Bad and mediocre people are tempted to sin by their own habitual weaknesses. The earlier lies or thefts or adulteries make the next one that much easier to contemplate. Having already cut so many corners, the thinking goes, what’s one more here or there? Why even aspire to virtues that you probably won’t achieve, when it’s easier to remain the sinner that you already know yourself to be?
But good, heroic people are led into temptation by their very goodness – by the illusion, common to those who have done important deeds, that they have higher responsibilities than the ordinary run of humankind. It’s precisely in the service to these supposed higher responsibilities that they often let more basic ones slip away. – Ross Douthat, New York Times, November 13, 2011
Posts tagged: young leadership
Sin Through Weakness and Goodness
Rules of Influence
- Live a life of undivided integrity
- Always demonstrate a positive attitude
- Consider other people’s interest as more important that your own
- Don’t settle for anything less than excellence
from Chris Widner: The Art of Influence: Persuading Others Begins With You
The Lost Art of Backward Planning
Jesus had a plan…and he executed it right on time.
As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. Luke 9:51 (NIV)
Short of the divine knowledge Jesus possessed, few of us would be able to deliver exactly on time with as far to travel and as many things to do. Along the way he taught parables, eased Martha to the better choice, confronted demons, expressed woes to the pharisees, healed people, dined with his disciples, and prayed all night before being arrested…right on time.
Granted, the things we do day-to-day don’t have eternal consequences for all of humanity, but why do we seem to always miss deadlines, cram all night to study or finish a project, or flat out miss deadlines? We’ve lost the art of backward planning.
Backward planning is the process of determining the right time to start something by subtracting from the finish point the time required to complete it .
Here’s a simple example: It takes 2 hours to drive to your mothers and you need to be there by 7:00pm. Subtract 2 hours from 7pm and you need to leave at five. WAIT, WAIT…don’t stop reading, it gets better.
What we fail to do is apply this simple concept to more complex projects like the yearly report, your masters degree thesis, or even family panning. Here’s some simple steps to backward plan your next project.
- Determine the finish point
- List all tasks that must be done in order
- Estimate the length of each task
- Subtract each length from the finish point
Making a Change at Church: Eight (not so) Simple Steps
In a previous post I quoted John Maxell who observed that older and “insecure leaders view change as a threat rather than an opportunity. ” But what if you have to change.
Many small churches are facing declining membership because their traditions have not changed in decades. The prevailing belief is worship traditions are Biblical and any deviation must certainly be a sin. Even though largely attracted to the spiritual (review the popular movies today) , younger generations are increasingly turned off by what they see as rigid and irrelevant. Read more →
Leading from the Outside
Unless you are prepared to see things differently and go against the current, you are unlikely to accomplish anything truly important. And to go against the current, you have to be something of an outsider, living on the edge, a member of a small but vibrant counterculture. You must free yourself from habitual ways of looking at things, cultivate an independent and questioning perspective, and be ready to embrace alternative and counterintuitive points of view.
Dove Frohman in Leadership the Hard Way: Why Leadership Can’t Be Taught – And How You Can Learn It Anyway (J-B Warren Bennis Series)
Management Since 1800
I’m a proponent of leadership over management as the primary course of study to improve one’s ability to influence people. Management, however, seems to have reigned as a subject in books since the 1800s. The google Ngram below charts the usage of the keywords “manager,” “leader,” “management”, and “leadership” in books since 1800.
I notice a couple of interesting things about these trends:
- Leadership subjects did not appear until the mid 1800s (perhaps as a result of the American Civil War)
- Management subjects decreased during the America’s Great Depression
- Management subjects skyrocketed during 1970-1990 (the rise in the economies of industrialized countries)
- All of the keywords dropped in usage after 2001 (Influenced by the attacks on September 11?)
Humility, the Basic Leadership Virtue
Benedict believed the basic leadership virtue was humility. Leaders had to demonstrate competence and ambition, but their passion was to derive from a desire to improve and contribute to the health of the organization, not from individual ego. He believed that true humility was a skill one had to learn and practice.
John Mount, in a Forbes.com review of the book The Benedictine Rule of Leadership: Classic Management Secrets You Can Use Today
by Craig and Oliver Galbraith
Greenleaf on Servant Leadership
The great leader is seen as the servant first. – Robert K. Greenleaf
Kotter: Great Leaders Have Emotional Impact
Great leaders tell stories that create pictures in our minds and have emotional impact. Martin Luther King Jr., had a dream, not a strategy or a goal, and he showed us his dream, his picture of the future. People change when they see something visual (the vision) that touches their feelings, challenges their thinking, and incites actions. People may realize the need for change, but not do anything differently because they lack the passion to break out of the routines or habit patterns. The momentum of ‘how we’ve done things’ tends to make our future look like our past.
The ability to move people emotionally is a special gift. Few of us are born with it, but we can learn it. John P. Kotter
Leadership Lessons From A Janitor
The following leadership lesson was circulated around our organization today. I’ve read this before, was inspired, and moved on to the popular leadership theories and acronyms of more “modern” leader training. But this is a story that deserves to be revisited often, it teaches lessons lacking in today’s leaders. In an article published in the Warton Leadership Digest James E. Moschgat (at the time a Colonel in Command of the 12th Operations Group, 12th Flying Training Wing, Randolph Air Force Base, Texas) writes about the squadron janitor at the Air Force Academy who was discovered to be a Congressional Medal of Honor winner. The janitor was William John Crawford who earned a Medal of Honor while serving in Italy with the 36th Infantry Division but went on to become a leadership inspiration to Colonel Moschgat. Read more →