Monday, November 12, 2012

WORDDEVO: "The Weekly Word with Leadership Principles" [11-11 thru 11-17] DEVOTIONALS

Seven Days of Devotion

The Weekly Word is a Collection of Devotionals to be read on the Day Listed and presented freely as a service to and for the Body of Christ and Believers throughout the World that We may Hear God Speak to us as the Spirit of God gives us ears to hear and eyes to see what God would have for us daily in relationship to Him.

Are you being asked to lead in changing situations?

Written by Barry-Werner

Effective leaders adapt their leadership to their followers’ needs. Read Ezekiel 3:8-9.

In Ezekiel chapter two and the early part of chapter three, God told Ezekiel that the people he was being sent to would not listen to his words. Even though they spoke the same language and had clear understanding of his examples because of a common background, their hearts were hard and they did not want to hear from Ezekiel because they did not want to hear from God. For this reason God told Ezekiel that he was preparing him to lead in this specific leadership situation by making him unyielding and as hard as the people he was asked to lead.

Effective Christian leaders allow God to shape them into the kind of leader they need to be to meet the needs of their team in a specific situation. They must maintain godly character and God-honoring core values but they must not get stuck on one style of leadership or mode of operation. Effective leaders adapt their leadership to meet the needs of their team. There are elements that help a leader evaluate the type of leadership they must apply for the existing situation:

Is the team losing momentum, static, or making forward progress?
What is the team’s attitude? Are they open to change? Do they want to set checkpoints and achieve milestones or is there resistance, fear of failure or maybe even fear of success?
Will the team take instruction based on positional authority or do they resist and mistrust positional authority?
Is the team the right team? Do they have the gifts and skills needed to accomplish the organization’s goals?
How urgent is change? Is there some time to evaluate the situation and team or does the situation require an “instant” fix to save the organization?• Does the organization possess the resources to support a highly efficient team or does infrastructure need to be built along with the team’s growth?• Am I the right leader for the job?

Have you been given a new assignment or have the organization’s goals changed creating a new situation in which you are being asked to lead? Situational leadership is not easy. It demands a leader’s attention to evaluate the situation and the team’s conditions. Wise leaders know that when they adapt their leadership to meet the situation in which God has placed them, it will be time well invested and time that will pay dividends.

MONDAY

Can you answer your team’s questions about the vision?

An effective leader uses whatever tools are at their disposal to communicate vision to their team. Read Ezekiel 4 and 5.

Ezekiel’s job was clear. Make the Jewish people who were living in captivity in Babylon aware that God had additional punishment in store for their friends and family still living in Jerusalem. He had to dash their hopes of returning and help them understand why all this was happening.

Ezekiel’s unusual actions were probably the talk of the entire population. He communicated God’s message for the future of Jerusalem and a message of what life in Jerusalem would be like under a Babylonian siege through physical actions and demonstrations. When dialog and word pictures fail a leader may have to live out the vision to help communicate it clearly and effectively to their team.

True visionary leaders often see elements that are a bit overwhelming to their teammates. This feeling of weakness generally turns out to be a strength. If the team does not at least initially feel they are in over their heads there may be no spark of excitement, no challenge to push beyond the status quo.

Wise leaders help their team accept the overwhelming vision by answering a few questions:

Who will ultimately accept responsibility to complete the vision?
Is there some evidence that the vision is legitimate? You need to help the team overcome their skepticism.
What is the hope that the project can succeed? People have seen too many projects that simply turned out to be disappointing and embarrassing. People eagerly desire to invest their time and effort in a successful venture.
Can the team find enough belief in the leader? If there is a track record of one failed over-the-top vision after another it will be difficult to communicate a new vision to the team.
Will the team’s legitimate concerns be addressed? When a concern requires faith and trust address it with honesty so the team knows what they are getting into.
Can you give the team a reason to get past their doubts? Allow them to see the ultimate reward.

