Category: Leadership (Page 17 of 20)

When Silence No Longer Works

September 17, 2021 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

Sometimes I have a really hard time biting my tongue, but if I’m being honest – saying nothing is most of the time a much better option! When we get all worked up and angry about something or when something strikes that one nerve and we just explode – yeah that’s not a good thing. So practice restraint. Measure your words and be very calculated on what/when you speak.

However, there is a time when silence just won’t do the trick any longer. But when is that and what do you do? Here are a few scenarios when we just need to break the silence:

When someone continually makes the same mistake, it’s beneficial to point things out so they can grow and learn from that mistake. Just be careful you don’t come across as condescending or judgmental. Offer a loving word of encouragement to lead them in a different direction.

When you’re being attacked and you feel threatened, you must say something. Either say something to the person who’s doing the attacking or in some cases, if it’s gone too far or your life is in jeopardy, then you need to say something to an authority figure. This is one of those times when speaking up is absolutely critical!

When your morals are being compromised by those around you, and you don’t feel comfortable in the given situation, you should speak up. This one gets a little trickier because not everyone has the same moral standards that you have. When your morals are being put to the test, how strongly do you hold to them? When you speak up in this area, a word of caution. Don’t be a judgmental jerk. Just because they are your morals and convictions, doesn’t mean they are everyone else’s!

When your life is being threatened, you need to open your mouth. Ok so this should be obvious but perhaps we need a little reminder. No one under any circumstances should do anything that directly impacts your safety. If this is the case, seek help immediately! But please note: directly impacts. You very well might be in situations where someone else’s beliefs or views might allow them to do things that aren’t exactly the safest. Just because you don’t feel it to be safe doesn’t mean that you will be directly impacted. An example here is speeding. Pretty much everyone does it. Doesn’t make it right. It can potentially cause an accident leading to someone’s injury but that’s not necessarily a direct impact to you, after all you’ve done similarly! If you feel the need to say something to someone about how their actions might potentially cause harm to you or someone else, understand that if it’s not a clear and direct threat that can be proven you might not get very far in your argument.

When, after a time of deliberation, research and conversation, you realize your personal convictions are being compromised and the greater good is being challenged. This is again a slippery slope. We are emotional beings living in emotionally charged times, so proceed with caution. Don’t go off half cracked here. That will only do more harm than good. If you are in this situation, do your research. Not surface level and not just one sided. Look into the opposition’s point of view. Try to see things from their side. Understand that your convictions and beliefs aren’t everyone’s convictions and beliefs. So when you speak for your convictions you will contradict someone else who is likely just as convicted as you in the opposite direction.

The long and short is that there will be times when just sitting quiet is best. But there will also be times when you just can’t be silent any longer. When those moments arise, be educated, be humble, be consistent (make sure your words and your actions line up), and be understanding that not everyone will see it your way. We can do a lot of healing if we learn to have good healthy debates again! You have your point of view and that’s great! Just be ok with the fact that I have mine as well.

Be well friends and treat the other person with respect.

Speaking Without Thinking

September 14, 2021 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

Once upon a time in a galaxy not too far from here, I would speak before I thought. My words would flow at times faster than the water over Niagara Falls. Some of those words were pretty intelligent, if I do say so myself. But others, well let’s just say not so much! And if I’m being honest, there were likely way more not so smart things than there were even half intelligent things!

But it’s not just saying dumb things that will get us in trouble. Sometimes we say hurtful things. We say unkind things. We even say untruthful things. All of these types of words can do vast harm to people we care about and ultimately can destroy a relationship.

You see words have power. Your words, once they come out of your mouth or through the inter webs on your computer or cell phone, can’t be retrieved. Once they are out there, well there’s no getting them back! You can’t apologize your way around them or talk your way past them. You just have to, in many cases, start brand new rebuilding the trust you once had. But it takes time and effort.

You see not only do words have power but the relationship from which they’re spoken carries weight as well. So what you say, how you say it and who you are to the person with whom you’re speaking all factor in to the damage done by your words (or your silence when words are most needed).

Before you hit send on that text message or facebook post. Before you reply to something someone says to you. Before you go off and spew your feelings all over someone else, hit the pause button. Ask yourself a couple of questions:

Is what I’m saying the whole truth?

Where did I get my information?

Is ruining this relationship worth getting my point across?

What do I have to gain by saying this? What could I lose?

