LEARNING TO LEAD - Bringing out the Best in People. By: Fred Smith.

What is a leader?
Defining leadership is simple: A leader is one who has followers. But performing as a leader is anything but easy, especially in a
church. Some people base their claim on, “being called by God.” But until they have followers, they are not leaders. As Fred Smith
says, “You can claim God called you to be a father, but until you have a child, you are not actually a dad.”

Part I – THE UNIQUE ROLE

ONE -Leading: A Personal Issue
“Leaders get out in front and stay there by raising the standards by which they judge themselves – and by which they are willing to
be judged.”

i) Leadership: More Than a Position.
- Leadership is not a title that grants your license to force others to knuckle under; it’s a skill you perform, a service you render for
the whole group.

ii) Three Legacies
- First: Stickler for Integrity.
- Second: Appreciate the spiritual side of life.
- Third: Whenever you have knowledge that could help other people, you’re supposed to share it.

TWO – What Leaders Are
“To embark successfully on a career involving leadership demands courage. Once a person has decided the part he wishes to play
in life, and is assured he is doing the work for which he is filling a vital need, and then he needs the courage to tackle the problems
he must solve.”

- Leadership is what enables an organization to bridge the chasm between where it is and where it should be.

a) Leadership Is a Function, Not a Title.
- Some individuals think they are leader whey they are not.
- All it takes to be a Leader is to have somebody follow you. That’s all it takes: followers. If people are not following you, you are
not a leader. You may have the Title but that’s all.

b) Leadership Is Serving God, Not the Sheep.
- The right concept of leadership is vital. The theory is important. Nothing is as practical as a correct theory.
- Currently one of the most popular concepts is “servant leadership.”

c) Leadership Is Art, Not Science.
- There is no valid list of common denominators for leaders, no formula to follow. The ingredients vary in each situation. Sometime
for instance, leaders must exhibit courage; other times, their decisions are so obvious no courage is required.

d) Leadership Is Both Material and Spiritual.
- Leaders are forced to relate to money. They need to understand its place and its power.
- Money is not all there is to administration, though many times administration requires handling the budget and the accounting.
Leaders get followers to support the cause, and that includes committing their money.

e) A Leader is Not the Cause.
-A true leader is committed to the cause, and does not become the cause. Staying personally dedicated to the cause can become
extremely difficult, particularly if the cause succeeds.

THREE – What Leaders Do.
“Captain Russell Grenfell, in The Bismarck Episode, wrote: “Every ship’s chief officer followed, roughly, this procedure: Analyze
the situation as it is and the way in which it developed; visualize all the possibilities; assess them to determine probabilities;
estimate the strength of the forces opposed and of our resource; decide upon a general plan; communicate it to those who should
know; move to carry out the plan with economy of effort and material; be sure to calculate the chances of prolongation of action;
and, most important, shoot at the proper target.”

-What are the most important responsibilities of a leader?

a) Maintain the Vision.
- Like the hub of a wheel, everything else grows out of this. Until the vision is established, you have all kinds of trouble. Scripture
says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
- Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained. To be restrained, to be concentrated in purpose, is essential to
accomplishment, and that is why the leader must define why this organization exists.

- In maintaining the vision, here are several keys for leaders to keep in mind:-

1) Define it specifically – nothing is properly defined until you write it down. Writing forces you to be specific; it takes the
fuzz off your thinking.
2) Express it so other people understand it – A good statement of purpose is straightforward. It comes right to the point.
But it is more that a slogan or an image. Slogans are advertising. There are not really statements of vision or goal. An
image is what you want people to believe you are which may be a prostitution of the vision.
If you don’t focus sharply, you can also get into the confusion of doing one thing for the purpose of something else.
3) Get both organizational and personal acceptance of the vision – Organizational acceptance means the majority will
vote for the motion. Leaders get people to commit themselves personally, not just to provide paid stuff.
4) Repeat the purpose over and over – One very effective leader used this phrase in his vision setting; “say it simply,
boldly, and repeat it often.” Any leader, who doesn’t constantly repeat the essence of the vision, perhaps in different words,
will find the people straying. The purpose must be repeated and repeated because it gives meaning to the organization; it
produces intensity and direction.

b) Gather Others around the Vision.
- Genuine leadership gathers people around the purpose of the organization. Toward that end, leaders need to recognize several
subtle dynamics.

