Sir Francis Bacon is credited for coining the phrase, “Knowledge is power.” Many in today’s world have latched on to this illusion – get knowledge, knowledge brings power, and with power comes leadership. This is taught in universities and many organizations in the western hemisphere. Yet is it true? I believe that depends on what you consider power. You can find teachers, professors, scientists and other scholars whose knowledge will bury the needle on any educational scale of knowledge, yet these same people would fail to register any movement on a leadership scale.

Knowledge is good and I do not condemn anyone for their knowledge. My point is knowledge and leadership are two varying realities. It is true knowledge may give a person an advantage over others with less knowledge and this knowledge could bring a sense of power. But this power does not bring leadership. It could result in what is considered leadership through a position or a title. Yet, it is not leadership because a title does not one a leader make. Leadership is not found in a title. “True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed, or assigned.” John Maxwell.

Leadership is having the ability to influence others. The influence of a well-rounded leader is bringing others along to accomplish tasks, grow individually and as a team, and to better the organization by reaching its goals. To accomplish these elements requires the ability to inspire others to participate. A person leading by title only cannot achieve this feat. Coercion is not leadership.

You’ve likely heard the statement, He who thinks he leads yet has no one following is not a leader but is only out for a walk. The ability to influence others for the greater good is where leadership begins. If they’d rather listen to someone else in the organization, you are not the true leader.

Learn to build your leadership ability by building your influence with others. Influence is not granted by a position or education. Influence is not something granted by higher-ups. Influence is granted only by those you are attempting to lead. Without their promoting you to leader you remain a pusher or at most a manager.

Become a student of true leadership influencing qualities. Study the leadership lessons of Jesus. Read of great leaders who took mediocre organizations and led them to extraordinary ones. Find a person of successful organizational leadership whom people seem to enjoy following due to his/her ability to help others grow. What makes those men and women persons of influence? Why not speak to those people you are charged with leading – those people in your sphere of influence – asking them what qualities they desire in a leader? Then determine what is your first step to take today in becoming a better leader?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

While waiting in line for a ride at the airport a cab pulled up. Noticeably this taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for me. He handed me a laminated card and said: ‘I’m Wasu, your driver. While I’m loading your bags in the trunk I’d like you to read my mission statement.’

Taken aback, I read the card. It said: Wasu’s Mission Statement: “To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment.”

This blew me away. Especially when I noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!

As he slid behind the wheel, Wasu said, ‘Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.’

I said jokingly, ‘No, I’d prefer a soft drink.’

Wasu smiled and said, ‘No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, lassi, water, and orange juice.’

Almost stuttering, I said, ‘I’ll take a lassi since I’ve never had one before.’

Handing me my drink, Wasu said, ‘If you’d like something to read, I have Good Housekeeping magazine, Reader’s Digest, The Bible, and a Travel magazine.’

As we were pulling away, Wasu handed me another laminated card, ‘These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you’d like to listen to the radio.’

Wasu told me that he had the heater on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for me.

Then he advised me of the best route to my destination for that time of day. He also let me know that he’d be happy to chat and tell me about some of the sights or, if I preferred, to leave me with my own thoughts.

‘Tell me, Wasu,’ I was amazed and asked him, ‘have you always served customers like this?’

Wasu smiled into the rear view mirror. ‘No, not always. In fact, it’s only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard about power of choice one day.’ ‘Power of choice is that you can be a duck or an eagle.’ ‘If you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you’ll rarely disappoint yourself. Stop complaining!’

‘Don’t be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.’

‘That hit me right,’ said Wasu. He continued and said, ‘It is about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes.

Wasu made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles.

Will you  decide today to soar like an eagle and not quack like a duck? What is your first adjustment to make choosing to be an eagle today?

Adapted

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

Who Is Your Pitcher Pouring Into?

“Hey Kentucky!” A voice called out from behind. Being from Kentucky, Willie spun around quickly to see who was calling out. His eyes locked on Randolph, one of Willie’s former pastors and mentors. Almost 25 years had passed since the two served together on church staff, Randolph the Senior pastor and Willie in his first full-time associate pastor role.

On this day though, it was Randolph who was attending to hear and to learn from the experience of Willie. The two embraced and shared the break together making plans to get together for supper that evening. For Willie it was a joy to be in the presence of his former leader and mentor. He soaked in all that he could from their conversations and time together, just like he had 25 years earlier.

