Leadership

Laying The Foundation: The Growth Of A Leader (Part Seven)

By jgiroux ⋅ October 16, 2008 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

This is Part� 7 of the Laying the Foundation series on Thursday Leadership Lesson from National Community Church. As we build our groups and ministries, we must ensure that we are building on a solid foundation. This series will explore characteristics of leaders who lay and build on firm foundations. Today, we will talk about the Time of a Leader.

If you’ve been in leadership for any length of time, then you know one of the greatest challenges is time management. Case in point. I’m writing this on Wednesday night at 11:01 pm. Usually, my Thursday Leadership Lesson articles are pretty much written by Tuesday afternoon, but things just got busy this week. I thought about not even writing Thursday Leadership Lesson this week. I thought about posting an announcement: “Sorry gang—I just can’t get to Thursday Leadership Lesson this week. I’m preparing to fly to Seattle to officiate my first wedding. I promise to make up for it next week when I have more time.” I figured few people would be disappointed.

Then I caught myself—“when I have time”—and found it ironic that the topic for this particular week was time management. So it’s probably a very appropriate time to be writing on this subject.

The more people you lead, the more demands will be placed on your time. The more responsibilities you are given, the less time you have. How can we maintain a healthy balance and accomplish all that God has equipped, empowered, and entrusted us to do?

The Myth of Time Management
Here’s the first troubling truth you should know: the whole idea of time management is a myth. No one can actually manage time. Seconds, minutes, and hours tick by, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to change it. Everyone lives by the same segments of time every year- five-hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.

What you can do is manage yourself. Here are some ways you can do that:

Prioritize Your Time with God
I mentioned the importance of prioritizing time with God in the article on prayer, but I must mention it again. If you make time with God your first and most important appointment, then the rest of your day will fall into place much better. Putting God first also shapes the way you manage the flow of your life.

Oswald Sanders said, “Each of us has the time to do the whole will of God for our lives.”

Henry Blackaby said, “The key to successful leadership is not creating more time in one’s life or packing more activities into one’s day, but staying on God’s agenda.”

If we keep ourselves on God’s agenda each and every day, then that will help us strike the appropriate balance.

Discern the Urgent vs. Important
Unless you are proactive, the urgent will always take your attention off of the important. Emails are typically urgent but not important, but they often distract our attention away from other projects. Meanwhile, the important matters of life, leadership, and discipleship sit on our to-do lists and never have our fill attention.

One way to ensure that the important takes precedence over the urgent is to establish healthy routines. Intentionality is the name of the personal management game. What habits have your formed? Establishing healthy routines will keep you on track. The first routine should be time with God. The second should be time with family. Once those are established, you should look at how you spend your time and make sure there is balance. Here are some areas that leaders tend to neglect:

• Friendships
• Health and Exercise
• Personal Growth
• Proper Rest
• Helping Others Grow as Disciples
• Financial Stewardship

Expect the Unexpected
Despite our best attempts at establishing routines and scheduling our day, we must always expect the unexpected.

First, be intentional about your schedule. If you don’t plan what you are going to do with your time, then someone else will. Other people will always have their own agenda for your time. Especially those crazy discipleship pastors. I once double-booked team leader Kacey McGowan. No—I did not double book on her. I double booked for her. I gave her two time conflicting responsibilities. Be proactive in setting your schedule. And watch out for NCC pastoral staff.

Second, plan for interruptions. They happen, and you need to be ready for them. Many times, interruptions are God-ordained, and we must be ready at all times to move onto God’s agenda.

Finally, prepare for delays. How do you spend your expendable time while waiting in lines, in the doctor’s office, in the airport? What time is wasted during the “hurry up and wait” rhythm of our lives? Take a book everywhere you go. Spend delay time in prayer. Write a letter to that friend you’ve been meaning to reconnect with. Memorize Scripture. Call someone. Oswald Sanders said, “The way we employ the surplus hours after provision has been made for work, meals, and sleep will determine if we develop into mediocre or powerful people.”

Let me throw out a disclaimer. Sometimes we just need to be during the delays of life. We need to just sit. Sometimes, an airline flight is the only time I get to brainstorm or grab a nap. Sometimes, I need to play Pac-Man to blow off steam. The key is balance.

Harness the Semester System
The semester system is designed to help you establish a leadership rhythm. Every leader requires seasons of rest—even Jesus modeled this throughout the Gospels. View time between semesters as a leadership Sabbath. If people in your groups want to keep meeting, it’s a good opportunity for you to talk about the importance of rest and rhythm and to model that for them.

The semester system also helps you manage the time flow in the life cycle of your group. It keeps the group moving forward and prevents it from stagnating, so use it to your advantage.

Delegate Everything You Can
Finally, the best way to manage yourself is to delegate everything that you can. A wise pastor once told me that a good leader can do it all, but a great leader doesn’t do anything at all. A general rule of thumb is this: If someone can do it 60% as well as you, then turn it over to them and monitor their progress. If they can do it 70% as well as you, then turn it over to them completely.

Henry Blackaby said, “God doesn’t give us more responsibility than we can handle or accomplish. But we often find ourselves saying yes to things that we should not be doing.”

Remember, everyone has an agenda for your time. If you don’t schedule your life, someone else will schedule it for you. Be intentional about what you say “yes” to. Ask God if there is something you should say “no” to or delegate to someone else. Above all, seek first the kingdom of God.

About The Author: Heather Z. is the Pastor of Discipleship at National Community Church in Washington, DC.