> Decisions are not commitments - The first is short-term, the second is long-term. People decide short-term to work for a specific
emphasis; long-term commitment is aimed at the ultimate purpose. Both are necessary.
> Recognize the “driving wheels.” - There’s a difference between people who provide the momentum in a group and those who
go along for the ride. Wise leader knows that if they get the driving wheel committed, they will bring the others along. Without the
commitment of the driving wheels, the organization moves unsteadily.
> Know when it’s time to change the vision – Leaders know the situation does not hold still forever.

c) Know the Value of Administration.
- Leadership and management are two different things. Many good leaders are not good administrators, and good managers are not
always leaders.

d) Choose a Style of Leadership.
- Since there are different ways to lead, it’s important to make a very clear selection. Unfortunately, great numbers of people try to
be Mr. In - Between. They refuse to select any one chair and end up sitting on the floor. The eclectic approach doesn’t work.

- Here are some typical styles of leaderships:
1) The benevolent dictator – “That’s who we are. We know where we’re going. We know what we want people to do to help us
get there. Yes, we want to be pleasant about it, but we think the way we’re headed is right, and we really are not interested in the
other people’s idea.” They are interested in results, a great many of which could be expressed numerically.
2) The one-man operator – Actually, this more often a one couple operation that runs church like a mom-and-pop grocery store.
3) The team player – Think about a football quarterback. He listens to everybody. He has a coach, but he knows his responsibility
to call the play in a given number of seconds.
4) Leading by compromise – it is possible to lead by compromise. A compromiser has a clever way of getting everybody to give
something. They don’t go very fast. They don’t generally go very far. But they go pleasantly.
5) The consensus taker – You can spot this person immediately, because he’s always sending up balloons, raising a flag to see who
salutes. If the balloon doesn’t get shot down, this establishes his path for the future.
- Similar forethought is important for the on-man operator, the achiever of compromise, and the consensus taker as well.

Part II – DIRECTING YOURSELF.

FOUR - Personal Disciplines.
“Leaders need to submit themselves to a stricter discipline than is expected of others. Those who are first in place must be first in
merit.”

- Leadership, as we have seen, is both something you are and something you do. But effective leadership starts with character.
When leaders fail, more often it is a result of a character flaw than lack of competence.

1) The Discipline of Freedom
- A lot of people try to lease freedom instead of buying it.
• Leasing – trying in small ways to be something you’re not in order to please people – is cheaper. It provides
some breathing room. But by leasing, you never gain ultimate freedom. Freedom cannot be leased; it must be
purchased, and you buy it at a price you do not set. You decide to have it, and then you pay whatever it costs. If
you try to acquire it at your own price, you’re leasing.

- The desire for total freedom has to be tempered, however.
• Freedom – is not irresponsibility. Freedom is an environment in which you discharge your responsibility. I
believe one reason for America’s productivity is that for the first time in history, responsible people have lived in an environment of freedom.

2) The Discipline of Emotions.
- Emotions can be hazardous to your leadership and productivity. Fred Smith called certain feelings “blocking emotions” because they hinder performance.
- Lust for instance, is a blocking emotion.
• It blocked your relationship with God.
• It causes your relationship with your family to deteriorate.
• It tarnishes your self-respect.
• It also spoiled your concentration, and the ability to concentrate is one of the greatest attributes of a leader.
• Intensity is like using a magnifying glass with the sun – you can burn a hole in something that way. Organizations
are almost always in the hands of the intense. These people eventually take over.
- Greed is another blocking emotion. It makes your rationalize all sorts of unreasonable things.

3) The Discipline of Things.
- Leaders also have to come to terms, in a mature way, with possessions.
- What is my relation to things? Here are some questions to check if I’m growing toward maturity in this area.
i) Am I using my possessions and not just accumulating them?
ii) Can I enjoy then and honestly thank God for them?
iii) Am I able to share them?
iv) Am I able to give?