For Randolph, who was nearing retirement at 70 years of age, this would be not only a learning experience, but also a heartwarming homecoming of sorts, a reunion with his friend and former colleague. Randolph drove away from that two day conference with more than a learning experience.  His former pupil and colleague, was now passing on life lessons to many others around the country.

There is no greater joy or success in life than to help others attain the fullness of what life has to offer them. Each time you do this you are depositing in God’s grand investing system. There is no superior satisfaction in life than helping someone else succeed, even if it allows them to surpass your achievements.

Investing in others our time, experience and love will bring a return on investment beyond anything the stock market could ever deliver. There is no amount of fishing, golfing, quilting, or any other hobby that can ever be compared to that of investing in another person’s growth toward his/her successful accomplishments. You cannot put a label, price or amount of happiness on it.

I sometimes refer to this as pouring into others. The more I pour into others, the more God seems to bless me. Blessings and joy always come on the other side of obedience. When I am obedient to God’s calling and pouring into someone else, blessings of joy and self-growth are always awarded to me. I am not where I could be, but praise God I am not where I once was. My desire is to continue, as long as God allows, to share with others, pouring into others what God has allowed me to learn and experience from life and the many mentors He has placed throughout my life.

Who are you pouring into for their success? When you look at others coming along behind you, do you see them as a threat or as an opportunity from God to pour into them from your life’s experiences? If you want true satisfaction, get your pitchers of experience and learning together and begin pouring into someone this week. The only question is who has God placed in your life this week for you to build up, to pour into?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

When you want to be successful in a new venture or making a change, it is wise to get those traveling your journey with you to understand and agree with your goal and the plan to reach that goal. This is what I call the buy-in. I have come to the belief that people are not necessarily afraid of change. Fears of change, however, do appear when change appears to be forced on them. In other words, people accept change as it grows on them, as they become comfortable with it. In implementing change in a church, you will normally find that a small percent (three to five) will grab hold of the vision of the change when you first introduce the idea of change. Some of these are the people you need on your strategy planning and implementation team.

As you work through the planning process, a few more will grow comfortable with the idea of the coming change—as long as you keep them informed. Uninformed people are ill-informed people. You do not need to give every detail, but give a steady progression of the planning and implementation strategy. Once you roll out the change, the majority of people will follow along, some with skepticism, others with willing acceptance.

Even after the change has been implemented, there will be yet another three-to-five percent who may be the holdouts. Though they can see the change and perhaps its benefits, these are the unfluctuating few. For some it may appear to be too drastic of a move out of their comfort zone. For others it may be a style or culture change, and for others still it could be a venture away from tradition in the church. Most of these members will in time join the change.

While you do not wish anyone to leave your congregation, change will be too great for a few and you may lose them. As a leader you must be ready for this. You want to minimize this, and the more you can inform the congregation to alleviate their fears and doubts as you move through the planning and implementation phases, the more “buy-in” you will receive from a larger number of members and attendees. As people buy-in to the impending change, they will become agents of change for you. They will also carry the beacon of needed change and adjustment.

Providing the change you are making is God centered and Holy Spirit driven, buy-in will be greater and fallout will be lessened. Many pastors and church leaders attempt to implement changes based on their desires and what they have seen or heard of other churches doing. This is dangerous and will cause disruptions and fallout. Principle to utilize: Don’t copy models, capture principles. What were the biblical principles that brought about the success at the other church. Use the principle found with your church’s gift mix matched to meeting the needs in your community. Don’t copy the model of what someone else did, capture the principle. After all, if it is not God’s desired plan of action for the church, it will likely not succeed regardless of how well it has worked elsewhere.

Who are your early adopters, your visionaries who can see where you’re leading under God’s direction? How will you include these in your planning process?

Adapted from Turnaround Journey, pg 35-36

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

Often in the church – and other organizations – we recruit to fill an empty slot with any warm body, the first warm body to say yes. That is all we are looking for. Slot filled – we move on. This can be detrimental to the individual recruited and is almost always detrimental to the church (organization). Every person has natural abilities and special giftings when put to use in the proper settings, will produce quality results and effective production of effort.

Believers in Christ – those who come to a point in their life to accept Jesus as personal Lord and Savior over their entire being receive what is known as spiritual gifts. Before you were born God knitted you together so that your spiritual gifts, natural abilities and giftings all work together with your personality to accomplish great things. Along with these God also gives each person a passion. Your passion will always compliment your other gifting attributes. Your God-given passion will always point to the areas in which you are gifted.

Your gift mix, as described above, can be used in the church to build up the kingdom of God. It will also have an component to be used outside the walls of the church for the betterment of others. Being used inside or outside the walls of the church building, this gifting is always to be used to bring glory to God and to bring others into the awareness of who God is.

