your Mistakes
• Be Vulnerable
• Do Better
Think of a time when someone allowed their CHARACTER or LACK OF CHARACTER to influence you in some way? How does that look now, looking back at that?
Things I'm Reading, Listening To and Watching This Week:
At Barnabas OC, We Gather To Inspire Kingdom Engagement. I'm so excited about what we get to do and who we get to be, and we'll gather for our first Gathering on the 26th of February here in Orange County. Contact me to learn more!
I appreciate the posture and expertise of the team from The National Christian Foundation here in California. Their desire to come alongside people to maximize Kingdom Impact is encouraging!
Matthew Walkers book, Why We Sleep has some great tips for getting better sleep. I'm trying to master this, but it's not working!!!
I've enjoyed Juan Luis Guerra Essentials this week on Apple.
OK, it's a little late for a Christmas Special, but the other day I watched these 4 episodes of Man vs. Baby on Netflix with my friends daughters while they were visiting from South Africa. I got pulled into Rowan Atkinson's "Mr. Bean" Persona and laughed through this kid-friendly show!