Stop Waiting For Someone Else To Solve Your Leadership Problem

The pandemic birthed a multitude of secondary pandemics.

One of significance is how leaders are currently making decisions and solving problems.

During the early stages of the pandemic, leaders spent so many days, weeks, and months second-guessing and being second-guessed that a version of analysis paralysis set in for good.

More than ever before, I am watching leaders stare down the barrel of a problem, but rather than solving it, they are waiting on some other leader in some other organization to make the first move. They’ve developed a habit of abdication.

Rather than waiting on some other leader who doesn’t know your specific situation or problem to offer a solution for you to mimic, ask yourself these 5 problem-defining questions and start making some decisions.

In this NEW POST, I give you these 5 questions and some additional thoughts on leadership decision-making.

4 Steps for Dealing with Disgruntled Attendees

I’ve been in ministry for quite a while. Church people can be amazingly supportive and encouraging. They can also be frustrating.

Over my 15 years of ministry leadership, I’ve experienced my fair share of disgruntled church people, but the pandemic brought “disgruntledness” to a new level.

So what should we do when the vocal disgruntled feels like the vast majority?

In this NEW ARTICLE, I outline four steps to deal with the vocal minority of disgruntled attenders.

You may especially appreciate the fourth step: Just let them leave!

Let me know what else you’ve done to best deal with those loud and proud detractors in your church or organization.

And as always, I’m here to help. That’s why I created Transformation Solutions.

Four Benefits of Organizational Confusion

As a leader, I don’t love confusion. But I’m learning to like it quite a bit.

The reason (I give four reasons in this new post): Confusion can equate to progress, innovation, and transformation.

7 Ways I’m Learning to “Disagree and Commit”

5 Minute Read… In 2016, Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame wrote a well-circulated article to his shareholders. You can read it here: Jeff Bezos’ Shareholder Letter. In my industry of church, the implications of his letter are equally important. My guess is any industry where leadership decisions are required would benefit from adopting a version […]

4 Steps to Not Overreact to the Disgruntled Attendee

As a leader you are forced to make decisions, and if your church or company is bigger than you, these decisions will inevitably be upsetting to someone. Decisions have a way of upsetting the status quo. In many cases, the lack of success or progress with the status quo is why decisions are necessary.

Not to oversimplify it, but when decisions are made, the response seems to come from two separate categories of people:

1. The vocal disgruntled
2. The quiet supporters

The first category causes us to question our decision. The response (at leas the vocal response) seems disproportionately in one direction. And this disproportionate response can be unnerving.

The second category really does bring balance to the conversation, but their quiet support doesn’t ring as loudly as the disgruntled.

Facing this seemingly unbalanced response, leaders begin to either question their decisions, or worse, seek to make decisions that are more “vocally” supported.

But vocal support can feel like an organizational oxymoron. You’ve never called your local pizza delivery chain to thank them for your delivery, but you might have called to complain when your pie is late. People never call our church to tell us we’re doing a great job, but they do call (or post on FaceBook, which is so much worse and socially unaware) to complain about a decision that creates an inconvenience.

So what should we do when the vocal disgruntled feels like the vast majority?

When What You Want To Do is Different Than What You Need To Do

What makes leadership difficult?

We could probably create a laundry list of great answers.

For me, point decision-making certainly fits on the list. A level of decisiveness is required for leadership, but while some decisions are routine and simple, others are unfamiliar and complex. For me, the most difficult decisions rise when what I want to do is different than what I need to do.

Have you ever faced a decision that lived in the middle of this tension? Through my years of leading companies and churches, I’ve faced more than a few decision where what I wanted to do was different than what I needed to do. For instance, there have been times I’ve wanted to keep a staff member, but they needed to move on to new opportunities (that’s a nice way to say it, right?). There have been times I’ve wanted to include everyone on a team, but not everyone provided value to the team. There have been times when I wanted to eat chicken fingers rather than a salad (see, it works in all facets of life!).

I believe the willingness to make tough decisions is a key indicator of sustainable leadership.

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