Leaders give & take…

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I learned a lot about leadership over the past week. Wednesday night East Coast had a planning meeting that mapped out in detail what the preview service was going to look like from start to finish. The next day I received a phone call that the school we were going to use pulled the plug on us…

• My heart skipped a beat
• I didn’t know what to think
• All that planning – for nothing?
• We had no place to go

I spent the better part of the day with a blank stare on my face as I thought to myself, “I’m the leader, and I don’t know what to do”. We had already exhausted our options for meeting places. Then I remembered what I heard from Tony Dungy at Catalyst…

“Your team needs you to lead the most when things aren’t going well”

At a time where I needed the leadership, my role was to lead. Here’s what I did – I told the East Coast team that I take responsibility for the school falling through and I gave hope that we WILL still press on and change the world for Christ! (Even if we had a preview service in 48 hours and no place to meet – FYI, God opened up The San Marco Theater that afternoon for us and we had 60 people show up Sunday!).I learned a few things about the school falling through. I felt that if I had done a little better at communication with all the parties involved, we’d be in the school. Call it the sovergnity of God, call it bad leadership – the bottom line is that when you’re the leader and things don’t go well… its your fault, take responsibility. That was all I could do in the moment as the leader was to give hope & take responsibility.

Leaders that is our job! Often times there is no one there to lead us when we’re the ones that need leading. God has placed you where you are for a reason. When things don’t go well, that’s when your team needs you the most. Don’t duck & hide – give & take! Give hope and take responsibility.

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