Leader's Page 2-27-08

“Absence of Affirmation”

From Hans Finzel’s book “Top Ten Mistakes Leaders Make”, #3 is “The Absence of Affirmation”

The pink Energizer Bunny keeps showing up and going, and going, and going, and …. Unlike the bunny, people aren’t like that. The emotional batteries need to be charged often.

Affirmation is a huge emotional battery recharger. The thing about affirmation or compliments is that they dissolve. Phyllis Theroux said, “One of the commodities in life that most people can’t get enough of is compliments. The ego is never so intact that one can’t find a hole in which to plug a little praise. But, compliments by their very nature are highly biodegradable and tend to dissolve hours or days after we receive them – which is why we can always use another.”

The whole business of affirming those we live with and work with is simple like NIKE: JUST DO IT.

Recharging other’s emotional batteries is an important responsibility of a leader. So, how do we affirm and encourage others?

Listening. Just because we are leaders does not mean we are the prime talkers.

Empathizing. When others are happy, we affirm by stopping to share their joy. If there is deep tragedy, we affirm by stopping everything and sharing their pain.

Comforting. We affirm their value as a person when we take time to comfort them.

Encouraging. Let people know often that they are doing a good job. Look for the good and point it out. A good compliment is specific and sincere. The more specific and sincere it is, the greater its impact on the person receiving it.

Let me encourage you to be leaders in affirmation!

Dan Bickel
Wisconsin District Superintendent

Leader's Update 2-15-08

“Dirty Delegation”
From Hans Finzel’s book, “Top Ten Mistakes Leaders Make”, mistake #6 is “Dirty Delegation.”

Dirty delegation, by Hans Finzel’s definition, is refusing to relax and let go. He points out that as leaders:
 Over managing is one of the great cardinal sins of poor leadership
 Nothing frustrates those who work for us more than sloppy delegation with too many strings attached
 Delegation should match each worker’s follow-through ability

So, why do leaders fail to delegate?
 Fear of losing authority
 Fear of work being done poorly
 Fear of work being done better
 Unwillingness to take the necessary time
 Fear of depending on others
 Lack of training and positive experience

D.L. Moody wrote, “I’d rather get ten men to do the job than to do the job of ten men.”

Theodore Roosevelt wrote, “The best executive is the one who has the sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”

Here are key ingredients for managing “Clean Delegation”:
 Faith in the one to whom you delegate. It is an issue of trusting in and respecting the person the job is given to.
 Release from the desire to do it better yourself.
 Relaxation from the obsession that it has to be done your way.
 Patience in the desire to do it faster yourself.
 Vision to develop others with your delegation freedom.

Why delegate?

Ephesians 4: 11-13 demands it. “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

If the church is to reach its fullest potential we as leaders must learn to train and empower others to help us fulfill the great commission Jesus gave us.

Dan Bickel
Wisconsin Distri

MInistry Leader's Update 2/6/08

“Top Ten”

About 15 years ago Hans Finzel wrote a book “The Top Ten Mistakes Leaders Make”. Number 10 is “Failure to Focus on the Future”. Here are some of his observations:

 The future is rushing at us at breakneck speed
 A leader’s concentration must not be on the past nor the present, but on the future
 Vision is an effective leader’s chief preoccupation
 Organizations are reinvented with new generations of dreamers


Here’s an interesting letter from future President Martin Van Buren to President Andrew Jackson in 1829,

The canal system of this country is being threatened by the spread of a new form of transportation known as ‘railroads’.

The federal government must preserve the canal for the following reasons:

 If canal boats are supplanted by railroads, serious unemployment will result. Captains, cooks, drivers, hostlers, repairmen and lock tenders will be left without means of livelihood, not to mention the numerous farmers now employed in growing hay for horses.
 Boat builders would suffer and towline, whip and harness makers would be left destitute.
 Canal boats are absolutely essential to the defense of the US. In the event of unexpected trouble with England, the Erie Canal would be the only means by which we could ever move supplies so vital to waging modern war.
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How many of our churches and how many of us are too easily pulled into this kind of thinking? Our churches are so easily tempted to be more concerned about preserving the past than envisioning how we can move into the future. The leader’s job IS the future.

“A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others do.” --- Leroy Eims

“Stay one step ahead of your people and you are called a leader. Stay ten steps ahead of your people and you are called a martyr.”

“My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.” ---Charles F. Kettering