The old adage of sticks and stones can hurt my bones but words will never hurt me couldn’t be more wrong. The damage done by our words, or lack of words, is far greater than anything inflicted by a slap on the face or punch in the gut.

The bible says in one place that our words and our tongue are like a fire burning inside us that if not handled properly can do vast damage. Words can lift up and they can tear down. Speak kindly with one another. Be silent when speaking isn’t necessary. Speak when the time is right. But when you speak, make sure what you speak is truthful, complete and said with love and respect. Be bold and courageous in your speaking when necessary. Be calm and gentle when the circumstances dictate.

Below is a message I recently gave on the power of our words. If you have a few minutes, I’d be honored for you to listen and give your thoughts.

Decision Fatigue

August 24, 2021 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

I’ve noticed a trend lately in leadership circles in which I run. Leaders have been making so many decisions at such a rapid pace, that decision fatigue is sinking in and many leaders have simply stopped making decisions. They’ve settled for sitting in the I’m thinking about it phase. They’re stuck in the information gathering and mentally processing of data stages.

While these are important to be sure, because we never want to go off half cracked and make a decision without thoroughly thinking it through; there comes a time when we have to just make a move and trust our instincts. Now if you’re a person of faith, we call that moving forward in faith. But I don’t want to assume everyone who reads this is a person of faith. So think of it as going with your gut.

My sixth grade teacher always told us when we were taking tests that our first instinct on an test question was 80% of the time going to be the right answer. If this is right, then moving forward with the gut decision is something that will more often than not benefit us and those we lead.

But why do we not make decisions? Why do we sit in the thinking phase for so long? Below are three key reasons why we fail to make decisions, and some suggestions for how to move through this phase more efficiently.

Fear Of Making The Wrong Choice

This is probably the most common issue that I see leaders facing. Deciding not to move forward because we’re afraid it’s the wrong decision only cripples all forward movement. When we stop moving forward or pivoting through challenging times, we lose momentum. It’s actually a matter of simple physics. An object in motion will stay in motion and an object at rest will stay at rest. Now there are some external circumstances that play into this, but once we let our movement stop it’s far more challenging to get things moving again.

Think about a car when it stalls. If you’ve ever run out of gas while driving and needed to push your car to the closest parking lot, you know how hard it can be to get the car moving initially. But once you get those wheels turning the force needed to keep it moving is significantly less labor intensive.

I’ll be totally honest. I hate to fail. I hate making wrong decisions, but I hate even more being in a state of constant inertia. Sitting around not moving causes so much anxiety and it is exhausting. Friends, it is far easier to change directions or make corrections to your course if you’re moving. Even if you make a mistake. Even if the direction you choose turns out not to be what you thought, it’s far easier to make corrective action as long as you never stopped moving.

If you’re stuck in this mindset, take a moment to consider that one small step you can make. Find someone to hold you accountable to making the move. Check in regularly with your team to ensure the desired shift is actually yielding the change you’re hoping it will make. But most of all, just move. Small steps are better than no steps.

A Change Isn’t Really Needed

Some would say that I like change, but they really couldn’t be more wrong. I don’t like change at all. It’s uncomfortable and painful to say the very least. But when a change is needed it’s absolutely necessary to move. The challenge however is when we wrestle with a total change when a mere heart shift will work.

More often than not, we lose steam and think a revamp of a whole system is needed when all we really need to do is turn the dial a little bit. Not all changes entail throwing out whole systems and starting from scratch. As a matter of fact the change we need to make might be simply moving personnel to different roles or changing the layout of our communication structures. Sometimes flipping two steps in a process will yield tremendous results in shorting the gap between the desired outcome and the actual outcome.

When you’re approaching change and the change looks daunting, carefully evaluate with the team if the whole change is necessary? Ask if there are smaller changes that can be made to incrementally get you to the place you’re hoping to arrive. Be flexible with your change. You never know what’s around the corner until you get there.

We’re Just Plain Lazy

The hardest one of these to type is that of the lazy leader. Lazy leaders are uncaring. They have the skills to lead an organization into a great direction, but instead of doing the hard thing and making decisions and stepping forward in action…they stall. They don’t move. They clam up. They sit back and wait for the perfect scenario in which they might move forward.

Lazy leaders aren’t leaders. They’re leeches. They suck the life out of an organization. If you’re a leader and you’re not moving forward, making decisions, leading through the challenges, then perhaps your presence is actually detracting from the life of the organization instead of just passively watching things unfold.