Wise leaders find ways to communicate vision. Sometimes that is straight forward and other times, as it was with Ezekiel, it may take extraordinary methods.

TUESDAY

Are you prepared to be judged for your ethical standards?

God deals with leaders based on the standard they use to deal with others. Read Ezekiel 7:27.

As Ezekiel gave God’s word in detail concerning the demise of Jerusalem to the Jewish people living in Babylon, he had a special message for the leaders. He stated in verse 27, “I will deal with them according to their conduct, and by their own standards I will judge them.”

What a principle to encourage every leader to lead with high God-honoring standards and ethical character. God isn’t impressed by a leader’s highly developed skills if that same leader has defective character. Only through their character can a leader participate in God’s divine nature and escape corruption.

This is such an important principle that when my son graduated from high school and had an opportunity for a football scholarship at one or more impressive schools, my advice to him was to evaluate a school for three elements in this order:

Look for a God-honoring environment on the campus.
Look for a school that has quality academics.
Look for a quality athletic program.

The natural temptation for a student athlete is to look at the athletics first, the academics second and the school’s “character” environment third (maybe fourth if you throw cheerleaders in the mix). I have met individuals that graduated from Ivy League schools with impressive credentials and great knowledge and skills whose lives were a mess from lifestyle problems developed during their college years. These leaders are setting themselves up for a harsh judgment according to verse 27.

Have you functioned at a lower moral and ethical standard than you want to be judged by when you stand before the Lord? Through Ezekiel, God makes it abundantly clear that the leaders will be judged according to their conduct and by their own standards. Wise leaders will learn from Ezekiel’s words to the Jewish people living in Babylon.

Matthew 7:2 “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

WEDNESDAY

In your heart where only you know you, do you sense that you lack integrity?

A leader without integrity is a dangerous person. Read Ezekiel 8.

God had directed Ezekiel to prophesy stern judgments on Jerusalem. In Chapter eight he was transported to Jerusalem in visions from God and shown the reason for the judgments. God showed Ezekiel scene after scene of idol worship in the temple built to worship Him and Him alone. In the vision, within the temple itself, Ezekiel saw people worshiping a statue of Asherah, the Canaanite goddess of fertility that King Josiah had removed 30 years earlier, he saw crawly things that reflected Egyptian influence, Tammuz a Babylonian fertility god, people worshiping the sun and in verses 12 and 13 he saw 70 elders each worshiping at the shrine of his own idol.

It is interesting that in Ezekiel’s vision he saw leaders (elders) worshiping their idol in the darkness. God was showing Ezekiel that the leaders demonstrated one behavior in the daylight when the people of Jerusalem observed them but demonstrated another behavior in private. God wanted Ezekiel to communicate to his countrymen that by living double lives these leaders lacked the integrity demanded by God to serve as His leader. A leader (an elder in Ezekiel’s case) who is convinced that God does not see their behavior at all times is a dangerous person.

Just how important is integrity to leadership? Richard Baxter, an English “Pastor to Pastors” on page 63 of the book The Reformed Pastor said, “Take heed to yourselves, lest your example contradict your doctrine, and lest you lay such stumbling-blocks before the blind, as may be the occasion of their ruin; lest you unsay with your lives, what you say with your tongues; and be the greatest hinderers of the success of your own labors…He that means as he speaks, will surely do as he speaks.”

Every leader has an opportunity to demonstrate consistent behavior that supports their beliefs or they can demonstrate multiple behaviors that call their true beliefs into question. All leaders will blow it from time to time but that is not what Richard Baxter or Ezekiel is talking about in their warning to leaders. They are pointing to the conscious, deliberate living out of two or more value systems that contradict each other. They are talking about leaders who live dual standards for personal gain or to specifically make people believe they are someone they are not. Through Ezekiel God made it known that He will judge leaders for lacking integrity.

