Personal Growth and In Relationships

Lately a lot of my thought has gone into how I can improve myself, my wife, and our relationship together.  I’ve realized that in order for our marriage to be as effective as it possible can be it takes a lot of effort.  Honestly, I’m a little nervous, I don’t want to screw this up.  I have to figure out what I can do to be as much of a leader and supporter for my wife and family that I possible can.

As with anything, there are going to be different approaches from different people, and I am working to develop some of my goals and methods in order to be the best that I possible can be.  A few things that I’ve determine so far:

1. I have to be somebody who is constantly working on their own integrity (thanks to Scot for this knock in the head last night at eXchange!)
2. In order for my relationship to be better, the first person that has to be taken care of is myself.
3. This is a two person team (for now) and teams have to have intense discussions sometimes to stay on the same track.
4. No matter what is planned God can still shake things up and shove you in a different direction.

That’s all that I can pull out right the moment.  I absolutely can’t wait to see where this goes!

Filed under: Leadership, Life , growth, marriage, relationships, work

Qualities of an Effective Leader

I’ve been reading (rather slowly), a book titled “Twelve Ordinary Men” by John MacArthur.  It outlines how 12 men who left normal lives and careers to establish the church.  I finally started to get into it about a week ago when I ran across a great chapter that had a few sections dealing with Leadership, and how it has been applied for ages.

Within those few pages I found some great material dealing with the personality traits that make a good leader.  These points illustrate the traits of a very effective leader, that can have the potential to have a huge impact on the people around them.

Inquisitiveness

Leaders ask questions, they have a desire to gain more knowledge, and to seek out the answers to their questions.  Asking questions is not the only part of this, they have ask the right questions.

“Leaders need to have an insatiable curiosity.  They need to be people who are hungry to find answers.  Knowledge is power.” Pg. 40

Somebody who is asking a lot of questions can come across as annoying, but sometimes it can really show their hunger to find the answers.

Initiative

Initiative is a characteristic that can often be seen in many people, without it a leader would not be effective in achieving their goals.  Having the initiative, drive, and determination to get things done is a must-have quality of an effective leader.

“A true leader must be the kind of person who makes things happen.” Pgs. 40-41

Involvement

The involvement of a leader is critical.

“People cannot follow somebody who remains distant.” Pg. 42

This brings to mind all of the many movie battle scenes that I’ve seen.  In these scenes, you never see the leader sitting back in a lawn chair directing people where to go, no, you see them leading his troops into battle yelling out commands and reacting to the circumstances as they happen.

I will add one more quality to this list:

Goal Oriented

I’m finding that setting goals often generates better results, without them we do not have any idea in which direction we are going, we are just going.  These are my goals, I want to apply these to my life and allow them to lead me into a better understanding about how to lead people around me.  What would happen if we strived to achieve these things?

Filed under: Leadership , goals, leaders, personality, qualities

Experiences In Leadership

Note:  Please do not take anything that I write as bragging, I am writing about my experiences and how they are turning out for me.  They are in no way shape or form meant to be prideful, but are meant to maybe help somebody else who is having a tough time.  If you have more questions about what you read feel free to email me.

I’m not a natural born leader by any stretch of the imagination, but about two years ago, prior to getting married, I realized that in order for this relationship, the one that I have with my wife, to work I would have to learn how to be a leader.  I have never been the outgoing type, and to be honest, with most things, I was perfectly fine sitting back and letting whatever happens happen.  I’m not able to be that person that just sits back if I want the relationship to grow, flourish, or whatever word like that, that you want to use.

To me, leadership, is defining a direction and providing a path towards it.  This usually means setting goals, where do I want to be x years from now?  Leadership is also acting on the goals and working towards them, anybody can set goals, but initiatives have to be made in order to achieve those goals.  Back to the relationship between my wife and I, in the beginning of our marriage, and even before it, we talked about what marriage was to us and what we wanted it to be, we pulled in experiences from our parents and others around us and we built a plan for what we wanted ours to be like.  This was us setting goals.  Now that we had a plan, nothing is going to get done with it unless somebody takes the initiative and moves in a direction that would help us achieve the goals.  This is the job of the leader.

As I said earlier, I was never interested in being a leader when I was growing up, I was content with letting whatever was going to happen, happen.  Now that I am moving on with life and have goals that take work to achieve, I can’t afford to sit back and let whatever happens, happen.  Some times I fail at the goals that I set, and some times I achieve them, but that just means that I need to work harder.  I have a lot to learn and it is going to be a life-long learning process but it is something that I am willing to do.

I think sometimes, we drop the ball, in the leadership department.  God calls all men to be leaders in our homes.  This is the reason that I am working my tail off to learn how to become a leader.  Sometimes I wonder if more men stepped up and led their family, with the right motivations, would we see a decrease in the amount of marriages that end in divorce?  Not just that, but the marriages that stay together would flourish and see blessings that they never expected.

I’ve got a lot of thoughts on being a leader in today’s culture, they’re all still a little jumbled but I might write on them a little more in the future.  Thanks for reading and feel free to comment on the thoughts.

Filed under: Faith, Family, Leadership, Life , action, career, Faith, Family, friends, goals, leader, Leadership, leading