No action is often far worse than making the wrong action. Leaders it’s time to rise up and lead again. It’s time to research your options and move. Too many good leaders settle for good when great is attainable. Lead. Step forward. Pivot. Keep your eyes open and you just might move into a future you couldn’t even have predicted for yourself.

Make Your Move Already!

August 18, 2021 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

I have a confession to make. I’m not a patient person. I am not one who likes to waffle on actions. I don’t take a super long time to navigate the options. Now I don’t usually go around half cracked making stupid mistakes continuously either! But there is a time when we just need to make our move.

Maybe it’s because of how I was raised? Maybe it’s because I’m a type-A personality. Maybe it’s because I’m just an insensitive jerk? I don’t really know why but I really believe that not doing anything is often far worse than doing something and failing. We are so afraid of making a wrong decision that we waffle for so long. My dad was always a direct kind of guy, and he might not like it when I share this so sorry in advance Dad if you’re reading this. We used to have a saying in our house when it came to making decisions that’s a tad crass so forgive me. Either crap or get off the pot. You just have to make a move. And I think there is really something here.

I mean seriously what good does it do anyone to just sit around on the toilet! None! Absolutely none. The seat isn’t comfortable. The atmosphere isn’t all that great. The only benefit is if you’re a parent of small children, that might be the only place you can go to escape for a few minutes!

Ok seriously though, discernment isn’t easy for many people and I totally understand that. But to be fair the longer you sit around waiting to make a decision, the more you’re negatively impacting everyone in your life! You’re stressed because you have a decision to make. Those around you are tired of you being on edge because you have a decision to make. Your friends are probably catching either the complaints about the situation, the constant drone of fear and anxiety in your conversations. People who care about you and who are willing to step in to lend a hand through the time of challenge are growing weary as they wait for you to essentially get off the pot!

Failing is not fun. Making a mistake is not something anyone wants to do, but in our mistakes we find our greatest learning moments. If you’re not willing to make your move and just do something, then you’ll end up growing so confused and stagnant and isolate yourself from the very people who are there to help you and support you.

If you’re a leader and you’re struggling with making a big move, stop focusing on the big move. Just take one step. Then look for the next place you’re going to put your foot. Then the next and the next. The longer we sit there and wait for the perfect option to be dropped out of the heavens, the greater the problem becomes and the more complicated any solution becomes.

Just move. Do something. Put one foot in front of the other and before long you will be shocked how far you’ve gone. Think about weight loss. You aren’t going to start a diet and lost 40lbs overnight. You’re going to make incremental changes.

So the decision looming in front of you…move! Anywhere! Just do something. Failure is only a problem if it stops you and you don’t learn anything from it. So for crying out loud please just do something. Commit to it and move toward it!

Are You A Good Friend?

August 6, 2021 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

So I’ve been doing a little thinking lately (can you smell brain cells burning?). I’ve been thinking about friendships and what it takes to be a good friend. I really didn’t think about writing anything about this because, well to be honest, I don’t consider myself a super friendly person. It’s not that friendship isn’t important to me but it seems in life friendships come and go based on preference and time. But perhaps it’s because we don’t really understand how friendship works at its core.

I believe that many friendships are internally focused. We kind of ask the whole what’s in it for me kind of question when it comes to friendships. But that’s really not what friendships are about. Friendships are not about me but about the other person. If we’re asking the me questions then we have the wrong focus. And I fear that we have an improper focus in a lot of areas.

So if friendships aren’t about me then what are they about? The other person!

We enter friendships with questions like why don’t they do things how I want? or I don’t like it when they tell me that truth, even though it’s truth, because it hurts my feelings.

I recently ran across an article titled 7 Tips for Being a Good Friend. It had some pretty golden points in it. I’ve linked the article here, but below are the 30,000 foot view of those points. By all means follow the link to check out the full article.

