In any conversation about the importance of organizational and leadership values consistency of ethics would certainly need to be addressed. First, let’s attack the consistency portion of this thought. Consistency of ethics must be practiced by the leadership of any organization (family, church, fortune 500 business). Consistency is the harmonious, steady, reliable and stable actions demonstrating appropriate integrity of moral beliefs throughout all situations by leaders of any organization. Leaders must first practice this consistency before it will trickle down and practiced by all of the organization’s members.

While ethics is described as the display of morals, beliefs, and integrity of a person or organization, every person sets his/her own personal code of ethics. In today’s society this is overwhelmingly rampant to an unhealthy extreme (in my opinion). While the dictionary’s definition of ethics is the moral principles that govern a person’s behavior, a relatively general set of ethics has historically governed human life and culture. Today, ethics seems to be whatever any individual sets as his or her own.

One feature of ethics is not eroding another person’s self-esteem. Many in leadership have forgotten or lost this trait of ethics. Beating down another person in any fashion is a breach of ethics. We hear a lot today about bullying. Bullying is a breach of ethics. This type of breach of ethics plays out in society in every type of organization imaginable. As leaders we must learn the difference between reprimanding for building a person up or tearing down. Redirection and reprimanding can both be undertaken while assisting the individual in moving to a higher standard. Anything less is akin to bullying.

Every consumer-driven business and organization believes their customers and employees are important – or at least this is their stated belief. Yet, the way the customer and employees are treated is the tell-tale of the true belief of the leader or organization. When customers (employees, volunteers) do not believe they are being heard or treated with respect, morale plummets and they will leave your organization. Customers shop elsewhere. Employees will look for other employment opportunities, and volunteers leave your organization to find one which they believe will appreciate their service and contribution.

In your area of leadership, what will you undertake this week to improve your consistency of ethics to encourage and enable others to better themselves and produce effective results for your/their organization?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life.

As a leader you set the standard for performance in your organization. There may be several ways to set this standard, some healthy, some not healthy for the organization. If you desire a healthy organization, then as a leader you must demonstrate healthy performance through your every interaction with employees/volunteers.

The performance of those around you will seldom rise above the performance level of the leader. While you may not be doing the same work, your actions and reactions will set the true performance standards – and they might not be the organizations stated standards. Negative performance from a leader will not produce greater performance from those throughout the organization. Negativity does not breed positive action.

Leaders need to comprehend and appreciate a few ideas about performance standards. What is it – exactly – that you desire to measure with the performance standards you set for the organization? Are we setting performance standards for quality or quantity? Some set performance standards to evaluate employees. Others still to provide coaching and training for performance advancement.  

As you think through the performance standards for your organization, ask yourself and your leadership team, the following questions:

1.      What are our expectations from the performance standards we set? (What outcomes do we want?)

2.      Are willing to live up to and exceed the performance standards we set for others?

3.      To what extent will I (we) as a leader encourage and assist others to exceed performance standards?

4.      To what level of consistency will our actions and interactions be in communicating true performance standards?

5.      How will our response as leaders be communicated both verbally and non-verbally?

Raising the performance standard levels for your employees/volunteers means first raising the bar in your own leadership. Are you ready and willing?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life.

Each person’s every act of performance necessitates a response. Be it a daily routine or a significant change of behavior, every act of performance does generate a response. As a leader you communicate a response even when you do not respond. And each response communicates. The question becomes, what are you communicating. It may not be even close to what you believe to be communicating.

There are basically four types of response rendered for someone’s acts of performance. First, an affirmative response of encouragement. This is where the person is recognized and congratulated by superiors for his/her performance. Congratulations can come in the form of personal praise from a supervisor or the organization leadership. It could also come in the form of remuneration or reward. Contrary to the belief of some, most people prefer the first to the latter. While money or other rewards are good and I doubt many would not accept those, the greatest reception is of recognition by supervisors and leaders.

The second response type is a negative response. This happens when an employee/volunteer falls short in his/her performance and a corrective action is needed. When the negative performance action is met with only negative responses from leadership, correction is seldom established. Negative responses from leadership almost always result in negative reaction from the employee and his/her performance. Poor or negative performance can have negative consequences but should not be met with only negative response. This will never build to better performance.

The third response is corrective. A corrective response occurs when performance is sub-par and some behavioral change needs to transpire. In his case the leader attempts to guide the underperformer through a redirection of his/her behavior patterns. A corrective response from a leader carries a more positive nature to the underperformer. Therefore, he/she will be more prone to attempt the needed adjustments.

The fourth response is no response at all. Of all the responses a leader can give, no response is the gravest of all.  Giving no feedback or response to good or bad behavior promotes poor behavior patterns, shuns good behavior, and will certainly lower morale among all employees/volunteers.