4) The Discipline of Recognition.
- It’s important to get strokes, to be recognized for what we do well. But we need discipline in deciding what kind of recognition we’re going after. What kind of strokes do we appreciate?

5) The Discipline of Accomplishment.
- Closely related to recognition is accomplishment. I believe productivity – contributing to the community – is essential for mental and spiritual health. It is certainly true for leaders.

6) The Discipline of Experiences.
- Life is like a river, is more easily navigated if it has numerous tributaries. The more sources, the deeper and broader it becomes.
- Leaders find that having, and recording, a wide variety of experiences is immensely helpful to their vitality.

7) The Discipline of Ideas.
- Small minds talk about things; average minds talk about people; great minds talk about ideas.
- Minds grow as they grapple with ideas, and leaders monitor the kind of ideas they are handling.

8) The Discipline of Relationships.
- Relationships are obviously both the personal and professional concern of the leader.
- First – your relationship to yourself. “If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in poor company.” That’s one of the tests of maturity: the ability to be alone and at peace with yourself.
- Second – deals with relationships with other people: Am I increasingly able to spend time profitably with people who
are different? Immature individuals can’t enjoy people who are different. They prefer people just like themselves. Maturity is being comfortable with diversity.
- Third – we must evaluate the development of our relationship with God.

FIVE – An Emergency Plan for Saving Time.
“No sluggard need aspire to leadership. There are passive persons who are content to go through life getting lifts from people; who wait until action is forced upon them. They are not of leadership material.”

Twenty-point checklist for saving time in emergencies:-

1) Clean off the desk – To start the battle, sweep away everything you won’t be using in the next six weeks.
2) Stop reading the newspaper – I can pick up three and one-half hours a week right there, and if I only need five hours, that’s a pretty good start.
3) Get up fifteen minutes earlier – Fifteen minutes each morning gives me an added hour and three quarters a week. Add that to the previous three and one-half hours, and the goals of five extra hours is already reached.
4) Delay unnecessary reading – I would postpone all reading that does not directly contribute to what I am doing during this emergency period.
5) Read only parts of books – I’m a firm believer in not eating the whole pie. One piece gives plenty of ideas.
6) Work on the majors only – Not everything in life is of equal importance.
7) Make no radical changes – I want to be very careful during an emergency period not to make any radical shifts, because they require a lot of time to implement. The object of the battle plan is to pick up time, not to change.
8) Avoid the wood-hay-and-stubble activities – If I have time for them, they’re perfectly all right, but they are not eternal. And they can drain a lot of time.
9) Know my limitations – When I am pressed for time, I must pinpoint the counseling situations where I can uniquely help and then push the others to somebody else.
10) Ask permission to say no – When I need to decline something, I want to say no as simply and graciously as I can. When I ask for permission to decline, people generally give it to me.
11) Distinguish between information and relation – Mail and phone calls come in two kinds: information and relation. If someone wants to know how much something costs, I can give the price now as easily as later.
12) Utilize a secretary for informational things – I can hand-mark a whole stack of items where just information is needed, and my secretary knows how to handle them.
13) Deal only with the “driving wheels” – Every organization has some people whose thinking and action control everyone else’s thinking and action. In order to save time during a period of emergency, I only deal with these driving wheels.
14) Protect personal energy – One of the dangers of becoming harassed and time pressured is that it cuts down energy and alertness. So during an emergency period, I don’t want to do anything that dissipates vital energy.
15) Schedule work according to productive hours – The first few hours of the day are worth more than all the rest. So schedule the really creative, productive things for those early hours.
16) Compile a list of second-wind jobs – Do something exciting that you been really waiting to work on – jobs that give you your second wind. Second-wind jobs kill downtime and get you going.
17) Discipline self-talk – All of us talk to ourselves. During an emergency, you can’t afford that. You have to discipline the details-even you’re self-talk – to pick up time.
18) Put curiosity on hold – When you’re strapped for time, you have to swallow your curiosity and not to ask questions. You make statements. Normally in good human relations, we ask questions. But if we want to save time, we don’t.
19) Stay out of sight – During a period of emergency, work at home, lay low. Try to curb your exposure during a time of emergency. If you stay out of people’s sight, you don’t have to offend them with your hurry.
20) Leave meeting first – The most productive people leave a meeting first. They don’t stand around shaking hands and swapping stories. People hang around a meeting to be liked, not to accomplish anything.