In that inner-hidden-deeper-secret part of your heart where only you know you, do you sense that you lack integrity? Do you sense that if pressured enough or given the right reward that you might cave in to behavior that does not honor God? The wise leader will take those feelings to God immediately and seek truth from the Bible to become a leader of integrity that will honor God in all parts of his leadership.

THURSDAY

Do you know the values that drive your actions?

Leaders must continually address the values and viewpoints that drive their behavior. Read Ezekiel 11:1-13.

In chapter 10 God carried Ezekiel to Jerusalem in his spirit and showed him that He had withdrawn His spirit and glory from the temple. As chapter 11 begins God carried Ezekiel in spirit to a specific temple gate and allowed him to see 25 leaders who were discussing the economic opportunity that would be available to them when the Babylonian siege ended. They had totally missed the point of God’s discipline of the people living in Jerusalem and were planning to take advantage of the poor once things were back to normal. A very revealing statement that should be considered by ever leader is when God said, “I know what is going through your mind.”

When a leader is evaluated by God it is not only their actions but the values and heart intent behind the actions that are of concern. God judges a leader’s actions by the intent of the heart that controls the actions. Developing effective leadership does not only involve learning new information and skills but implementing that new information through a God-honoring value system that becomes God-honoring behavior. The following are just a few of the God-honoring heart characteristics Christian leaders should strive for daily:

A growing intimacy with God
A compassionate love and respect for people
A strong Biblical identity
A humble servant’s heart
A hunger for Biblical values and priorities
A decision-making process that centers around godly principles

The above list is not exhaustive but only establishes a pattern for a leader to build a more complete list. A leader must have leadership skills but in the process of developing those skills they should remember that when skills are developed daily in an environment of the above heart characteristics a leader’s actions will honor God. These core values will become the foundation that drives their actions. Wise leaders know that when God measures the greatness of a leader, He measures the heart behind the actions not the knowledge in their head that developed the skill.

FRIDAY

Do you have trouble getting your vision brought to reality?

Effective leaders do more than talk about vision, they develop an implementation strategy and include action steps. Read Ezekiel 12:21-28.

In the early part of chapter 12 God instructed Ezekiel to pack his belongings and dig through the wall at dusk as a symbolic act for his fellow Jews in exile. This demonstration was to show the acts King Zedekiah would soon take in Jerusalem to escape capture by the Babylonians. The people responded with a proverb spoken often among the Jews, “The days go by and every vision comes to nothing.” God told Ezekiel to tell the people that He would put an end to this proverb “…and they will no longer quote it in Israel.”

Our teams are no different than the Jewish people hearing the prophecy from Ezekiel. They too often hear talk of what can or will happen and too seldom see the action steps that start the process. Visions are simply talk unless someone puts feet to them. Visions lose their strength without action to support them. Effective leaders always communicate both the vision and the steps to its implementation.

I am just old enough to remember when the President of the United States told the nation we would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Today that doesn’t seem like an outrageous statement but back in the day, nothing like that had ever been done or even considered. Who could imagine that it could happen or think of how to implement such a thing? There are a few common sense steps to creating implementation strategies for even the wildest vision:

Start with prayer seeking God’s wisdom.
Break the vision down into as many parts as you can think of in this early stage.
Prioritize the parts. This is not an exact science but it is reasonably easy to know those elements that need to happen at the start of the project i.e. clarifying the vision and getting it in clear language, basic research, estimating the resources to start, etc.
Establish some level of leadership to get the processes started.
Create some timelines, checkpoints, deadlines, and celebrations to keep the team accountable and motivated.
Make sure your team knows these early decisions must be flexible.

Have you had trouble getting a vision brought to reality? Have you tried numerous times to get your team excited about a vision but can’t overcome their skepticism? Wise leaders help their team catch the vision by taking some initial steps to get feet under the vision. Effective leaders make it clear that these are preliminary steps and not the final strategy. They help their team understand that these preliminary steps are designed to start some forward momentum. These early steps help the team’s belief level and become a bridge to the next level strategy.

SATURDAY

Do you lead in every situation with integrity?