Do you want to positively impact and influence the performance of those in your circle of influence? Performance is greatly influenced by responses and reactions of leaders. What will you do this week to positively impact the performance of others around you?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life.

Not the mood you are in, but people’s performance should determine your response. Our mood affects our attitude and affects our actions and response to others. Leaders often squelch good performance and lose good performers by allowing our mood to control our response. This is outright poor leadership. Our response to any situation should not be determined by our mood, but rather by the performance of others.

Leadership specialist, Ken Blanchard says, “Consistency is behaving the same way in similar circumstances.” It is important to take notice of the word similar in his definition. Consistency is not behaving the same way in every circumstance. It is behaving the same in similar circumstances.

If you are running a production line and a new employee makes a mistake that costs the company three hours of shutdown and hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue, you would not treat this situation the same as another employee who saved the company $10,000. It would be ludicrous to think so.

Consistency as Blanchard describes it is responding in similar fashion in each comparable situation. When something praiseworthy is accomplished, you praise in similar fashion. You do not give one employee/volunteer an all expense paid getaway and the next person a free pencil. Likewise, you treat those who mess up, who make mistakes in similar fashion.

With this consistency you are giving your employees/volunteers a special gift of predictability. I have served in ministry and the corporate world alongside others who always feared their higher-ups, not knowing what to expect. This is not a morale builder. It is in fact a morale-buster. People leave corporations, even the good performers are more willing to entertain other offers and leaving your organization.

Certainly, with this type of consistency your high performers will strive for even higher achievements and your under achievers will be more open to redirection and more apt to “get it right.” When an error is made, learn to redirect. Redirection is a powerful way to positively impact a person’s performance.

Your mood and attitude should never determine how you respond to others. This is a difficult leadership trait to master. Yet it is one all leaders should continuously strive toward. The great coaches and leaders have discovered this consistency is appreciated by both high achievers and low achievers. What will you do this week to become a leader of this type of consistency?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life.

A friend of mine, Greg Hill, whom I went to high school with, was recently inducted into the Kentucky Track and Field Hall of Fame. I am very proud of Greg for this achievement. He deserves it. Greg was a multi-year state champion and record holder, a three time All-American at LSU and collegiate champion with AAU records to his credit.

I too was a sprinter, but not for my school. I was the fastest student on my church track team winning at meets. I ran well enough in gym class at school to be recruited by the school’s track coaches. But I would not join the track and field team at school.  My main reason – Greg Hill. Hear me, it was not anything Greg did, nor was it even about Greg. He was, and is still today, a friend whom I admire for his accomplishments. The fault lay with me. I wouldn’t join the team because I knew I could never beat Greg in a race. I used Greg’s athleticism to keep me from being my best in high school as an athlete.

I do regret that decision and my stinkin’ thinkin’ back then. Today, I want to encourage and even push others around me to be their best. You might say it’s what I do for a living. I have learned and practiced over the years (long since high school) that to help others to be their best, I must pursue the same for me.

Do you want the people around you to perform at their best, to be the best they possibly can? If you want others to be their best, you must first daily practice and strive to improve to be your best. If you are a leader, you will never lead people beyond your ability. Therefore, continual striving for improvement is essential. Athletes and sports teams do not become winners relying on yesteryears practice. Winning athletes and teams push themselves everyday for growth, for improvement.

What produces winning teams in sports or business, even in families, is the willingness to produce continual practice systems and procedures that align with the vision of the entity. Don Shula, retired NFL coach of the Miami Dolphins, said, “Everything I do is to prepare people to perform to the best of their ability.” Whether it was his coaching staff or the players on the team, Shula knew that a team will not perform on game day any better than their best day of practice.

As leaders in the business world, the church, and our own families, we need a similar resolve. Our children, employees, and volunteers will never rise above the structures of practice we build into the culture of our organization (or family). If we allow slothfulness in our organization, it becomes habit. And slothful habits keep people from reaching for the heights they can achieve. I’m living proof, those slothful habits can be broken!

Looking back, I can now say that if I had competed with you, Greg Hill, you would’ve helped me become a better athlete and a stronger person in my teen years. I am grateful to God that He has straightened my thinking and I now let the Greg Hill’s in my life build me up.

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life.

My father was, in my opinion, a master mechanic. He could work on anything from a toaster to a multi-story H-Vac system. For a few years he operated a small appliance repair business (on the side) out of our basement. He worked on toasters, irons, and other household appliances – before the throwaway age. No matter what it was, my Dad could take it apart, find the malfunctioning parts and repair the mechanical unit. His last position was as foreman of building maintenance for the University of Louisville, Medical Campus which included General (University) Hospital. As a child I lived in amazement, maybe even mesmerized, by his ability to “fix” things.