Oftentimes, churches fall short of assisting members in discovering and connecting their gift mix and applying that mix in ministry – serving others for God’s glory. I’ve known many churches over the years who have led their people to take “Spiritual Gift Inventories” to help discover their Spiritual Gifts. However, some churches never assist the members in moving forward with how to put those spiritual gifts to work serving others, building up the body of Christ.

Still other churches only use the spiritual gift inventories to help fill positions inside the church programs and committees. God’s giftings are much more valuable and have a greater intent than serving on committees or in some other capacity on Sunday morning inside the church building. Your gift mix is given to serve others seven days a week whether you find yourself in the nation’s capital or in Possum Trot, Kentucky.

As a born again believer your gift mix is not about you, but about the Savior you represent. Every person’s gift mix is to be used shining the light on the Creator of the universe. When properly utilized the way God knit you together in your mother’s womb, your gifting will draw people to understanding who God is and to be drawn to him.

Have you made the connection between your personality, spiritual gifts, and your natural God-given abilities? Have you attempted to connect them to your passions? What is your next step in discovering how God expects you to use your special gift mix for His glory?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

We use the terms, “I’m at my lowest point. I’m broken,” or “He’s simply broken.” Have you ever pondered the question, “What is brokenness?” In the dictionary for a person, it is described as “having given up all hope, despairing.” True brokenness is that place a person comes to where he is not necessarily giving up all hope, but the realization that he/she must empty himself of self. His misery or desolation is realizing he is not capable of accomplishing in his own power what needs to be accomplished.

Brokenness is not a feeling; it is a choice, an action of the will. Brokenness is not a popular, abstracted word we apply to excuse our inadequacies. It is not a word we should use to seek sympathy or benevolence. Brokenness is not a word to be carried as a badge of honor or humility. Those uses of the word are all self-centered and are the antithesis of true brokenness.

The undeniable reality is at times brokenness can be blindingly brutal, stripping a person of human dignity. Yet it has an inherent beauty, and a place in God’s heart. In his second letter to the church in Corinth, the Apostle Paul writes, “For godly grief produces a repentance not to be regretted and leading to salvation, but worldly grief produces death. 11 For consider how much diligence this very thing—this grieving as God wills—has produced in you: what a desire to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what deep longing, what zeal, what justice! In every way you showed yourselves to be pure in this matter.” 2 Corinthians 7:10-11

Paul is speaking of brokenness. He says a heart broken by “godly sorrow” is delightful in God’s sight. It is a thing not to be regretted and leads to salvation. To experience this brokenness, to admit without God your life is headed for destruction, is pleasing to God because this is when He can move in and lead you to accomplish great things. The great things God will lead you to is what you were designed and purposed for. No matter your level of success, you cannot accomplish all that God created you for without first coming to this point of brokenness.

True brokenness is rooted in humility. Brokenness is coming to the point of emptying self of self, every action, thought and practice that is entrenched in “me.” God pours out His Spirit in fullness as we empty ourselves of our wants, desires, and presuppositions.

We should not run from being broken. Even though it is not pleasant, through brokenness God will produce a better life. Brokenness is a blessing because it puts you on the pathway to fulfill your God-designed purpose. As you awaken more and more to his presence and His working in your life, you can find hope in knowing your brokenness is not meaningless. Quite the opposite, your brokenness is worth something of infinite value. It will propel you deeper into the heart of the One who makes us whole.

Do you see that brokenness God’s essential prerequisite for the release of His power in your life? “The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. God, You will not despise a broken and humbled heart.” Psalm 51:17

Is life not where you want it to be? Where is your heart, your spirit? Where are you on the path to true brokenness?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

As children most of us received speeches and words of caution about good posture. Though we might not have been concerned with them at the time, most of what we heard was good advice. Posture is important to our muscular and bone health later in life. Good posture is also key to our listening and learning abilities. Slouching posture truly does reduce the learning receptors of our body.

Whether standing or sitting, our posture is communicating to those around us. In my years of conducting more than 5,000 interviews with job applicants, posture during an interview became one of my telltale signs for a person’s character and his/her desire for work. Most people enter an interview with a sense of nervousness. Therefore, the interview begins with him sitting in a pretty straight up, healthy postured position. As the interview progresses, the interviewee will begin to relax. For some this relaxing turns into a slouching position.