Face to Face is Best – we live in a tech savvy world and often prefer text and social media to actual contact but when it comes to friendships in person is always the best option.
Establish Rhythms – when our friendships are not intentional they’ll easily dissolve into something unhealthy and eventually just fade away.
Ask Deeper Questions – friendships sometimes deal in some pretty surface level stuff, but a lasting friendship will go deeper to what’s behind the obvious.
Be Affirming – there’s nothing better than to have someone who’s opinion you value give you some affirming feedback. Give and receive this affirmation well.
Get Away Together – so this might be a little more challenging in some circles but taking a friend-cation might be a fun thing to do to deepen and grow your existing friendships.
Be Early Stay Late – one challenge the last 18 months has brought us is a lack of connection at church. So when it comes to worship, show up 15 minutes early and don’t bolt when it’s over. Instead stick around and strike up conversations with people you care about.
Dig Deeper with Discipleship – So for those of us who are Jesus followers taking a friendship to the next level will happen only when we bring Jesus into the middle of that friendship.

While this list is likely not exhaustive, nor will it fit all friendship circles, there is certainly some friendship gold in here for all of us. I have some friendships that don’t do all of these things, but the biggest part of friendship is being present in the moment.

Finally, if you and your friend don’t see eye to eye on something, it doesn’t mean you have to disown them. You can be friends with people with whom you don’t agree. Have some robust conversations. Engage in dialogue. Listen well. Be there for them. Most of all be kind it goes a long way in a world that’s void of kindness.

Time to Take a Risk

July 23, 2021 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

If you knew me growing up, you would have probably pegged me as a cautious, backward, quiet person who was anything but a risk taker. And to be honest, you’d be completely correct. And to a large part I feel that I am still some of these things.

While I’m not quiet anymore by any stretch of the imagination and pretty much the obvious of backward, I’ve been wrestling with the idea of risk. Do I take enough risks in my life? Am I really doing anything that would be measured as stepping out in faith and doing something that in any way could come back and bite me in the backside? Am I risking losing something to gain something far greater?

I’m reminded of a story in the Bible about a man who left sums of money to three of his workers. Each of them were given different amounts and each of them reacted differently to the money they were given. They knew their boss was a harsh man and that he was shrewd in his business dealings and this informed how they were going to react.

One man took some big risks and ended up doubling his money. It doesn’t say exactly what he did but he didn’t just throw it in the bank. And the second guy who started with about half what the first guy did had the same result. These two men understood the character of their boss and took some significant risks. They could have lost it all and that might not have had the same ending!

The third guy however had the smallest amount to start with and ended up just hiding the money and simple returning it when the boss returned. No less than he was given and no more either. He didn’t take a risk at all. He just buried it. The boss was livid because he saw that as a total waste of time and effort. The man could have at a minimum put the money in the bank and drawn some form of interest!

I think about my life and I wonder if I’ve really done anything that was risky? I don’t really know if I can answer that but I have an uneasy feeling lately that says more needs to be done. I just keep having this overwhelming feeling that God’s given me some form of a gift and that while I’m faithfully using it. I’m not sure I’m doing anything more than playing it safe and investing it. There’s nothing wrong with the work being done or the results of the work being done, but the times in which we’re living mean just enough isn’t really enough anymore. More has to be done. A greater risk has to be taken to live out the calling God has placed on my life. It’s time to stop burying the gifts I’ve been given. It’s time to stop merely investing them. It’s time to risk it all.

I don’t know what that looks like in your context by any means. Shoot I don’t really even know what that looks like in my own context! I just know that the time is now for me as a follower of Jesus and a pastor to do more. It’s time for the church to do more. It’s time to stop burying the talent, or even just investing it. It’s time to take some calculated risks for the sake of the Kingdom.

What’s your first move?

Eternal Pendulum

July 19, 2021 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

Living in Central Ohio something most parents will do at least once in their children’s younger years is go to COSI. COSI stands for Center of Science and Industry. It’s one of those cool hands on museums for children (children of all ages)! When you walk into the main entry of COSI, you’re met by a huge pendulum. Well at least you used to be, admittedly I haven’t been there for years but it used to be there.

The pendulum was a super cool focal point when you first enter the facility. The pendulum from my understanding swings continually and never stops. This is due in large part to the length of the cable, weight and symmetry of the bob at the end of the cable, and an electromagnet near the top of the cable. The pendulum will swing back and forth continuously day and night. The really cool part is that when the earth rotates around its axis, the pendulum stays swinging in the same plane. So while it looks like the pendulum is rotating, really the earth is rotating under the pendulum.

At any rate, the pendulum is smooth in its transition back and forth. The cycle is unbroken. Forward, backward, forward, backward. The rhythm is soothing and somehow comforting in its stability and predictability.

