Missed Taken Leadership
At some point, all leaders lose their way. Sometimes it's, "Nailed it," and other times it's, "Failed it!" I want to encourage you. Failure is inevitable. If you step out to succeed, you WILL fail. Failure is a part of the journey. However, you don’t always have to make the same mistakes over and over. You can learn from them and grow.
Here are 5 ways to make BIG mistakes in leadership.
1. Make it about you.
Do you refer to your team as “my team” or “our team?” When you walk into a room do you think, “here I am,"or "there you are?” Is your team there to make you better, or are you there to make your team better? These are questions you must answer honestly in order to fix the order of your leadership.
It’s okay if you didn't answer these questions the way you wished you could've, but at least you’re being honest with yourself, and that’s a great place to start. You're leaning in the right direction. When you begin working on having the right attitude and approach to people, you’re on your way to making a big difference in the lives of others.
2. Make it about money.
Jesus talked about hirelings (John 10:11-13). These are leaders that treat people as a commodity: doing the job just for a paycheck. Now, before you get all high and mighty, ask yourself if you’d still be doing your job if you weren’t getting paid. The answer to that is obvious for many of us.
However, being hired doesn't mean you're a hireling. There's nothing wrong with receiving some kind of personal compensation for our work. After all, we have to eat. The difference is that real leaders care more about people than they do the pay. They genuinely want to invest in people’s lives not to get a return from them, but to truly help them succeed.
3. Make it all about winning.
Today’s culture is all about winning. We idolize and even worship success. A big mistake that leaders often make is to focus on winning rather than on how they play. We can learn so much from our losses and our wins. The goal should be to emphasize the process. The journey is just as important as the destination.
Ironically, the push to win sometimes causes leaders to compromise their integrity. We’ve seen this in sports, politics, business, and sadly, even the church. Are your people still intact, or have you abused them to achieve or produce results? Winning isn’t everything. Character is. Don’t lose at that.
4. Make it about fame.
Being a great leader doesn’t mean being famous. Most of the world’s greatest leaders were mentored by those who have long disappeared into obscurity. Many of these great influencers have faded into history, while the ones they mentored have changed history. Leadership is all about influencing others.
My suggestion is to find one or two people throughout your life and pour into them. I call it the power of two. Giving a concentrated amount of yourself on a consistent basis is how you best leverage your leadership. When you invest in the lives of a small group of people over a lifetime, the dividends are HUGE!
5. Make the same mistakes over and over.
We don’t have to make the same mistakes over and over. We CAN change. We CAN be better leaders. When you keep making the same mistake over and over again, it’s no longer a mistake; it’s a DECISION. At some point, you need to make the right choices with your family, your health, your finances, your habits, your time, and your attitude.
After a while, it’s not even reasonable to keep tripping over the same stuff. So, if you want to make mistakes, don’t learn from them. Keep repeating the same bad behavior patterns over and over again, and sooner or later, you’ll be the best mistake-maker ever.
