Here are some summary points from a great little book titled, The Way of the Shepherd, 7 Ancient Secrets to Managing Productive People, by Dr. Kevin Leman and William Pentak, 2004, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI.
Know the Condition of Your Flock
Follow the status of your people as well as the status of the work.
Get to know your flock, one sheep at a time.
Engage your people on a regular basis.
Keep your eyes and ears open, question, and follow through.
Discover the Shape of Your Sheep
Your choice of sheep can make flock management easier or harder.
Start with healthy sheep, or you’ll inherit someone else’s problems.
Know the SHAPE of your sheep to make sure they’re in the right fold.
Help Your Sheep Identify with You
Build trust with your followers by modeling authenticity, integrity, and compassion.
Set high standards of performance.
Relentlessly communicate your values and sense of mission.
Define the cause for your people and tell them where they fit in.
Remember that great leadership isn’t just professional; it’s personal.
Make Your Pasture a Safe Place
Keep your people well informed.
Infuse every position with importance.
Cull chronic instigators from the flock.
Regularly rotate the sheep to fresh pastures.
Reassure the sheep by staying visible.
Don’t give problems time to fester.
The Staff of Direction
Know where you’re going, get out in front, and keep your flock on the move.
When directing, use persuasion rather than coercion.
Give your people freedom of movement, but make sure they know where the fence line is. Don’t confuse boundaries with bridles!
When your people get in trouble, go and get them out.
Remind your people that failure isn’t fatal.
The Rod of Correction
Protect: Stand in the gap and fight for your sheep.
Correct: Approach discipline as a teaching opportunity.
Inspect: Regularly inquire about your people’s progress.
The Heart of the Shepherd
Great leadership is a lifestyle, not a technique.
Every day you have to decide who’s going to pay for your leadership—you or your people.
Most of all, have a heart for your sheep.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Priorities
We are working to really focus on priorities in the ministry right now, so this little section from the book Know-How seems very appropriate:
“Priorities are the pathway for accomplishing goals. They provide the road map that organizes and directs the [organization] toward its goals. When the priorities are unmistakably clear and specific, people know what to focus on and, therefore, what should get their attention, resources, and follow-through. The right priorities, combined with appropriate follow-through, keep the truly important things from being driven off the radar screen in the day-to-day hurly-burly of life at work where everything can seem urgent and important. The right priorities help you rise above the constant demands that create stress and confusion. They enable you to provide clarity and focus for yourself and other people in your organization. Without priorities people are apt to try to do everything, wasting precious time and energy on things that aren’t important.
Goals are set at fifty-thousand feet. Priorities are set at ground level where you must have the tenacity, attitude, and willingness to probe the messy details to think through and define what the most important actions should be and what their second- and third-order consequences will be. Priorities determine how resources are allocated and thus have the potential for touching off clashes as resources are moved from one person to another. While the priorities must be absolutely clear, very specific, and, above all, doable, that isn’t enough. Once set, you must repeat the priorities over and over again and follow through on them to be sure that people understand them, buy into them, and act on them so the organization executes them and doesn’t deviate from the course the priorities set.”
“Priorities are the pathway for accomplishing goals. They provide the road map that organizes and directs the [organization] toward its goals. When the priorities are unmistakably clear and specific, people know what to focus on and, therefore, what should get their attention, resources, and follow-through. The right priorities, combined with appropriate follow-through, keep the truly important things from being driven off the radar screen in the day-to-day hurly-burly of life at work where everything can seem urgent and important. The right priorities help you rise above the constant demands that create stress and confusion. They enable you to provide clarity and focus for yourself and other people in your organization. Without priorities people are apt to try to do everything, wasting precious time and energy on things that aren’t important.
Goals are set at fifty-thousand feet. Priorities are set at ground level where you must have the tenacity, attitude, and willingness to probe the messy details to think through and define what the most important actions should be and what their second- and third-order consequences will be. Priorities determine how resources are allocated and thus have the potential for touching off clashes as resources are moved from one person to another. While the priorities must be absolutely clear, very specific, and, above all, doable, that isn’t enough. Once set, you must repeat the priorities over and over again and follow through on them to be sure that people understand them, buy into them, and act on them so the organization executes them and doesn’t deviate from the course the priorities set.”
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