- This plan is not at all about how to speed up. It’s all about how to gain some time. In fact u ought to use part of it for loafing. If you’re already panicky, harried, frantic and worn out from the pressure, don’t spend your new time doing more work, or you’ll be right back in the same problem.

SIX – Winning the War for Time.
“Leaders are not impetuous. They keep a balance between emotional drive and sound thinking. Enthusiasm stimulates their energy.”

1) Spending Time or Investing It?
- There are two ways to approach time. One is the technological: minutes as units. The other is the philosophical: minutes as meaning.
- It’s possible to grasp the technological view so tightly that you end up with no meaning. Technology should always be the servant of philosophy.
- Some people think they have to spend time, use it up one way or another- while others invest it. My philosophy is to invest, which means looking for a return on what I do.

2) How Much Is Enough?
- Anyone who tries to meet the needs of people soon finds there is no end of demand for services.
- I believe the situation lies in stating that your purpose in life is to accomplish what is uniquely you, not just whatever comes along.

3) Earning Respect for Your Time.
- People respect us when we can get to the problem quickly.
- If through reading as well as living we have developed the intuition, knowledge, and experience to be helpful to others, and if we have the courage to go right at the issue and not be afraid of conflict, people will see we mean business with our time.

4) Personal Habits.
- Periodically, we have to review our personal habits-those patterns of behavior we establish to save time and then forget about. Sometimes habits deteriorate without our realizing it, until they are hurtful instead of helpful.

5) Organized Versus Orderly.
- It’ important to know the differences between orderliness and organization.
- People who are too fastidious turn orderliness into to an end rather than a means – and that takes a lot of time. It’s much more important to be organized.

6) Temptations.
- There are three temptations that pull us aside:-
i) Procrastination – a lot of procrastination is based on our fear of action. We review and review and review.
ii) Rationalization – trying to prove to yourself you weren’t wrong.
iii) Indecision – people delay making decisions until there is no other decision to make.

- These temptations are like magnetic fields that must be kept away from the computer software. If we are not careful, they will erase our ability to perform.

7) Time Out.
- The last part of the war plan for time is the necessity of time out.
- Two things in life. Saving and time alone.

PART III – GUIDING YOUR WORKERS.

SEVEN – Selecting Your Inner Circle.
“The leader will take counsel from his people, but he will act on what his mind tells him right. He has trained himself out of the fear
of making mistakes.”

The secret of any organization’s success is choosing the right people to play key roles.
One of the most important aspects of successful leadership is putting together a group of people to carry out the mission.
Attracting quality people, first of all, means you must enthusiastically sell your organization to quality people.
Perhaps the more difficult part of recruiting is recognizing the quality people. Here are seven qualities I look for:-

1) Qualities for the Core.
a) The first thing I want is character.
• Statistically, most management failures come from lack of character rather than lack intelligence.

b) Second, a person must have enough intelligent to do the job and also be a possibility for promotion.

c) Third, I want a person to be flexible-and who doesn’t confuse flexibility with lack of integrity.

d) Fourth, I like to have people around me who are excited about learning. Their rates of learning change over
time, of course, but if they are not oriented to growth, if they prefer instead to protect the status quo, I will
have a stagnant organization.

e) Fifth, is to pick team players.
• A true team player does not poach on other people’s responsibility but is available to help at their request.

f) Sixth, the inner circle must be willing and able to confront in a healthy manner. This means the leader must
be willing to listen to those who differ.

g) Finally, I want a person who is comfortable being reviewed. In business, of course, we do this regularly; we even have departments that specialize in reviewing procedures.

2) Seeking and Finding.
- We are gathering assistants and associates-capable people who are able to do what we cannot do, perhaps able to do things better than we ever could.
- A lot of leaders make the mistake of hiring people they like rather than people they respect. They end up choosing individuals just like themselves, duplicating their own strengths and weaknesses, which do not advance the overall organization.

