5 leadership lessons from 2017

As the year 2017 comes to a close, I am thinking about the leadership lessons I learned (or had reinforced) over this past year.  In no particular order, here they are:

• inner work determines outer work: one of my goals for this academic year is to increase and strengthen my personal devotional life or, as others have put it, to improve on my spiritual practices.  As I have dipped my toe into this and, having spent more time in reading scripture, prayer, and quiet meditation, I am finding that there is more clarity in my decision making and more calmness in my execution.  This has not been easy for me, so I am thankful for the advice of one of my Board members who reminded me to not make this another "law" I have to follow but to extend myself grace when I forget or do not spend the needed time each day.  I look forward to see how this increases over time and shapes the way I lead.
• team is everything: more than ever, I have experienced a great team this year, working with five other people who are moving in the same direction and supporting each other along the way.  This team did not come about easy, not was it perfectly formed the first day.  We have done the hard work needed to become a great team and know that we can never let down our guard, lest we slip back into bad habits and retreat back into our silos.  I have learned to never take having a great team for granted AND to never settle for anything less than a great team.
• decision making never gets easier: having been in a leadership role for many years, and having thought about and written about leadership for many years, it is still difficult and gut-wrenching to make those hard decisions that impact people and organizations.  Having done the inner work and having a great team with which to do the work helps to provide the support necessary when making these decisions, but they are never easy.  As an organization grows and changes, the decisions that leaders make become more complex and can have consequences far beyond what one can imagine.  Perhaps this is why leaders (especially those who are founding leaders) get stuck after the first few major changes and decisions.
• you are what you read: in her book A Poetry Handbook Mary Oliver notes that great poets begin to use the right words and sounds because they have read great poetry and writing over and over and over, giving them the ability to produce the right words and sounds through instinct (as well as the hard work they out into their writing).  I believe this is also true of leadership - creating vision, building team, and making decisions are all a result of the years of experience one has put into their craft of leadership, and it often begins with what one reads.  My reading list over this past year included more Shakespeare and poetry than ever before, as well as a number of  more in-depth books on how to run a university. 
• it's all about having the right people in place: as a corollary to "team is everything," this maxim is a reminder that leaders are always looking for (and pushing others in the organization to look for) the right people in the right seat on the bus (kudos to Jim Collins and his book Good to Great for ingraining this concept into all of our heads).  As Collins puts it "first who, then what."  This concept is very difficult for type A leaders to not only understand, but to enact in an ongoing manner.  Leaders want to get things done and not worry about who will get those things done.  Having the right people in place relieves the leader from having to worry about getting things done because the right people will have already done the right things.

That's my list of leadership lessons learned for 2017...next week I will look back at my top five books of 2017 and how they have shaped my thinking about leadership over the past year.

a prayer for leaders

As a part of my regular devotional life, I use a prayer book that was originally composed in 1936 by John Baillie, a Scottish theologian raised in the Calvinist tradition.  These prayers (which I have been using for over five years) direct my days and thoughts, especially as I consider them in terms of my vocation as President at Concordia University Texas.  This past Tuesday's prayer especially struck me as one that leaders should regularly pray as it speaks to that which we do and those with whom we do our work. My prayer is that it will speak to the reader of this page in a special way today and well into the future.

Blessed be Thou, most gracious God, that again Thou hast brought light out of darkness and caused the morning to appear.  Blessed be Thou that Thou didst send me forth, in health and vigor, to the duties and doings of another day.  Go with me, I beseech Thee, through all the sunlit hours, and so protect me from every evil way that, when evening comes, I need not hide my head in shame.

O Thou who has graciously called me to be Thy servant, I would hold myself in readiness today for Thy least word of command.  Give me the spirit, I pray Thee, to keep myself in continual training for the punctual fulfillment of Thy most holy will.

   Let me keep the edges of my mind keen:

   Let me keep my thinking straight and true:

   Let me keep my passions in control:

   Let me keep my will active:

   Let me keep my body fit and healthy:

   Let me remember Him whose meat it was to do the will of Him that sent Him.