When a leader is less than truthful it most often leads to other half-truths or outright lies to cover the first indiscretion. Read Ezekiel 13:1-16.

God commanded Ezekiel to prophecy against those who were false prophets in Israel. These religious leaders claimed they had heard from God and convinced the people they were speaking truth when they were simply speaking out of their own imagination for their own benefit. Ezekiel called the lies a “flimsy wall,” and the cover-up he labeled “whitewash.” Ezekiel stated that any enterprise built on falsehood has shoddy workmanship and is not built with quality on a firm foundation. He flatly stated that their attempts to cover up the lack of quality were like a whitewash that would come off the first time it got wet.

Wise leaders seek to lead in every situation with integrity. Leaders who start down a path of lies need more lies to cover their lack of honesty and integrity. When a leader looks to the world’s value system as an acceptable standard they will soon be confused by self-interest, social conditions, the need for recognition and will slip to situational ethics. God is aware of a leader’s heart and demands the right behavior for the right reasons.

James 2:18 “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.”

THE WEEKLY WORD WITH LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES

Can be found here:

http://theweeklywordleadershipprinciples.blogspot.com/

Sunday, November 4, 2012

WORDDEVO: "The Weekly Word with Leadership Principles" [11-4 thru 11-10]

Seven Days of Devotion

Do your circumstances determine your emotions and your hope for the future?

Written by Barry-Werner

A Christian leader’s only hope is in the character and promises of God. Read Lamentations 3:22-26.

With the horrors of the complete destruction of Jerusalem still in his mind, Jeremiah wrote the book of Lamentations. Almost right in the middle of Lamentation’s five chapters Jeremiah wrote words of hope not despair. In his words he reminded the remnant of Jews left in the land as well as today’s leaders that our only real hope is in the character and promises of God.

When everything else had been stripped away, Jeremiah realized it was God’s lovingkindness, compassion, and faithfulness that gave him a personal peace and a hope for the future. In the rubble of Jerusalem Jeremiah realized that God is always good to those who seek Him and put their hopes and trust in Him. Jeremiah realized that everything in God’s plan was for the people’s ultimate good.

Leaders must be very careful not to judge God’s faithfulness according to appearances of the moment but rather they should seek God’s wisdom for the larger view. There are only two possible perceptions of God’s character and our circumstances and every leader will choose one. Leaders will either view God’s character in light of their circumstances or view their circumstances in light of God’s character. If a leader’s core truth views God’s character in light of their circumstances, they will tend to look away from God and to themselves or other powerful resources for help.

Do your circumstances determine your emotions and your hope for the future? Like Jeremiah, God-honoring leaders seek to find hope by putting their circumstances in perspective based on God’s character and promises.

MONDAY

Do you have team members who are in the midst of discipline?

Effective leaders understand that discipline for the individual or for the team should have a time of restoration when the process fulfills its purpose.

Read Lamentations 3:31-36.

As Jeremiah lamented the destruction of Jerusalem, his thoughts went to God’s mercy even in the midst of an extremely difficult situation. Jeremiah wrote, “For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, He will show compassion…to deny a man his rights before the Most High, to deprive a man of justice – would not the Lord see such things.”

Every leader has seen times when a member of the team has made a careless, inadvertent mistake. Wise leaders do not overreact. Exhortation may be required but seldom discipline in these cases. Every leader has or will see times when a teammate willfully defies those in authority and violates the organizations’ established core values. This was the case of the people in Judah and Jerusalem. God established a discipline so harsh that had He not brought an end to the Babylonian siege of the city, no one would have survived. Yet, God established a time for the discipline to end. Even before the Babylonians made their final assault on the city in 586 BC, Jeremiah had sent a letter to some former residents of Jerusalem already exiled in Babylon that there would be a time when the Jewish people would come back and occupy the land and rebuild the city of Jerusalem.