3) When you make a Hiring Mistake.
- No one wants a reputation as a hatchet man. But as a last resort, you must be willing to fire people or relieve them of a particular responsibility. It is more important for the staff to know that you will than that you do. It shows you are committed to your mission and are willing to prune those who will not contribute it.
- How should a person be dismissed? It depends on the reason for dismissal:

Character problems: - In such a case, there is no reason to delay. You may not always need to make the person a public example, but you should move swiftly.
ii) Personality conflicts: - First of all, consider whether this person might work out in a different spot in the organization.
iii) Irresponsibility, shoddy work: - A manager begins by documenting, gathering enough specific information about errors or bad judgments to support the charge.

4) When Not to Fire.
- If however, a staff member is failing because of inadequate training that is a different story. We must be patient and
provide training.

EIGHT – Training the Core Workers.
“Leaders must steer a wary course between keeping their fingers in every pie, dictating in detail what is to be done by whom,
and on the other hand slackening the rein so tat assistants learn only by experience and make costly mistakes.”

- People have great potential if they want to train themselves. Perhaps the greatest challenge in training someone else is getting the person to want to be trained. The gateway, I believe, is personal relationship.

1) Train Strength, Not Weaknesses.
- In developing somebody, the odds of improving existing strengths far outweigh the odds of improving weaknesses. An individual can improve his weaknesses, but it’s rarely done from the outside.
- You can threaten the person. You can make him afraid. But that won’t bring improvement. On the other hand, if you point out strengths and help develop them, you capitalize on the person’s desire to do those things he’s already good at.

2) Training Is Costly.
- One of the expenses of training is that you commit yourself to people who make mistakes. Mistakes are simply part of the bill, and there’s no way to prevent them.

3) Not Everything at Once.
- Training also has to be paced. People can make only so much progress at a time. Even though you see several things they have to learn, you are wiser to break them into pieces they can handle. Have the patience to give the other pieces as time goes along.

4) Seeing the Big Picture.
- Frequently, the person we are training has a job that fits into other jobs, but he doesn’t really know how. In the meantime, he becomes a perfectionist.
- Any staff member who sits in view of the congregation must accept his or her responsibility to the listeners. People on the platform ought to be the people who listen most; their endorsement of what is being said or sung is extremely important. The whole meeting is important, not just what one person does.

NINE – Motivating, Not Manipulating.
“Leadership is getting people to work for you when they are not obligated to do so.”

- Motivation – is getting people to do something out of mutual advantage. Motivation carries an open agenda. You can be totally honest with people.
Manipulation – is getting people to do what you want them to do, primarily for your advantage. If the other person benefits, it’s purely secondary. Manipulation carries a hidden agenda.

1) Walking the Fine Line.

- Whenever we try to motivate without the other person knowing what we are trying to do, however, we need to be careful. We can try to bring out a talent desire a person doesn’t even know exists, but we need to remember three things:
i) Recognize how close we are to manipulation.
ii) Set a check-point, and if the technique doesn’t produce a genuine thirst, stop it.
iii) Never resort to immoral means even for righteous ends.

2) Uses and Abuses
- There are other ways we see manipulation in the church.
i) Appealing to human gratification:- Anything that appeals primarily to human desire is manipulation; anything
that satisfies divine desires is motivation.
ii) Flimsy assurances:- Sometimes we satisfy people too easily-with meeting.
iii) Relying on recognition
iv) Selective appreciation:- When a wealthy person gives a gift larger that other people but small compared to
what he ought to give, exaggerated recognition for that gift is manipulative. Its does not motivate.
v) Misuse of “ministry”:- These forms of manipulation are usually justified because they help the cause.

3) Means of Motivating.
- What are some motivational means? How can we bring out the best in people without resorting to manipulative tactics?
i) Establish a psychically friendly atmosphere
ii) Know a person’s capabilities
iii) Look for ways both of you can benefits
iv) Be honest about your goals.
v) Use people as positive illustrations.
vi) Give a person a reputation to uphold
vii) Complimentary with credibility
viii) Show people you enjoy your work.

