Three Leadership Focus Areas to Work Smarter Not Harder
How we use our time, what we focus on, and how we expend the greatest amount of our energy profoundly matters as a leader. While that sounds pretty elementary, actually leading intentionally within these parameters is much more difficult. It is far easier to get caught up in the whirlwind of everyday ministry and operations than it is to lead change impactfully. Unfortunately, the majority of American churches are in desperate need of an adaptive leader willing and able to lead adaptive change to become more missionally effective with Kingdom impact without killing yourself in the process.
Leading with focus and attention in these three focus areas is critical: mission, vision, and alignment. As leaders, it is our responsibility to always keep our eye on the fulfillment of the organizational purpose (mission), God’s preferred future (vision), and the alignment of the resources (time, energy, dollars, facilities, people, leadership, capacity, etc.) to do so. If the leader is not doing this, then I guarantee no one is! And, the organization becomes stagnant and eventually declines and becomes irrelevant.
The vision paints a picture of God’s preferred future for your church. A healthy, relevant vision statement must be very contextual and specific to the mission field. Generic vision statements that could be used by any church that are flowery and full of words describing rainbows and unicorns are not effective. Nor is a vision that is a regurgitation of your discipleship pathway (that’s the how- not the what) helpful. Vision paints an outwardly focused picture of the future God wants, needs, and desires for the church and the community. Vision provides congregational momentum, energy, focus, it legitimizes leadership, fosters risk-taking, sustains ministry, and motivates giving. Vision is the north star.
When leaders continuously drip vision in conversations, it will take hold. Others will begin to use it in congregational team conversations. It will soon begin to be the basis for all congregational decisions and actions. Without vision taking hold, the church will remain untethered allowing historical decisions rather than missional decisions to prevail. Every church resource needs to be linked to the mission and vision. How each dime, each square foot of the building, and each minute is invested should be easily linked and recognized towards a step in mission fulfillment and the church’s vision becoming more of a reality. When an organization comes to this understanding in their thinking, leading, and actions, the vision is sure to become a reality!
How does this type of alignment come to pass? It starts with the leaders! Leaders have to start and need to model what needs to happen at all levels. One strategy to get the ball rolling is to take a look at each meeting agenda. How is missional alignment and fulfillment highlighted and measured each time? Is the leadership board managing or governing? If the leadership board isn’t governing, there is no other committee or team that is. Every organization needs a governing body who sets policies, aligns resources to the mission and vision, and are held accountable for missional effectiveness. Does your leadership board agenda include a check-in on missional alignment and effectiveness? Too often leadership boards act as operational teams rather than a true governing board. When the leadership board operates in the management lane, it creates organizational and operational bottlenecks and disempowers staff and ministry team leaders. Instead, leadership boards need to spend their time on topics involving generative and strategic work that will help them steer the organization more effectively.
Healthy organisms and organizations grow. Too often we are distracted by keeping the current congregation comfortable and happy which leads us away from missional effectiveness. When a church is not growing deeper in individual discipleship and reaching new people with the Good News, the organization is not as healthy as it needs to be. Focusing on the three core areas of mission, vision, and alignment allows leaders to cut the time, energy, and ministries that are causing missional drifts.
Some helpful on-demand webinars as resources:
Overview of the Congregational Visioning Process
Recommended books:
Being the Church in the Post Pandemic World
