The last few weeks have provided such personal “aHa” moments as I continue to regroup and allow God to reconstruct my leadership capacity.
All this years I have been about challenging others; well guess whose time it is? This is not about me confessing that everything I have done has been wrong, for much I still contend was God at work through me. If that sounds arrogant, I am simply expressing what I as a Christ follower have been led to believe. God does work through us and daily grace “up-leads” our life. Up-leading came as a new word this week, and expressed to me the quality of leadership that lifts the lids on others so that a systemic growth occurs within one’s personal universe or community. Sometimes this may feel chaotic and painful.
However, for true change to occur, seasons of leader adjustments must also occur. That is, the leader him/herself is required to step to a new level. That can come in two forms, an internal awareness that moves us to self-selected growth or a moment of stumbling into our blind spots, where grace affords one to fail forward!
This is not false humility, nor being “too hard on my-self (as friends often comment), but addressing a real dynamic that I know personally to have occurred in my life multiple times, in my case about every 5-6 years.
The beauty is that, with every cycle, there have always been new dimensions of opportunity soon to follow; thus the excitement, the delight of leadership. Painful at first, but renewing when one is flexible and willing to allow providence to take its full course.
My physical trainer always demands that last set of push-ups, maxing out my limits but expanding my muscle memory, toward a day that this same series of repetitions becomes painless and my present goals exceeded.
Leadership development so correlates to the physical!
Corporate and organizational growth also requires stretch moments, necessary if change is to be institutionalized and sustainable. Thus you better understand my constant press within both the community and the Body of Christ during these pivotal moments in our great nation.
I trust this most recent “lid-lifting” in my own life adds value to my own community.