Do you have team members who are in the midst of discipline? Do you have a definite intent to restore this teammate to the full rights and privileges of any other teammate should the discipline achieve its intended purpose? Have you established clear criteria for restoration? God’s model of discipline had a time to begin, a process of learning, and a time of full restoration. Wise leaders seek to live by God’s model of effective discipline.

TUESDAY

Do you feel like God has something bigger for you?

There are certain truths that must be understood by every Christian leader. Read Lamentations 3:37-38.

As Jeremiah sought to understand why the nation of Judah and the city of Jerusalem had been so brutally devastated by the Babylonian army he came to a truth that every Christian leader must adopt as their own. He said, “Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?” Jeremiah addressed in his own heart the issue of the sovereignty of God and God’s right to make decisions about human history.

God-honoring leaders accept as truth that God has called every leader and has a purpose for them. In light of His purpose, God sometimes assigns leaders to courses they would not choose for themselves. These assignments are part of the process of a leader’s development. Sometimes a leader’s preparation may seem slow and even painful but there is no cheap, easy way to create a servant leader with a heart for their team. It is through this process of testing and learning to trust in every situation that leaders finally become ready to be assigned the task God created them to complete.

Do you feel like God has something bigger for you but your current circumstances has your leadership influence limited? Wise leaders understand that God sometimes puts leaders through a lengthy, painful process of character and personal development before they are ready to serve and lead others. It is only as a leader discovers the truth concerning the sovereignty of God that Jeremiah spoke of in Lamentations 3:37-38that they will be ready to serve in a way that truly honors God.

WEDNESDAY

Do you use rewards as part of your leadership?

Wise leaders use rewards as a natural part of positive reinforcement for accomplishments and they also have a system that applies appropriate consequences for failure.

Read Lamentations 4:6-8.

Over the years God had blessed the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem. Under David and Solomon’s rule no other nation knew such business or military success. God had blessed the nation with abundance through their agricultural system and had established such a military power under David’s leadership that Solomon knew almost 40 years of peace. Even during these most prosperous days God detailed a consequence should the kings, priests and people of the nation fail to keep their covenant.

Good leaders know how to attach both rewards and consequences to a team or team member’s performance. An effective system of rewards establishes priorities for the most important areas of conduct and productivity and the system must also prioritize the non-negotiable negatives. There must be a price attached to actions or attitudes that damage the team.

A few questions to ask as you determine the effectiveness of your system of rewards:

What is the best way to communicate the system to your team?
Do you have clear criteria in place so evaluations of performance are fair and just based on performance not popularity or personality?
Does your system of rewards align with your stated core values?
Is your system so simple that people will easily understand expectations or so complicated there will be misunderstandings?
Does your system of rewards give proper credit for priorities both negative and positive?
Are the rewards balanced? Are the positive reinforcements and negative penalties roughly equal in intensity and value?

Effective leaders understand the human need for rewards and the equal but opposite need for boundaries.

THURSDAY

Do you include God as an integral part of your leadership?

Wise Christian leaders include God as an integral part of their leadership. They have a high level of dependence on God in their attitude and actions.

Read Lamentations 5:14-22.

The leaders of the nation of Judah failed to recognize the authority of God over their nation and that oversight led them to make decisions and condone actions that broke their covenant with God. Jeremiah confesses the sin of the people and also acknowledges that God reigns forever and will ultimately restore what has been lost. Successful Christian leaders don’t depend on their own strength and wisdom but on the sovereign God.

In the abstract, it is hard to see how any knowledgeable Christian leader could trust their own instincts rather than depend on God for wisdom, but we live in a fallen world where the deceiver has tactics that allow a leader to feel morally superior even to God’s wisdom. If today’s leaders don’t have an accountability system with trusted Christian partners, they can be quickly lured away from trusting God just as Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. The Bible is clear that the autonomous mindset is a mark of foolishness because it ignores a leader’s fundamental need to depend on God. Wise leaders recognize God as an active leader on their leadership team.

Romans 1:21 “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

FRIDAY

Have you fallen into a rut in how you communicate?