4) Finding Thirsty People.
- One of the secrets of identifying a person’s thirst is to see what has motivated him or her in the past. People rarely outlive their basic thirst. If they get a thirst young in life, they seldom lose it.

TWELVE – The Invisible Side of Leadership.
“The most important thing in life is not to capitalize on our gains. Any fool can do that. The important thing is to profit from our losses.”

- Congregations sometimes judge leaders by “apparent success” – and we sometimes judge ourselves that way as well. But leadership is more than outward. To lead a congregation, we must recognize some intangible factors, both good and bad.
- Lets identify three false indicators of successful leadership.

Succeeding at a private agenda – When this happens, the leader progresses but the people don’t. A pastor builds a large church, for example, in order to win a denominational post rather than to serve the people.
ii) Measuring success by the competition – Doing better than other people doesn’t mean we’re successful. We still might not be doing anything close to what we ought to be doing. The essence of leadership is progress toward out spiritual goal, not competition.
iii) Popularity – the fact that people fell warmly towards a pastor doesn’t mean he’s a good leader at all. It simply means he has a likeable personality. A lot of times it’s more important to get the job done than to be liked.

1) What Derails Leaders.
- Impressive-looking leaders can veer into the ditch for a couple of reasons:
i) They were steered by their ego – A lot of leaders starts out humbly, with right purposes, but get diverted into ego trips. Many electronic preachers start out sincere as they can be, but often the ratings catch their eye, and they become showmen.
ii) They became discouraged – This is an opposite reason for derailment, and a more common one. Some of us don’t have enough success to get on an ego trip. The train isn’t rolling that fast.

2) Staying on Track.
- It’s important for a leader to generate some progress – some “win” – to show people. Browbeating them with their failures is a poor way to motivate. People need to see success, to catch a feeling of progress.

3) An Eye on the Destination.
- A leader should never try to lead without first being captivated by a vision.
- Intensity must always have focus, of course. If you are intense about the wrong things, people will lose respect and think you are a neurotic or religious fanatic. The vision must always be of the possible.

4) Knowing What People Need.
- Leaders do not usually know, through intuition, what direction people need to be led. Most effective leaders pick up cues from their people’s needs.

5) Interior Leadership.
- Leadership is more that personality; it’s character. The accomplishment of a goal requires synergy. For each goal is part of a larger goal, thereby developing momentum.
- Good leadership brings out the best in people; it makes more of any individual than he would have been had he not followed.

6) Is It Worth It?
- Three important questions for leaders:
i) Am I enjoying what I am doing?
ii) Am I happy with where I’m going?
iii) Am I satisfied with what I’m becoming?

- It is important that the act of leading make us become what we want to become. This way we do not end up hollow, having our insides eaten away by success.

CONCLUSION.

THIRTEEN – The Rewards of Leadership.
“In every significant event, there has been a bold leader, an object or purpose, and an adversary.”

1) Personal Development.
- For those who have the talent to lead, leadership is a great self-fulfillment.
- Leaders come to the satisfaction, if they’ve used their talents well, of knowing they have rum the race, finish the course, and become what they ought to have become. They will be commended by the Lord as much for their character as their specific accomplishments.

2) Developing Persons.
- Beyond self-fulfillment, leadership offers a chance to see others fulfilled. Leaders help people to see what they ought to be and accomplish what they ought to accomplish. Leaders have that ability to see what others can’t see and to believe, before others believe, that it can be accomplished.

3) Productive, Not Happy.
- Productivity is not the same as doing. Leaders are often most productive when they are not doing. Sometimes their most significant work is instilling vision and excitement in others, having thoughts worth passing on – which often happens best in seemingly casual settings.

4) A Vicarious Thrill.
- Some leaders are visible and receive acclaim for their work.
- A worthy goal for aging leaders is to learn to give up the power, the day-to-day responsibility, and become a shepherd or shepherds.
- The point is not to usurp positions but to mentor younger people and simply say, “I’m available”. The task is not to impose advice (because advice imposed is not advice but an order), but to suggest options and help clarify the other person’s thinking).

5) “God’s Person in God’s Place”.
- Leaders are rewarded by knowing they are where God wants them…with a task great or small.