O Lord of the vineyard, I beg Thy blessings upon all who truly desire to serve Thee by being diligent and faithful in their several callings, bearing their due share of the world's burden, and going about their daily tasks in all simplicity and uprightness of heart.

   For all who tend flocks or till the soil:

   For all who work in factories or mines:

   For all who buy and sell in the marketplace:

   For all who labor with their brains:

   For all who labor with their pens:

   For all who tend the hearth:

                                     Dear Lord I pray.

In Thy great mercy save us all from the temptations that severally beset us, and bring us to everlasting life, by the power of Thy holy cross.  Amen.

5 attributes of a strong team

This past week, during our executive team's offsite, I witnessed a group of people who not only work well together but also are able to deliver on results.  After a year of being together in the current configuration, something has happened that has made this team strong, resilient, and what Patrick Lencioni would call "highly functioning."  Since that meeting on Tuesday, I have been thinking about what it is that makes this team work and what has led to other teams work so well which I have led or been a member of.  Here are my conclusions to what makes this particular team (and what might  make other teams) function in an effective manner:

1. an acknowledgement of one's own strengths and deficits...using the Birkman Profile for the past two plus years has made each of us all too aware of who we are and what makes us tick.  Beyond acknowledging our own behaviors, we work to manage those behaviors and improve  in areas that might hold back our own performance or the team's perfomance.  We keep visiting these behaviors at every offsite meeting just to remind ourselves of who we are and how we behave.
2. an acknowledgement of each other's strengths and deficits...as we explore our own behaviors, so we get to know the behaviors of each other.  Our coach (who attends each of the offsite meetings with us) helps us discover new insights about each other.  The more we know about each other, and the more we accept each other as we are, the more we can support each other and fill in the gaps for each other...and of course, we can do that because we are confident that fellow team members are working to improve on their own strengths and deficits.
3. an unwavering commitment to working with each other...no member on the team does their work in a silo, knowing that to get the most information (and the right information) they need to talk together, plan together, and collaborate on the work they do together.  This is not always easy as people can be physically scattered, time is often short, and each member of the team has their own team to worry about.  Regular check-ins and weekly meetings help to foster this behavior, but it is the unwavering commitment of each team member toward this behavior that really makes this happen.
4. a commitment to getting better as a team...at the end of each quarterly offsite, we ask ourselves how we are better as a team than we were eight hours earlier; we are willing to be all in with the team exercises our coach puts us through; we commit to act fully in agreement when decisions are made; we keep reading about and exploring what makes a team better; and we do regular evaluations of ourselves as a team.  We noted at the end of this week's offsite that this is not something we should take for granted and that we will need to be ever vigilant to those items that could derail us as a team.
5. the ability to hold each other and the team accountable to results...at the end of the day, it is results that matter.  The ability to execute decisions is the pinnacle of a highly functioning team, something that is not easy to come by.  The use of dashboards...the charts, graphs, and emails that remind us how we are doing...the regular check-ins that are about what we have accomplished...the commitment to ask hard questions when results are not reached - all of these help us to hold each other and the team accountable to results.

The work of these types of teams often goes unseen throughout the organization.  It is work done behind closed doors or offsite...it is work done with the trust and confidence of each other...it is work done that can expose one's deficits...it is work done that, given the opportunity, many people would rather not do.  And, at the end of the day, it is work done that brings deep satisfaction and great meaning to one's vocation.  I am thankful to have this type of team and look forward to working with them for a long time.

the process of decision making

I wrote this blog one year ago this week...it is still one of my favorites. 

“The leader facilitates a decision making process by which those involved feel good about the decision making process”

This thought came to me as I was driving to Concordia's service of commencement this past Saturday (who knows from where these ideas originate).  It struck me that when a group of people are brought together for a decision to be made, there will be times (probably more often than not) when some of the group members disagree with the decision...perhaps even disagree violently.  The leader's role is not to get everyone to agree...the leader's role is to facilitate a decision making process by which those involved feel good about the decision making process.  That's not always easy, and it may take more art than skill.  Here are a few thoughts on how one might be able to make this happen on a more regular basis:

• before the process begins, be sure that the right people are in the room...it is probably better to err on the side of too many people around the table rather than missing someone who needs to be there
• articulate the problem very clearly so people know exactly what the issue is on which they are deciding...clarity around problem solving saves time and keeps the group focused
• ask good questions...before entering the room, be sure that the right questions have been articulated and that the leader does not have pre-conceived answers they already want to hear
• be sure everyone has a chance to speak...bring out everyone's ideas, especially those who tend to be more quiet
• do not let a certain voice or opinion dominate...when people are passionate about something, they want to speak to it (and often believe that if they speak loud and long enough they will get their way)
• ask clarifying questions...be sure that you and the others around the table understand what is being said and WHY certain ideas are being stated
• have a common understanding about who is making the decision and how that decision will be made...is it the leader's decision; the decision of another person in the group; is it through a vote or consensus?
• do not leave the room until everyone understands what decision has been made (or when it will be made)...again, getting clarity around this helps to send the same message forward
• follow up with major dissenters and influential voices...very few people need to get their way all the time AND most people want to know that they were heard.  Those who get a little more attention from the leader after the decision has been made are more apt to be supportive as the decision is rolled out
• enter into the conversation with the attitude that you as a leader do not always have the right answer to the issue at hand...being humble throughout the decision making process will go a long way toward helping others feel good about the decision making process

Leaders who understand and practice this concept can help to build a strong constructive culture where people are free to speak up, teams work collaboratively, and team members feel good about the decision making process - whether they agree with the decision or not.

meeting greatness

In just a few hours, I will be picking up and meeting for the first time Dr. Robert Louis Wilken, a 1955 graduate of Concordia who will serve as our fall commencement speaker tomorrow morning.  Dr. Wilken is a world-renown expert in the discipline of patristics, the study of early church history and the early church fathers.  His most important work is the book The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity published by Yale University Press in 2012 and already translated into several different languages and used in colleges, seminaries, and universities across the world. After having read his book over the past several weeks I am more than ecstatic to meet him in a few hours and begin the process of asking questions and learning from him.

So let me be clear - this is not a blog about Dr. Wilken, or early church history, or even my upcoming meeting with him.  It is about what it means for leaders to brush shoulders with those who are considered to be the best in their fields and what they might be able to learn as they engage with these experts.  Serving in a leadership role makes multiple demands on people - they are engaged with strategy; they are engaged with financial health; they are engaged with multiple publics and entities demanding of their time; and they are engaged with people.  This is why I believe that leaders should consistently be putting themselves in contact with those who are considered to be great...people who are considered to be experts...people who are recognized as world-renown...and people who are a whole lot smarter than themselves.

What do I hope to learn today as I interact with Dr. Wilken?  And what might other leaders learn from those they meet who are considered to be great?  Here are a few of my ideas on this Friday morning:

• new ideas...great people are often deep thinkers who are constantly testing out new ideas with others.  Whether those ideas and thoughts are directly related to my field or discipline does not matter; their thinking will get leaders thinking and new ideas will start to flow
• a different frame through which to think...Dr. Wilken is a historian and theologian, so his frame of thinking will be different than mine.  Having a new frame through which to view issues just might give me some new insights into current problems
• new questions to consider...great people, being deep thinkers, are always asking questions and their questions might easily be translated into similar questions leaders should be asking about their own organizations.  
• a little more knowledge...experts love to talk about their discipline and their field of study, and I plan to know more about the early church than I currently do after spending time with Dr. Wilken.  That knowledge may or may not prove helpful to my vocation as a leader...it will increase my knowledge of a part of history which is not currently fleshed out in my mind
• a greater appreciation for greatness...in their roles leaders have to wear many hats and spread themselves thin.  Those who study a discipline deeply and over time become very knowledgeable and are great in their field of study.  That greatness is and should be recognized by everyone, something of which I am in awe
• how to lead better...the wisdom, the maturity, and the experience of Dr. Wilken will give me insight into how I might think and behave differently.  Those who are considered to be great bring that wisdom, maturity, and experience to everything they do. By merely watching him over the next two days, I hope to learn from him just by being present

One of the roles of leadership is to be a constant learner, getting better and better in our leading over time.  One way to learn is to hang our with people who are considered to be "great."  Which great person will you be meeting with over the next month or so?