Slouching posture demonstrates little interest for the job or topic being discussed as well as a sign of disrepect. This disrespect may be concerning the interviewer and his company. It could be about work in general, or a disrepect for the work being discussed. While slouching posture during an interview may not always be the only reason not to hire, it is a large communication indicator of the person’s character. In my experience, slouching posture was one of a cluster of communicators – and it nearly always proved correct.

Conversely, straight up, healthy posture reflects interest in the job and the topic at hand. Yet, that was not always enough for me in an interview. Nerves could also keep a person sitting up straight in the chair. Nerves will also keep a person fidgeting in his/her seat.

In most cases, I was seeking the person who would sit on the edge of his/her seat, leaning forward as we discussed the position being considered. Sitting on the front portion of the seat and leaning into the conversation not only displays interest, but also intrigue and enthusiasm for the topic being discussed.

Not only in job interviews, every meeting, discussion, and casual conversation you engage in, posture is communicating the interest of each person involved.  As a leader, you should not only learn to watch for these communiqués of posture, but you should also observe and have others observe your posture as well. Practice good healthy and enthusiastic posture.

What can you do today to begin to learn and observe of your own posture? What can you put into practice to learn what is being communicated to you by the posture of those you speak and interact with?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

Parts of this post adapted from Coaching: A Way of Leadership, A Way of Life.

John’s small 50 member business had been cruising just fine, or at least it seemed that way. They were not setting sales records, but the bills were paid, and a little extra was being set aside for renovation. John and his leadership team had put more money into their budget for promotion in the past two years any time in the organizations history. The organization’s theme had become “Take Care of The Client”. Cause every potential client to believe the organization truly cared for the client. With business going fairly well, John could not understand why there seemed to be infighting among employees and leadership, why employee morale was in such decline, and why more new customers were not sticking.

Leaders and organizations often focus on production with little attention to relationships within the organization. If you do not have some focus on new clients, members, volunteers, you will never reach new heights or increase production and effectiveness. However, focusing only on the client, does not breed healthy environments. Unhealthy environments will always lead to disparagement, low morale, and loss of people.

Every organization needs a balance between new business (sales, production, new members) and relationships inside the organization. The lack of recognition of the importance of relationships within an organization will stifle production, stunt growth, and ambush effectiveness. “Without good relationships, the organization will begin to lose its best people, and the results will decline.” Ken Blanchard, Leading at a Higher Level, pg 198

Effective organizations have found the path to effectiveness includes both promotion of production and healthy internal relationships. Developing a highly effective organization is an ongoing journey, not a quick trip to the super market. As a leader or member, you must be in this for the long haul. You build up to the effectiveness desired, designing around production and relationships as a synergy – one building off the other. Then you keep rethinking, planning ahead, observing both the good and bad of today’s production and relationships to drive the organization to the next level of effectiveness and relationships. The way to sustain effective production is to continually learn and grow through both the current positive happening and those areas that need work.

One of the absolute best leadership tools I have ever seen, heard and learned is Ken Blanchard’s Situational Leadership. I was privileged to have gone through this training while serving in retail management. More than any other, this concept changed – revolutionized leadership for me – and I was blessed to learn it 30 years ago. Understanding leadership styles and personal development is key to effectiveness in leading and growing individuals and organizations. Understanding how these two concepts interact is crucial to developing effective employees, volunteers, and organizational health.

Unfortunately, there is not enough room in a blog post to cover these. Yet, you can begin by understanding how to strengthen relationships within your organization and intertwining those relationships with the effective production of your organizations purpose. Contact me for more information or look up some of The Blanchard Group’s information on Situational Leadership II. (It is not a quick fix and reading one source on it will not get you to the level you desire. It takes time to study, read, and learn. Then you must continue to study and practice the principles and habits therein.

Jesus was so relationship driven that people came from regions all around to meet and spend time with Him. What is your first step of strengthening the relationships in your organization (church) and intertwining those with the purpose of your church (organization)?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

As a youngster growing up in Louisville, KY I didn’t always agree with my mother and Father on what I needed to help me grow and remain healthy. You probably did not either. Take food for instance; my parents wanted me to eat all kinds of green vegetables, black-eyed peas, and carrots.

As a child, I was a fan of Popeye the Sailor man. But what he was popping open and eating and the spinach my mother tried to feed me were two different things. It had to be! There is no way Popeye would’ve gulped down a can of the Spinach my mom was serving. I don’t know who the manufacturer of Popeye’s spinach was, but I am certain it tasted more like chocolate – or at least like Flintstones vitamins.

