I had a conversation today that caused me to think.  This pastor had a lot of balls in the air.  In fact, too many.  So a thought came to me about another two rules of management (click here to read the first five rules).

Point Number Six:  Never be too busy to lead. Sounds like a no-brainer but I challenge you to evaluate how many hours you are working. If you have a staff, how much time do you spend leading them?  If you are working over 50 hours a week and little to none of it involves managing staff, then you are too busy to lead.

Think about it.  Growing a church requires doing triage with your time.  You can’t be all things to all people and have the time to strategically hire the right staff and hold them accountable to the clearly defined goals. When you’re small (under 500), you have to take the time to learn how to hire and fire and set clear expectations.  When you grow you have to spend time evaluating staff and replacing those who don’t meet your expectations.  If you haven’t hired before, or if you haven’t hired much staff, you don’t know the countless hours that are spent searching, interviewing, and vetting a new person.  It takes a lot of time.  And if you’re tired from being busy, odds are you will make the wrong choice.  Then the real fun begins – cleaning up a bad hire. It can get ugly.

Growing a church requires doing triage with your time.

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Rule Number Seven:  Learn to listen. Someone in the group suggested this practice and I agree. It takes time to listen carefully enough to the hopes and dreams of staff to know how to help them succeed.  Remember, the basic rule of thumb in a church over 400 in worship is learning to measure your success by what others achieve under your leadership.

Question: How have you learned to manage your busyness? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.

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