How do you know if the purpose and vision of your organization is clear? How do you know if you’ve done enough to rightly connect people to the organization’s mission and vision? Each time I think of this I’m reminded of Jim Collins’ analogy of having the right person in the right seat on the…
Ever since I started leading people, I believed that purpose and vision came first and then people. Then, Jim Collins’ book Good to Great made me question my view of this priority. He contends that in great organizations, the CEO picks a great team of people first and then, in essence, figures out the vision.…
A search of the Scripture makes it clear that God is a God of purpose. He made everything and everyone with a clear purpose in mind. The fact that God has a purpose and carries out His purposes is very clear in the Scripture. “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the…
A man can bear any what if he has a big enough why. —Nietzsche, the German philosopher The why Nietzsche refers to is really meaning or purpose in life. Purpose matters! I have seen firsthand in business and many ministries that people will give their lives to achieve a meaningful purpose. Some are willing to…
I didn’t like being out in the cold in the winter. But there were many things I did like about growing up on a farm. I could look behind the tractor after I plowed a field and see what I had accomplished. I could look at the milk can and see the milk after I…
(This is the second part of the blog post entitled Leaders See A River. If you have not read Part 1, you may want to read that segment first, then return to this blog.) So what does this [river metaphor] have to do with organizations? Many things in nature make a good analogy for what we…
Visionary Leaders See the Big Picture I actually had a dream about this. In the dream, God told me that I would soon see a small waterfall and to stare at it to see what I could see. A few days later, I was in the mountains and did indeed see a small waterfall. I…
Leading with heart I remember a story of a relatively young man. He was washing his bright red sports car at the public car wash. He attracted the attention of a nine-year-old boy. The young lad peppered him with questions such as, “Mister, you must work a lot of hours to own a car like…
I’m thinking of three leaders: One was a founder. One got fired. One failed. Where do you think each was positioned on the balance beam above? The founder was in the middle. He founded and led a highly successful corporation for many years. He had an excellent balance of heart for people…
Moses – Great Leader? No one questions Moses’ spiritual depth. After all, he gave up the luxuries of Egypt to identify with God’s people. He prayed for the rebellious Israelites to the point of asking God to blot him out of the book of life to spare the Israelites. Moses was a great guy, great…