The point is as kids, we don’t always know what is good for us. Why, had it been left up to me, I would have had a diet of sugar and candy. But now I know all sugar is not a healthy diet.

The same is true with our spiritual lives, isn’t it? We need a healthy diet. What does that diet consist of? We need a steady diet of the things that will produce wellbeing and growth. In our spiritual growth that is Bible study.

We know fish is a good source of protein. Some people like to eat their fish raw. I am not one of those people. I want my meat cooked, so I do not eat sushi. Besides a complete diet of raw fish is not healthy either.

By the same token, you can study the Bible in the privacy of your own home, but it will not be the same as studying with a small group of people. To get the full impact of God’s word, you need to study with others. God made you this way. There is no better learning than reading/studying God’s Word, The Holy Bible with others.

Not only God’s Word, reading for learning is essential. Learning is essential for intellectual growth. Just as a child needs a healthy diet to grow, so you and I need a healthy diet for physical and intellectual growth. Research shows us a large percentage of men (over 80%) never read a book cover to cover after their last year of schooling. No matter their level of classroom education, reading stops within two years afterwards.

While the percentage of women reading is higher than men, much of their reading is not for education or intellect, but for pleasure; novels, poetry, short stories, and magazines. Very little of this leads to intellectual growth.

We all lead in some capacity of life. A leader is a reader and a reader is a learner. I am a slow reader. Almost all of my reading is for education. I continually want to learn more, to strive for intellectual growth. Not trying to be better than anyone else, reading is the spinach of growing brainpower. I now eat spinach since I have learned the true value of it. Likewise, I understand the value of reading for intellectual growth allowing me to be better prepared for discussions and processing various situations that arise throughout each week.

Begin reading subjects you are passionate about. Read how to books on those subjects. Read biographies of leaders in that industry, sport, or profession. Read to gain useful information, not trivia only. Read to improve, whether it is a sport, a hobby, or your profession. Begin today. Do an internet search for topics relating to your passions. Then pop open that can of intellectual spinach and gulp it down.

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

“I have heard people talk about that for years, but no one ever showed me how.” The first time I heard this was from a retired widow in her seventies. Since then I have heard something similar on several occasions. What she was speaking of was praying scripture.

I love to pray scripture. Not only the prayers found in scripture. I love praying many different portions of scripture. Apart from the genealogies, most all of scripture can be prayed. When prayed, scripture comes alive and takes on a more personal significance.

When praying scripture, I format the wording to my life situation pertaining to the verse. The very first Psalm recorded in the Bible begins like this: “Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night.”

Here is how I might pray that verse. “Lord, I want to be blessed by you. Therefore, keep me from walking in the way of the ungodly. Keep me from standing in the path that leads to sin. I do not want to be one who sits in the seat of the scornful. I need your help to be one whose delight is always in Your law O Lord. Teach me, lead me to meditate on Your law day and night.”

Praying scripture is simply taking God’s word, what was written by His Holy Spirit through His servants and applying it to what is going on in my life. Sometimes those prayers are soothing and comforting. Other times those prayers are strengthening and encouraging. Still there are other times when those prayers are sobering and even convicting.

I pray scripture in every Sunday morning worship service when serving as Interim pastor. One Saturday evening I prayed, asking God what scripture I was to pray the next morning, because I had not settled on one. The answer came back, “As always, pray what you’ve been studying this week.” I was reading Jeremiah, and I was not comfortable with that, so I thought, “Lord, is there something else I can pray?” But I knew the answer.

The next morning I read Jeremiah 2:20, “Long ago you broke off your yoke, and tore off your bonds; you said, ‘I will not serve you!’ Indeed, on every high hill and under every spreading tree you lay down as a prostitute.”

Then my prayer was something like this, “Lord, forgive us, long ago we broke off our yoke – we, me and this nation, this church, we broke off our yoke and stopped serving you the way you desire. On every high hill you gave us pleasure in beautiful vistas, yet we prostituted ourselves from you for our own pleasures. You gave us comforting shade from every spreading tree, yet we me, and this country and this church, we lay down and prostituted ourselves from you…

Those are tough words and some reading this may think no way or George, you’ve gone off the deep end. Yet, I would ask you to consider, if God were to have Jeremiah write this letter to the churches of North America today, what would He have Jeremiah write? Jeremiah was not writing or speaking to the world that did not know God. He was speaking/writing to God’s chosen people.

Not all scripture is easy to pray. But it is all revitalizing and replenishing. Will you look at scripture differently after reading this? Will you begin to pray scripture daily? It will change your life.

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.