I heard once that if the communication is fuzzy from the leader it will be foggy for the team. Effective leaders work hard at communication skills.

Read Ezekiel 1:1-28.

Ezekiel was a prophet appointed by God to serve the Jewish people in exile in Babylon. He was taken into exile approximately 10 years before the fall of Jerusalem. God used Ezekiel as a watchman. He called Ezekiel to warn the exiled Jews in Babylon that their exile was not a fluke but in the plan of God and that the city of Jerusalem would still fall to the Babylonian army. God had Ezekiel communicate the future through extraordinary mysteries, visions, symbolism, parables, and allegories that were meant to stretch the minds of the listener. The book of Ezekiel is a complex collection of prophetic messages offering significant ways to grasp God’s future plan for salvation and righteousness on the earth.

In chapter one Ezekiel gave a memorable vision of a sovereign God delivering a message to the captives in Babylon. Ezekiel began the vision with images the people knew with the dark clouds of a mighty storm they would have seen many times coming in over the Euphrates river. This time however the blackness of the clouds and the unnatural fiery glow and the lightning flashing provided the framework for the manifestation of the greater glory of God.

Leaders can learn from the means God used to communicate through the prophet Ezekiel:

Ezekiel used a memorable mental image. People frame their thinking in pictures. Often a visual image as simple as a white board drawing will give the leader’s communication a lasting impression.
Ezekiel used everyday objects such as the storm. This object was so easily understood that it supported the point of the vision rather than detract from it.
In the same vision that used everyday objects such as the storm, Ezekiel stretched the mind of the listener with his vision of the unearthly chariot and its wheels that formed the throne of God. Wise leaders use communication to stretch the mind of their teammates.
Ezekiel’s word picture was motivational and gave incentive to listen to what would be said in the rest of the prophecy. Wise leaders see each communication as part of a process not an end.

Have you fallen into a rut in how you communicate? Are you making assumptions that your team knows what they should do and only need encouragement from you to complete the job? The exiled Jewish people knew exactly why they were in exile but God sent Ezekiel to keep the goals for change in front of them. Effective leaders use creative communication to help their team stay focused on the goals and to sustain forward momentum.

SATURDAY

Are you in a situation where your team has rejected your leadership?

There will be times when leaders need to stand their ground even when their team disagrees.

Read Ezekiel 2:1-10.

God made it clear to Ezekiel that He was not giving him an easy leadership assignment. He was to dash the hopes of his Jewish brothers for an early return to Judah from their exiled life in Babylon. He had to consistently remind them that Jerusalem would still be destroyed and that God wanted them to repent of their worship of other gods, their self-dependence, and evil treatment of the poor and defenseless. God told Ezekiel that He was sending him to a rebellious people who acted like stubborn children and made sure Ezekiel knew his call did not depend on the people’s response.

There will be times in every leader’s life when their assignment is extremely difficult because of their team’s attitude and predisposed objection to a specific plan of action. Leaders will have times when their strongest relationships break down, when trusted allies betray them, and key subordinates fail. It is during these moments that it is vitally important for a leader not to have any hindrances in their relationship with God. Leaders can lead a team that is in disarray if they are sure God has called them to this moment and He is directing their every step.

Are you in a situation where your team has rejected your leadership? Ezekiel knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that God had called him. He knew his assignment would be difficult. He built his expectations and prepared his mind and emotions for isolation and rejection. He could withstand the human disrespect because he was sure God had confirmed his path.

Like Ezekiel, if a leader knows God has supplied the fire inside, if they are living with ever increasing amounts of the fruits of the spirit, if God has supernaturally given signs reinforcing the course along the way, if a leader is experiencing God’s gifts and grace, then a leader can have confidence God is in control in their situation.

Colossians 3:15-16a “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.”

THE WEEKLY WORD WITH LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES

Can be found here:

http://theweeklywordleadershipprinciples.blogspot.com/