The most important about leadership is...?

Today someone asked me what I would talk about if I was given the opportunity to talk about leadership, what would I talk about?

I had to think about it for a moment and then I responded by saying - brokenness.

At first, it was not a popular response to the questioner.

In this world today any of us can go straight to Amazon, a bookstore, a friend's shelf, a business person, a pastor, or anything/anyone else and there will be a multitude of different books on leadership. I love Maxwell but I'm not always sure that we need 21 of these, 17 of those, 5 of these, 479 of this, and 15 of something else. What's the one?

Someone else will say this X is the thing that all leaders must have and need to work on while yet another person will advise that we need something else entirely different. When you put it all together it seems like each write or speaker will give 1/2 of a new thought and use 76 other thoughts. What's the one thing I need?

I answered brokenness a.k.a. humility. My questioner summed it up with a different word - character. I like that one better and I'm gonna stick with it.

Every leader cannot survive without character - strength of spirit, resolve, knowing who he/she really is, know what makes them unique, knowing strengths and weaknesses. Character is defined as "the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual."

The truth is this: we can work on 43 of these and 27 of that. We can pick up tips and tricks on "visioneering" and "habits" and "boundaries." We can listen to our favorite CEOs, leaders, organizations, trainings, books, authors, and whatever else but if we do not have character we will all eventually fail.

What's the most important thing about leadership? Working on one's self and developing true character.

Who are you really?

One of my favorite questions is this - If everything you love was taken away, who would you be?

It's easy for us to get caught up in life. It's reality right? Aren't we always trying to entertain ourselves, better ourselves, and to enjoy life? But let me ask you this - what defines who you are? Are you a parent? Spouse? Child? Manager? Worker? Leader? Follower? Optimist? Judge? Pastor? Chef? You get the point. What are you? How do you define yourself?

Now, take that title off of you. Who are you now?

Strip yourself of that title. Now who are you?

One of the toughest lessons in life is finding out who you are at the core. When you take (or sometimes forced) to take a hard look at yourself who will you be?

It's a tough question because, in my opinion, it's one of the scariest questions to answer. So often we hide behind our titles, jobs, responsibilities, or fluff.

My encouragement for the week is to dive in and take a look at yourself and see what you may find. Just remember that it might scare you some too.

My newest transition begins

My newest transition is upon me. My last few transitions have been very happy ones. That makes me real happy since so many of my transitions in the last 5 years seemed to be surrounded by pain. I have written about this pain before - I think it is safe to say the content will not change

Recently, I was married. That’s a lot a lot of transitions there. And now, I also have finally found where I want to be – here in Sioux City, IA working at Riverz Edge Church as Operations Pastor. I honestly could not be happier and cannot wait to start.

This is a new beginning. A new transition. I can’t wait. I will share this journey. My favorite part of this journey will be when I stop writing about pain, transitions, new life and move into other types of thoughts. That will be a good day. But for now – thank you for reading. Check back again.