Keychain Leadership
One core commitment that can help a congregation engage younger people is a willingness to entrust teens and emerging adults with the “keys” to real…
Browsing: Leadership Best Practices
Articles
The Leader as Communicator
Effective leaders are good communicators, according to Lovett H. Weems, Jr. They understand the importance of all forms of communication and that communication is always…
Six Ways to Make Change Stick
Pastor Charles Stone, who has studied how brain chemistry impacts our ability to process change, recommends six specific strategies to help congregational leaders embrace change.…
Speak More Effectively by Asking Three Questions
Perhaps the most important component to giving an effective speech is asking the right questions. There are three very simple questions your talk, speech, or…
Why Clergy Personal Finances Matter
“For where your treasure is, there your heart shall be also.” (Matthew 6:21) Jesus talked a great deal about money. And in our monetized society,…
Cultivating a Feedback-Friendly Congregation
Think of a time when good feedback or a helpful suggestion made a big difference for you or for your church. Think about what you…
Some Practices to Improve the Use of Your Time
Everyone can improve how productively they use their time each day. It isn’t necessarily a matter of working harder or having the most items on…
Leaders Listen
National news recently quoted a speech by a Microsoft executive who said women should trust the “system” to take care of their pay raises. Previously,…
Asking Instead of Telling
You pick up some books because of the author and some because of the title. This one called to me for both reasons. Through Edgar…
Remember the “Light of Day” Test
A controversy arose recently over the Rolling Stone magazine cover featuring Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in a Bob Dylan-like photo. Although the issue included…
A Little Criticism Goes a Long Way
Leaders must have feedback to grow. Those who become exemplary leaders start out much like others. What causes them to grow into stellar leaders is…
Giving our Best to God?
A phrase made popular by management writer Philip Crosby is “quality is free.” It reminds us that efforts to ensure that work is done right…
Finding Focus in the New Year
Often New Year’s resolutions tend to be grand and unrealistic. Perhaps that is why the failure rate is so high. Sometimes we do the same…
Working with Committees and Boards
One of the least glamorous jobs of any church leader is attending board or committee meetings. Understanding the purpose, vision, and goals of each ministry…
Limitations of an Annual Review
December is often the time when congregations and denominations require annual evaluations of clergy and staff. Evaluation is a good thing. But when the only…
Developing Your Own “Undo Send” Button
Have you ever sent an email and immediately regretted it? Most of us have. Google added a feature to its Gmail system called “Undo Send”…
Surmounting Leadership Defeats
How do we rebound from setbacks to our best-laid attempts to exercise responsible leadership in ministry? I recently returned from a large denominational gathering where…
Stewarding God’s Gift of Time
God has given each of us the ability to do many things. Yet we have to make choices, to say no to some activities in…
Feedback without the Pain
A limitation to most feedback systems is that they tend to accentuate the negative. We know that leaders want and need feedback for growth, but…
Gaining Commitment
How do you reignite a church when it seems that no one wants to lead? In every space and place, God wants transformation to occur.…
Relationships Are Everything
Just as all Christian leadership originates in our relationship with Christ, our day-by-day leadership depends on relationships with others that mirror the ideals of our…
Taking Time to Refocus
Not long ago, I realized that I had spent several weeks in a reactive mode — constantly dealing with one thing after another that popped…
Taking Note of Leadership Lessons
There is truth in the adage “Experience is the best teacher.” But how can we best capture the lessons experience teaches? A few years ago,…
Principles for Sound Staff Evaluation
Many people flinch at the mention of evaluation, and with reason. In congregations, staff evaluation often is conducted as a popularity poll with anonymous respondents…
Find a Few Wise People
When pastors tell me about particularly troubling dilemmas they face in their congregations, perhaps the most common advice I offer is, “Find a wise person,”…
Should a Church Staff Member Report to a Committee?
When board- and committee-centered congregations engage paid staff, they sometimes struggle to find language to describe how staff members should relate to one another and…
Retirement Best Practices for Pastor and Congregation
The retirement of a pastor from his or her ministry is a unique and critical transition involving the pastor, his or her family, the staff,…
Tell Me About a Time
As I sat tapping on my computer keyboard in a Midwestern Starbucks, an unexpected event unfolded nearby. A manager sporting a green apron sat down…
Pastoral Transitions — Preparing the Way for Your Successor
Below are some of the best practices related to pastoral transition suggested by several hundred pastors and denominational leaders. Spend quality time with your successor…
Good to Great and the Social Sectors
Lovett Weems draws church leadership lessons from Jim Collins’s book Good to Great and the Social Sectors, which itself draws lessons from the business world for…