For the week of February 20, 2006

How Do You Spell Leadership
By: Bill Easum
How do you SPELL leadership? Try it this way: Specific Preparation Enables Loving Leaderships. I imagine all of us understand that to preach a great sermon requires various forms of preparation. That’s sort of obvious. But what isn’t as obvious is that the same thing holds true to team meetings, board meetings, and one-to-one meetings with key leaders. If we want them to be effective, they require preparation on our part. But my guess is that most of us breathlessly sprint from commitment to commitment and dive into interactions without specific preparation. I think the opposite should be true. Think about it: if you are leading purposefully, you should be spending significant time each week mentoring and coaching people. Those encounters usually include a lot of listening, a lot of specific affirmation and encouragement, and – often – some redirection or even discipline of an emerging leader.

Do you love the mission of Jesus Christ and do you love the disciple you are mentoring sufficiently to invest highly focused time in preparation prior to your meeting? When you are doing your daily devotions, are you mindful of the leaders with whom you are scheduled to be with that day and are you applying Scripture and prayer specifically to the leadership needs of those servants? Scheduling even twenty minutes of intentional prayer time prior to a meeting with a key leader makes a huge difference. You’ll notice the difference, and so will the people you lead. When you come to the table fully prayed-in and dialed-in, the ones you mentor and coach will see you value and respect them – in other words, that you love them. After all, “the greatest of these [spiritual gifts] is love.” Specific Preparation Enables Loving Leadership. It’s a great way to “spell” leadership.