Now I want you to try to imagine your life kind of like that pendulum. Imagine for a minute the cycles that your life goes through. There are cycles in our lives that repeat themselves over and over again. These cycles can be called a lot of different things and they apply to just about every scenario in which we find ourselves. There are work – rest cycles, or peace – chaos cycles, health – illness, energy – exhaustion cycles. Each of these will run back and forth on the pendulum of life.

The challenge for us as we swing through these cycles, aside from not getting sick from the back and forth, is to cherish each position along the swing of the pendulum. There are generally four things that happen along this pendulum. We go from rest to change to growth to great productivity. The more we fight this naturally swinging pendulum the shorter the gap between our work and our rest. The more we fight living out our calling as followers of Christ in our given stations in life, the more we’ll settle for mindless work that simply drains us.

The more we fight our times of rest, the less restful they become. The more we just do busy work because we feel we should be doing something, the less fulfilling it is and the more tired it makes us. The sweet spot in life is when we can rest while we’re working. We’ve narrowed the view of rest to the point that it becomes impossible to anything other than sit with our butt in the sand at the beach or curled up to a good book on a rainy day.

But when we truly find the pendulum balance in life, we quickly realize that rest can actually be found in doing the work we were called to do. We can work through our rest and rest in our work. There will be times when we need to pull away and rest and times when we need to sink ourselves into a task to accomplish it. But the majority of the time we can maintain a perfect swing through life finding rest in the purposeful work we’ve been created to do.

So cherish the swing. Be like a kid again and swing from rest to work making stops at change and growth along the way. Change is good. Growth is good but neither are easy. We need to be diligent in our working and intentional about our resting to get the most out of the change and growth portions of our swinging pendulum.

Enjoy swinging my friends. It’s the only way to live.

Measuring Time Differently

July 13, 2021 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

If you’re a linear thinker then you like the idea of time being a very neat and tidy concept. We have seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years…you get the point. Linear thinking is how we live most of our lives going from task to meeting to appointment. But there are moments in our lives when something interrupts the flow of time. These can be frightening and yet exhilarating moments! It just depends how we respond to them.

One can see a timeline and consider it to be chronological in nature, going from set point to set point through a series of life circumstances. But the interruption in time doesn’t work this same way. There’s another word for this and it comes from the Greek word Kairos. It’s basically a cycle in time that will send our lives out on a potentially new trajectory.

Think of one of these Kairos moments as a loop in the middle of the timeline.

The drawing above is simple but it gets the point across. We go through life nearly on autopilot. Then a moment in our life takes us by surprise. Maybe it’s a death of a love one, new job, catastrophe, birth of a child, illness, win the lottery – who knows but it can be a good surprise or a bad surprise. The idea is that it takes your breath away and has the potential to alter your way of thinking.

When one of these moments happens we can basically have two responses. The first is to ignore it as if nothing happened at all. The second is to go through an evaluation process to learn what you can while the event is still fresh.

If you notice on the right side of the circle, you’ll see the word reflect. This is when we ask some questions. What happened? What emotions am I wrestling with? Who around me can I talk to about this?

This side of the circle is powerful and essential. This helps us process what’s going on. It’s about chance to admit that we could and probably should come out of this thing differently. The only problem is this is where most of us stop in the cycle. But there’s a whole other side that can really make this worthwhile.

The left half of the circle is about response. This is when we actually do something with what we learned through our evaluation and processing. If we just process and never act, we’ll get nowhere. In this side of the circle, as we make our way back to the timeline, we make a plan for how to implement change. We find the people in our lives who can come alongside us and hold us accountable to actually do what we commit to doing. And finally we determine check in moments to assure that we’re following through.

Now the really cool part of this circle is what happens when we reemerge back into our normal routine. Often the learning of the circle, from the pausing to the planning and implementing, will move us in a slightly new direction. It’s like riding a bike. When we learned to ride bikes as kids, we were able to go places faster than we could without a bike. In this case, when we learn the value of these interruptions in time, we’ll be able to get places we couldn’t have gone living in the monotony of a chronological existence.

So the long and short is be on the look out for interruptions to your day. Not all of these interruptions are bad. As a matter of fact, one of them might send you on a new path to a God ordained destination. Happy time hunting!

In It To Win It

July 6, 2021 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

Goodmorning, #Bossladies! #happysunday, let's go win! | Cutthroat Hippie Gang | #CTHG

Have you ever settled for something less than the best? If you’re at all honest here, you have to say yes. Without a doubt everyone at one point in their life or another has settled in some way. But when we settle something happens in our subconscious that is dangerous and deadly. We move from a win mindset to simply I hope I don’t lose too badly.

