Engaged Leadership - Lesson 10

Well, welcome back. Here we are at our final session, session number ten of Engaged Leadership. And this particular session is purely about you and what God is doing in and through you.

Because this whole part is about empowering yourself to lead a legacy to the people that follow you. One of the things that I require of people in the ministry that I started 40 years ago is to watch a movie called Paying It Forward. Yeah, it's a secular movie, but the concept of being able to invest in the next generation is something that we all have to consider.

It came to me very profoundly when my dad passed away. My sister called, who'd been watching over my dad and said about one o'clock in the morning that he had passed, please come be there when the hearse and all the other people got there. So I got there, I made sure things were in place.

We went through the process. We both shed our tears, but we followed my dad's instructions about the way that he wanted to be carried out and taken away. As I got in the car to go home, I turned on the Christian radio station.

And the first song that played was "In the Living Years" by Mike and the Mechanics. And it reminded me of the facts that unlike the song, God had blessed me with the opportunity to tell my dad how much I appreciated it. The song that followed it was even more encouraging because the song by Twyla Parris was "God is in Control."

God reminded me at that point that I was no longer a son, but the patriarch of my family. And that as the patriarch of my family, I had a responsibility to the people that come behind me. And if you're watching this video, you have a responsibility to the people coming behind you.

You should be leaving a legacy the same way that Christ left one and each of his disciples, whether it was Thomas in India or Peter going to Rome. So as we approach this whole lesson, I would like for you to think about the fact of what are you doing to leave a legacy? Because so far, what we have discovered is that God created us in the womb. He knitted us together to give us certain genetics for personality.

He put us in a culture for such a time as this to help us build the emotional intelligence that we need to focus on the people that he has given us in our sphere of influence, all of which we should be making better rather than bitter. Next, we've shared with you how to foster a strong, trusting relationship with your team and build an environment that encourages engagement. So you have to make a choice.

You have to give yourself permission to adapt, to change, grow, and develop into the person that God created you to be. And we'll remind you of that. That's how we glorify God.

And the way we glorify God is by becoming the person he created us to be. When we do that, we leave purpose, we leave a legacy, and we leave what God intended us to leave to help in our little way, help build the kingdom. He can do it without us, but the thing that we have to remember is the fact that we have a responsibility to do that.

Now, let's think about a legacy. What are leaders like you remembered for? First, that there was purpose in their plans and aspirations. Not only were they predictable, but they built feasible plans and empowered people to make mistakes and grow as they learned in the process.

Second, our humility should cause us to want to listen, to be supportive and collaborative when it's appropriate, but also maintain our faith during the process. And with that, express the kindness, give our advice, especially to people that are under stress, because we know when we see stress, they are under oppression. And realizing that, give them a break.

But we also have to build traditions, not man-made traditions, but God's traditions, to establish in that department the value of each and every person in your department and throughout the organization. And in doing that, recognize their individual contributions, because they should be welcomed, they should be appreciated, and they should be valued for how God blessed them and moved them through this process. So how do we define our legacy? By considering who you are and growing in the final step in becoming a successful leader and manager.

And that is not just by being ourself, that's by being the person that God created us to be. And in doing that, we have to learn to regulate, because when we are aware of our strengths and weaknesses and we regulate, now we put it into a process that other people can understand and accept. And in doing that, what we're doing is we're adapting to other people's understanding.

And when we do that, the chance of their accepting what we have to say is multiplied. So let's go back to the core principles, self-awareness. It's not what we think about ourselves, but it's what other people perceive us to be.

And your career advancement is only going to be good and satisfactory if you are self-aware. Otherwise, there's not going to be the opportunities for self-reflection. We have to use this self-awareness as a framework to constantly apprise and better ourselves, no matter where we are in our career.

What happens most often in many organizations is as a person rises up through the ranks, the humility level seems to take a step down. When you analyze it, it's simply pride. And the Lord does not have a place for pridefulness in His ministry.

So let's use what we know about ourselves through the empirical data of the assessments that you've taken from the site to remember this. It's okay if you're a high INS in aesthetic and social, you're focused more on leadership towards influencing people, inspiring people, encouraging them and making them want to excel. This is good.

It's even referred to when we think about Barnabas, the son of encouragement, that's a good thing. But also the Lord expects us to achieve. Obedience is better than sacrifice.

