In the first part of Christian Leader Coaching: (Christian Leader Coaching: Nurturing Skill and Ability in Others) we looked at the nature of coaching. In this part we consider three key approaches that will help the Christian leader enable those whom they lead to achieve their full potential. The Christian Leader uses “Show and Tell” “Show and tell” is a …
The Servant Leader as Gardener: Artificial Flowers may be Beautiful but…
The servant leader must develop himself as a leader and as a servant so that together both he and his people can flourish and achieve their full potential in the service of a common, higher purpose.
The Servant Leader as Gardener: Without Change There’s No Growth
This article focuses on some key realities about the growth of people and the Christian servant leader’s role in its facilitation. First it’s the recognition that growth in organizations is as dependent upon God as is growth in a garden. However, growth needs to be fostered; it requires sufficient room for the individual to grow but excessive growth on the part of one can constrain and deprive another. Even then the difficult process of “pruning” is required to help shape and direct people, increasing their fruitfulness. But perhaps the most uncomfortable aspect of growth is change. This is inevitable.
The Servant Leader as Gardener: Grass Doesn’t Grow Faster If You Pull It
In many aspects, the task of the gardener in a garden is similar to the task of the Christian servant leader modelled on Jesus Both will study the environment, define a specific purpose, prepare a place that is conducive for growth, get the right plants/people in to be able to fulfil the purpose, and tend to the individual plants/people to help them grow and bear fruit. A garden is made up of single plants and much additional insight can be gained from considering the role of a single plant – or even parts of a plant – in the garden, and applying those insights to the role of a leader in an organization.
Understanding Personality Questionnaires for Christian Leaders : The Key to Solving Your People Puzzles Quickly and Effectively?
Using questionnaires to increase self-awareness and create an understanding of personality differences can help Christian Leaders and team members understand how they interrelate. Armed with this knowledge, and a little guidance, they can adjust how they work together to achieve their full potential.
A Time for Everything – 10 Time Management Tips for Christian Leaders
As a Christian Leader may be you feel overwhelmed by the stresses and demands you and others place on your use of time? Time Management skills are vital to your effectiveness and the role model that you are as a servant leader.
Stress – Tips for the Servant Leader Part 5: 5 Tips to Avoid and Reduce Personal Stress
This series on stress has been focusing on organisational stress and we have looked at the role that the Christian servant leader has to play by adopting strategies that help reduce stress for the people in his team or organisation. So far we have not considered what you can do if, through reading these articles, you identify high levels of occupational stress in yourself. Colin Buckland shared some more tips with me.
If you are in the ministry or on the mission field you may find our series on ministry stress helpful as well.
Stress – Tips for the Servant Leader Part 4: 5 Tips for Reducing Organisational Stress
As we have seen in the first three articles, stress frequently arises because of the demands that are being placed on staff without a reasonable consideration of their capacity and capability and it is exacerbated when they feel they have no control over their situation. They feel that they are simply Cog-ware, parts of a machine that demands performance but has little care for their well being. The result is stress and with that declining performance.
Stress – Tips for the Servant Leader Part 3: 7 Signs That Your Organization is Highly Stressed
There is a phrase that always amuses me. It’s “the elephant in the room”. We all know that it means that there is some big issue that is not being addressed. Well, organisational stress is most times a silent elephant in the corner of the room. It needs to be dealt with but no one will, and people who are …
Stress – Tips for the Servant Leader Part 2: 6 Signs That Your People are Highly Stressed
Stress is part of life and to some extent stress, or at least benign stress (let’s call it pressure), helps to motivate us to perform well. To that extent it can be considered positive. With too little pressure performance is sub-optimum. Witness the difficulties and boredom generated by too little work as well as insubstantial work that you can’t “get your teeth into”. The problem is that as the pressure increases performance peaks and then declines as the pressure turns to high level stress.
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