Ok, so I’m kind of a sports guy and I like to use sports analogies from time to time. Try this one. Could you imagine that beloved sports team you follow, changing their mindset from winning to simply not losing too badly? I think we’ve all seen it at least once. The team is down by several goals or touchdowns and something in them just seems like they’ve given up. Their play is flat to say the least. It’s like they no longer are trying to win. They’re just trying to not lose by more than they already are.

In hockey, a sport that I really started following a few years back, there’s a practice of doing something that seems odd but is very strategic. In the final few minutes of a game, if the team is losing by one or two goals, the coach will pull the goalie. When I first saw this I was dumbfounded. Why in the world would you pull the goalie when you’re already losing!? That just seemed stupid.

But then I noticed something that really made this seemingly bad idea actually a very strategic move. When the goalie makes it off the ice, they put on another player in an effort to score a goal and tie the game. So giving up a little defense gives them a better shot on offense. But it’s a risk to be sure. You run the risk of having someone score in your empty net.

In our lives there are times when it is probably in our best interest to pull our goalie. When we’re down on ourselves and life just isn’t going our way, instead of running from the problem or cowering in fear, we should put the extra offensive player on the ice and start going for the goal. When we’re down by a goal or two in life, the rules don’t change. We still need more points than our opponent to win the game, but all too often our mindset shifts from progress through life to cowering in the fetal position waiting for something to happen.

I don’t really know what this looks like in your life specifically, but I do know that if you’re a tuck your tail and run kind of person, you haven’t mastered the art of shifting to offense. If you’re the type that needs the whole scenario masterfully mapped out for you, you’re not pulling your goalie.

All too often in our day to day lives, we wait until the scenario has nearly played itself out before we take some sort of action. That is detrimental at the very least. By that time we have already lost the game. Perhaps the next adventure upon which you embark would better be tackled if you were in it to win it even when you’re losing. Shift your focus from defending your goal to scoring your next goal. It won’t be easy. It will be risky but it most certainly will be rewarding as you grow through stretching yourself.

Permission vs. Authority

July 1, 2021 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

One of my pet peeves is when I’m asked to do something then told I need to get permission for every step in the process. It’s so infuriating. The gut check moment was when I realized I did the same thing with someone and it completely shifted how I approach task assignments and delegation of duties.

To get started we need to differentiate between permission and authority. In my mind there’s a huge difference. Permission is simply telling someone they’re allowed to do something. Or even giving someone the ability to go in a direction or accomplish a task. Authority is opening a door for someone and giving them parameters within which to operate to accomplish that task. Let’s look at an example, the one where I failed actually.

As a pastor we lead a vacation bible school every summer. I asked my coworker to make sure VBS happened and that it was hers to run. Then unintentionally, really it wasn’t anything personal or intentional it just happened, I jumped in from time to time to give my input (unsolicited input mind you). Eventually it was realized that I had given her permission for the task of doing VBS but all the steps to get there were still something I wanted to control.

As soon as I realized what I had done, we changed things up a bit. Instead of just saying make sure VBS happens, I set some boundaries. Here are a list of my expectations. Aside from these expectations, you have the authority to make decisions. You have a budget to work with, timeline in which to operate, goals for how many children we’d like to see, etc. I will check on the boundaries to make sure you’re staying in the lines. If you’re in bounds then you have the full authority.

You see when something is important to us or when we have a passion for something, we tend to cling tightly to it. We hold the over arching authority and try to give a little task here and there to make it seem like we’re giving it away. Actually we’re giving task permission instead of role authority.

Here’s the problem…when we hire someone to fill a role then don’t resource them with the appropriate budget and authority to operate within given boundaries all we’ve done is hire a glorified assistant under a new title. But when in a leadership role you can give authority away, not only does it free your plate for other intentional and meaningful work, it also runs a very strong likelihood that productivity will go up and new people will be reached.

The longer we withhold sharing authority, the weaker the organization grows. And the more tired and unsettled the staff becomes. Hold on too long and you lose your staff and your organization crumbles.

So give permission if you want to keep the status quo for the short term. If you want to see your organization grow and thrive, you need to give authority and let go.

Category: Leadership (Page 17 of 20)

When Silence No Longer Works

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