We all have natural abilities. While I personally believe these to be God-given, we must work at them to increase our ability to our greatest potential. Some are artists. Me, I have difficulty drawing a straight line with a ruler. Others are mechanically inclined, wordsmiths, cooks, on and on it goes. Some of our abilities are passed down from our parents. Have you ever sat down to consider your own personal natural abilities?

While preparing a workshop on natural abilities a few years back, I began thinking about my father and his ability. My thoughts turned to why I did not inherit any of his “fix-it” genes. It seemed all my brothers had some of his knack. My youngest brother followed closely in Dad’s footsteps, working in maintenance for a large hospital complex, eventually serving in a supervisory role. My second oldest brother is a master with cars, mechanically, body work and painting. My oldest brother received some of that giftedness and used it on helicopters for the military. Even my sister evidenced that fix-it mentality and giftedness.

But what about me. My Mom would share with others, “If you need something fixed, call Jim (my youngest brother), don’t call George.” I mean, when your own Mother…

As I was contemplating these “fix-it” abilities and my lack of them, God asked me a question. I had asked God why my brothers and sister received this fix-it gene from my Dad and why, it appeared,  I did not. The question He asked me in return was, “What do you do for a living?” As I contemplated the question, I quickly realized the answer, as if a light went on in my head.

I work with churches and organizations helping them find a better path to increased effectiveness. I assist organizations by helping them dissect the working organisms, find the ill-functioning parts, and building the best working order for the organization. I realized that day that I did receive some of that fix-it gene, just not with my hands on a machine.

We all have natural abilities. It is our responsibility to develop those abilities to the best of our potential. What are you doing to increase your abilities and use them for the good of others?

 George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life.

Don Shula was a master at coaching. Shula was the head coach for the Miami Dolphins from 1970 to 1995. Shula’s Dolphins, in 1972 had a perfect season, 17 wins, no losses, the only coach, the only team, to ever have such a season. Shula was named Sportsman of the year in 1993 after becoming the winningest coach in NFL history. There are several attributes that made Don Shula one of the great coaches, leaders in his field.

Shula believed whether you were a sports coach, a business leader, teacher, parent, or any person who held a position of influence or leadership, your task was to bring out the best in others. I’d say that is a pretty good objective for each one of us, regardless of our position in life. Shula would say, “Your job is to instruct, discipline, and inspire them to do things better than they thought they could do them on their own.”

A worthy leader is always looking to improve his/her ability to get the best performance out of those we influence and lead. One of the distinctives Don Shula lived by was the old sports adage, “You play at the level of your practice.” Therefore, his coaching staff was expected to live up to this as well. “Our staff works hard with our players to instill practice performance.” And it showed, week in, week out on the field.

Each of the Dolphin’s 11 players on the field knew exactly where he was supposed to be and what his exact assignment was on each play. So much so that this became second nature, superior performance. This is what Shula refers to as Overlearning. Practice and learn it until it becomes second nature – Overlearn it.

Some leaders treat their people in ways that lead to superior performance. Unfortunately, many leaders do the opposite, unintentional as it may be, treating people in ways that actually lead to lower levels of performance than their capability. The way you and I treat people is strongly influenced by what we expect of people.

You may say, “But I expect great things of my people.” Do you expect great things of, or great results from your people? For many leaders/managers it is the latter. It has been stated that one key reason organizations are not receiving superior performance begins with the mindset of the leaders. This actually is true of leaders, managers, sports coaches, parents, teachers and others in such positions. For some reason in our culture, in our minds, we believe people are sub-par performers, lazy and irresponsible.

The unfortunate circumstance is this mindset plays out in the way we treat people. And this contributes to sub-par performance from those people. Great coaches and Great Leaders have recognized and trained themselves to help their players and people to reach for their best. It’s not only telling them, but helping them reach. Helping someone to realize that he/she can perform at such superior levels will lead him/her to reach to that level. This week work on helping others to be what they can be, not what they currently are! Be a better leader.

Don Shula quotes from Everyone’s a Coach, Harper Business

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life.

A study of the teachings and life of Jesus Christ will show that He understood people learn better when they discover answers for themselves. Each of His teaching/learning techniques was focused on the person or persons sitting in front of Him. Be it one person or several thousand, Jesus’ focus was always the same; How are you going to leave here changed- different from when you arrived?” Whether Jesus was asking questions, using illustrations (stories), object lessons, teachable moments, or practice, His aim was always to lead those in front of Him to discover the truth, the real answers. And He was a master at leading people in discovery learning!