And while we think about that management oriented person, that dominant compliance, theoretical utilitarian, yes, they have a tendency more towards organizational logic and structure and making things happen. But the Spirit of God can temper that through learned experiences to help make them much more aware so that the relationships that they foster can become much more interactional rather than task oriented. So what we've learned is that people prefer a company of people who think and act the same way they do.

That's just human nature. We want to be around people like us. The problem is, is that when we're around people that are exactly like us, there's gaps in what we learn and how we grow.

That's why diversity is so critical to your development and to an organizational development. It's necessary because at times it may lead to that storming phase, it may lead to conflict, but we have to remember conflict is part of God's plan to help us grow and develop. I want you to go back and refer to the scores from the assessments that you've acquired to help gain an understanding, not what you think you are, but how other people might perceive you.

I've given you this graphic that you see on the screen right now to help you better understand where your scores might be in behaviors. I've given you a couple words to describe yourself, but I've also tried to help you see that other's perception of you may not be exactly what you think they are. And in this process, help yourself by telling yourself and digging into this, assigning those words and other person's perceptions of you so that you can then begin to regulate the way that you behave.

I've done the same thing for your objective and subjective mindsets so that you can deepen an understanding of how you and other people prioritize the things that you believe are most important because very rarely will they be exactly the same. And let me share an example with you that should strike most of you. I grew up fifth generation military.

Things were ordered, they were structured. God brought a wonderful woman into my life who came from a family of artistes. I'd come home at 5:30 expecting dinner on the table and she was on the floor reading to the kids.

I've learned to accept that dinner's not gonna be ready before 6:30 or 7, but it's amazing that all nine of my kids still talk to me. We still have a solid relationship because of the fact that she was willing to sit down and talk to them and build that into them no matter how busy we were. The key is letting the circumstances that surround us teach us and we can learn from it.

Charles Stanley, in his book, How to Listen to God, reminds us that there are four ways that God works in us and through us. First of all, through the Scriptures, that's obvious, and through the Holy Spirit, that's obvious. But we forget that the other two ways, through people and circumstances, we have opportunities to learn.

So when we think about our belief systems and the way that we communicate ourselves, we have to remember that the way we project ourselves is going to be critical to other people's belief in whether they actually see Jesus in us and value that as true, honest to goodness, leadership principles. I want you to take some time now and look at the graphic on the screen. Fill in your word descriptors.

Fill in other people's perceptions of you. And now you've got a tool that really describes the type of leader that other people see. Are there going to be good things and challenging things? Absolutely.

But that's the way it was intended to be. Because if we were perfect, there would be no reason for us to be here. We're still in learning mode.

We're still in sanctification mode. And when we get to a point to where God says that's enough, He'll just, He'll glorify us and take us home. Until then, our self-awareness is the key to regulation.

And following that regulation, we will understand what motivates us to empathy with other people and social awareness in interacting with other people. And those are the five constructs of emotional intelligence. And in a future course, we're gonna take you through that emotional intelligence growth process and provide you with the tools.

But that's yet to come. An important thing now is for you to understand your leadership and management qualities so that you can build a legacy and become the type of leader God intended you to be. So here's some things that I want you to think about as we come to the close of this program.

What are some of your strengths when relating to others in the workplace? How do you make your coworkers and employees' lives great? Not just better, but how do you make them great? Is it the same way you invest in your children? If not, rethink your approach because these are God's children that he gave to you. Remember, Paul refers to Timothy as his child. The people that God brings into your path are your kids.

God reminded me of that with one of the mega churches that I work with that has 260 staff members. And he said, "These aren't staff members, these are your kids. And if you treat them like you would your children, with love, care, and concern, you won't frustrate them."

And that's one of the things that the Scripture's very plain about. We don't exasperate our children, we build them up. What are your weaknesses as a supervisor? How might you frustrate these people? How do you need to adapt when supervising an objective task-oriented person? Or how do you need to adapt when you're supervising or managing a subjective people-oriented person? Ask yourself these questions.

If you're able to hold yourself to high standards and speak with both authority and kindness, members of your team will have faith in your leadership. And you will be leading with Jesus principles rather than your own. So how do you continue to lead with that kind of integrity? Keep that growth mindset.

