What We Heard

Joel was gifted a leadership lesson as an eight year old on a soccer team that formed him. From his coach/father, he learned that a leader should never require something he himself isn’t willing to do. he learned that true leadership begins with service and setting an example. Leadership is also collaborative. Approaching problems and looking for solutions is better together when multiple perspectives, angles, approaches, and people work together. Managers get things done. Leaders make things better. When it comes to spiritual leadership, men struggle because it’s less about what you do and more about who you are. Because men define ourselves by what we do, there’s a tension.   What It Means: Leadership is less about winning and more about cultivating the best in other persons, those you lead. Every industry does leadership differently, but developing leaders is essential to growth. Developing managers is faster and easier and keeps people busy. Developing leaders takes far more resources and frees people to make things better. A company can develop leaders by creating a leadership culture. Caring for leaders and holding leaders accountable are essentials to creating and sustaining that type of culture.  

What We Do Next

Leadership begins at home so start there. It doesn’t only begin there but our best leadership should be there. With your spouse and with your kids. The leadership gravitas you achieve at work doesn’t always transfer to the home front. Entitlement can’t be a characteristic of effective leadership. Is your work a job or a place where you can freely fulfill your life’s mission? What is your list? The things that you want said and remembered about your life and your family? Compose it and then work to live by it.  

Key Illustration

At work, when your wife calls, is it more stressful to answer the call or ignore the call? At home, over dinner, when your boss calls, is it more stressful to answer the call or ignore the call? The answers you give to those questions indicate your priorities.  

Final Takeaways

• Get a group of men to invest in and to have invest in you.
• Develop a mission statement. You can’t lead when you don’t know where you are going.
• Take a next step. Today. Do what’s necessary today to make a move toward where you want to be.

Recourse

Family Mission Statement