Likewise, coaching leadership is leading people to discovery. It is not often that a person will realize his/her potential without the help and encouragement of others. A coach helps individuals and teams to realize their potential and to discover ways of being efficient and effective in reaching that God-given potential. Most often when we think of a coach we think of sports teams. There is at least one similarity between these two types of coaches.

There has never been a sports coach who gave one ounce of skill to an athlete. A sports coach cannot endow or give an athlete any skill or ability to be a better ball player or athlete. You cannot give skill. What the great sports coaches have learned to do is assist the player in discovering and developing the skill and ability that lies inside the athlete. Thus, challenging the athlete to rise to his/her full potential as a ball player, runner, or swimmer.

Similarly, a coaching leader assists the coachee in discovering and developing the life skills and abilities he/she has inside, allowing him/her to rise to his/her full potential in business, in life, in ministry.

There are, what I consider, two major quality characteristics of coaching. Without continually striving to increase your understanding and use of these two characteristics, one will never be a coach of great value. I began to understand the value of these two characteristics as a very young adult. At that time, I had no idea where my journey would lead me. I began studying them simply to better myself as a salesman. Wow! What a journey it has been. To God be the glory.

Do you want to be a more effective leader? Learn and model the leadership techniques of Jesus. And as you use them, be certain you’re leading people to discover the truth and needed answers to move them forward. Jesus did and it still works today.

To learn more about coaching as a leadership style, contact George Yates and purchase your copy of Coaching: A Way of Leadership, A Way of Life.

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life.

It is said that a crocodile’s jaw strength can be up to 3,700 psi (pounds per square inch). However, it appears to be nowhere near as strong as a mother who needs to save her child. In this story the daughter in this situation was 25-years old. This story demonstrates that a mother’s love and need to protect her young does not pass as children age.

Rohima was just your average mom living in a village in Indonesia. She had decided to go out for a run when she heard a sound no mother wants to hear -the terrifying screams of her 25-year-old daughter, Trisna. The type of scream all moms know instantly in their gut, that something is very wrong.

When she met up with her daughter, she was horrified, her daughter’s leg was clenched in the mouth of an 18-foot-croc. Rohima immediately went into fight mode and started kicking the creature. When that did not work, she wrenched open the jaws of the crocodile with her bare hands. Trisna got her leg free. She did have to receive 50 stitches, but she was alive thanks to her mother.

We read stories of people like Rohima performing feats of super-human strength, but even greater than super-human strength is supernatural power that exceeds human and super-human strength.

In the 14^th verse of Judges chapter 6 we read, “The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and deliver Israel from the power of Midian. Am I not sending you?” How much extra strength was God going to give Gideon to destroy the Midianites? ________________

The answer is none. God said, “Go in the strength you have.” Likewise, God has given you and your church what you need to be obedient to Him. There is not one thing God has called you to do that He has not also equipped and resourced you for. We only need to trust and act in obedience. The nation Israel had acted in disobedience and had suffered seven (7) years as consequence for their disobedience.

Could much of what we see in our churches and thus in our culture be due to our (Christians) disobedience to God Almighty?

In Scrappy Church, Thom Rainer writes, “You can’t have a victim mentality with the mind of Christ. You can’t conclude you have a shortage of resources…” As with Gideon, we need to trust God. We are to go in the strength He has given us. After all, if we believe God lives in us through the Holy Spirit, then we cannot deny having every resource possibly available.

In 2019, let us Go in the strength He, God, has given us! May His will be accomplished by the power of The Holy Spirit, as we fulfill His purpose in our lives. That’s why He has left us here. Go in God’s Power through 2019!

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life.

On December 23^rd, 1823 an anonymous poem appeared in the Troy Sentinel (New York). The poem’s title was “A Visit from St. Nicholas”. That Poem has become widely known over the years since as “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” The author was later identified as, Clement Clark Moore, a professor at the Episcopal General Seminary in New York City. Mr. Moore had written the poem as a gift to his children for Christmas 1822. Let me share a different version with you this Christmas morn.

Twas the night before Jesus came and all through the house,

Not a creature was praying, not one in the house.

Their Bibles were lain on a shelf without care,

In hopes that Jesus would not come there.

Their children were dressing to climb into bed,

Not once ever kneeling or bowing their head.

And Mom in her rocker with baby on her lap,

Was watching the late Show while I took a nap.

When out of the East there arose such a clatter,

I sprang to my feet to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But angels proclaiming that Jesus was here.

(Author Unknown)

While angels did announce His first coming, scripture tells us Jesus’ second coming will be without announcement, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye. There will be no warning, no time to prepare. The time to prepare is now. And today we rejoice because God has sent a Savior which is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:11).

Merry Christmas to all! May you enter 2019 prepared.