Look at that. If you ever get to a point to where you think you're humble, you aren't. Continuous personal growth is critical.

Next, have a proper personal perspective of the fact that you are not there to be looked at. You are there to be personable and give that personable perspective to the people. You're a servant.

You will always be what Paul refers to as a 'doulos,' a slave servant. Remember that when you promise somebody, you better fulfill it. Be honest and truthful, doing the right thing, not just the easiest.

Now, some of those things are gonna come very naturally to you. If you're a high C with high theoretical, you're gonna be very focused on making sure that things are perfect. But not everything in this world is perfect.

So you have to apply this to your work responsibilities because sometimes being 90% correct in three hours is what the company wants, not 96% effective 24 hours later. You also have to consider what comes least naturally to you in your job, in your role, and with people that you play with. Think about it this way.

Use your strengths to build on these weaknesses, but don't make all of your smart goals about where you're weak. Teach yourself to succeed. Teach yourself that your faith will make you whole.

Teach yourself that God has not put you in a position to fail. He has put you in a position to succeed and help fulfill his plans. Taking on something that's not natural to you is okay.

You can do that from time to time, but you can't always be working on fixing yourself because if God gave you talents and abilities, He wants you to use those talents and abilities to strengthen the people that don't have those same talents and abilities. So think about this. You have to be assertive.

You have to be willing to express your opinions and ideas. You have to be open and receptive to new ideas and alternatives, and you have to display the resilience, the long-suffering of the fruit of the Spirit and self-control to handle criticism positively because you're never going to do everything right. Which one of these things is going to come most naturally to you? And which one is it going to take you longer to learn? When you're at a point to where you can begin to ask yourself those questions and build them into your daily thoughts and prayers, you're going to play a stronger role as a leader.

Then you can self-regulate and adapt to whatever situation that God puts you in. You have to have the right attitude though. What's limiting your attitude that must regulate to ensure your team members are engaged and empowered? You can't do everything yourself, even though you may be able to do it faster.

You have to let people make mistakes so that they can then assume the role and you can pass on those responsibilities. Next, you have to praise them. What limits to your ability to applaud team members properly without going overboard and making them feel like this is rehearsed? This has to be something that's conveyed through your heart.

Some of us wear our hearts on our sleeves, but if it's not communicated genuinely, I can assure you it won't be taken seriously. Displaying empathy is critical because if you cannot empathize with the person, they will not relate to you, nor will you be transparent. And the trust factor is now gone.

So you have to regulate your personality to help those that you come in contact with thrive in a culture of individuals that are working towards the goal. Ralph Nader said this, the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. Does that sound familiar? Maybe Matthew 28:19, "Go make disciples." And the action verb is not 'go,' it's 'matthusate,' make disciples. And if we follow that concept, it will allow you to create the legacy that God intended for you to have before the foundation of the earth.

I close with this thought. If we know that God is sovereign and God is in control, he placed you where he did for a reason. And as a leader, as a manager, your responsibility is to fulfill that and become the person he created you to be.

Leaving you with that thought is what I hope you'll remember if you don't remember anything else about these sessions. Because as good as you may be, you're not God. And as hard as that may be for the achievements that may suck you into legalism or pride, the key is remaining humble.

So that people want to emulate you rather than quit. And I thank you for the opportunity to share my heart and what the Holy Spirit has asked me to share with you. So do we have any questions? 

Student: As you're able to identify our own strengths and weaknesses and the strengths and weaknesses of others, how does that fit with the picture or the image of the body of Christ and how we're instructed to treat each other? 

Dr. Coker: Well, the natural behavioral tendencies focus on how we act, how we communicate. The mindsets focus on what's important. The spiritual gifts tell us how we want to serve. But also in the link that you'll see below this, you can identify an assessment that measures fruit of the Spirit.

Fruit of the Spirit really is a measure of our spiritual maturity. So can we measure the morals, shall we say, as you referred to them, of where a person is? We can get a reasonably good idea because the behaviors tell us some things about how they express. The mindsets tell us what those priorities are that they're going to express.

But the spiritual gifts tells us, do they actually want to live out that role and the fruit of the spirit tells us how mature they are in that process. So is there a way to measure the morals? I would say yes. And all of those assessments are free to you and to every other person that values their place and their position in Christ.