3 things I have learned about leadership in the last month

Leadership is such a difficult thing to define. There are so many books, seminars, blogs, and people telling us what leadership looks like. Being in ministry the word leader gets thrown around a lot, and in Christian circles the word authentic gets added in there as a bonus. Since I was in high school I have been "taught" and "trained" on how to be a good leader. In school I was always involved in student government, I was also a peer counselor, and a few times was chosen to be an "ambassador" at conferences representing my school. In all those things and even in my adult life I have never learned so much about how to be a good leader than I have in the last month recognizing my failure at it.

-Communication: We are always told what a big effect good or bad communication can have on your ability to be a leader, and I pride myself at times on over-communicating. But I realized in the last few weeks that I communicate openly and often about the positives that are going on in the ministry yet I rarely share the struggles or the things I wish would change. The thing about change when you hold a leadership position is that YOU are the one you can affect change. I was walking around hoping that by my actions and discomfort in certain situations that my volunteers would magically get the picture, then when they would not I would be discouraged and frustrated. I was being a terrible leader by not sharing or taking the time to talk about what was on my mind. I should have found out what the other leaders were seeing and experiencing, but instead I just assumed they knew me well enough to realize what I was unhappy with.

-Confrontation: A little confrontation never hurt anyone, (so to speak.) I have a passive personality, most anyone who knows me can and will attest to this fact. I hate confrontation. But if part of the point to having a supportive team working and serving with you is to have different perspectives then most likely confrontation is gonna come up. The key in this is that as the leader you have to make sure it stays on the productive side of things and doesn't turn sinful. I recently had a very confrontational conversation with one of my leaders but it turned out to be a far more productive conversation than me communicating in positive circles. This particular volunteer took me on the emotional, confrontation roller coaster until a difficult situation was handled and navigated through before future issues arose.

-Responsibility: Any leader in any avenue of life will tell you being a leader is a great responsibility. That fact is a no-brainer...But as a Christian (desiring to be an authentic) leader my responsibility comes from a much deeper place than the office that I work out of. Realizing that my confidence in what I am called to do comes solely from God I can NO longer take that stance that tomorrow is good enough to get something handled or done. I may have been hired to do a "job" by a man, but God has put me here, and its MY responsibility to see to it that what needs to be done gets done! Even if that is having an awkward conversation asking for $10,000 or making sure you are on time to an appointment with a student. Maybe ownership is the better word but I think even that comes down to being responsible with what God has given you. I have forgotten that none of this is about me, so the excuses of "oh thats just my personality", or "nobody cares if I get to that today or tomorrow."

I am a leader of a ministry because God has put me here, and I have been gifted specifically to accomplish what He desires to be done here. For better or worse (I usually learn the most from the worst), until God removes me or calls me elsewhere I have a job to do and I must confidently walk forward unashamed of the outcomes, learning from every opportunity I can. Part of being a leader is to constantly learn, and fortunately God has taught me a lot in the last month about how I fail as a leader, but I believe He did that so I could get better and accomplish more for Him!

The tag line

The tag line here on my blog states that "my life is a mix-tape full of adventures" but I don't know anymore that my life is much of an exciting adventure. At least not from an outsiders perspective I am sure. I began this blog to chronicle my life's happenings and the many happenings in my ministry. So this is not to say that my life has no adventures anymore but maybe my life is too busy to acknowledge and share the adventures. A point of observation for me in my life is that my life has more adventures of struggle, and drama than of fun and entertainment. I have countless blog post that I began and didn't finish because I thought to myself before publishing...."no one wants to read this." Not that I have a bunch of readers anyway???

I am however doing a study on authentic leadership and maybe its time for me to share some of what is going on in my life adventurous or not. I constant struggle that I believe all people have that I am currently experiencing is the growing pains of friendship relationships. My roommate recently began dating one of my best guy friends, and I was happy and excited for the both of them! I had no idea or foresight to see how things were going to progress to the point of me no longer being apart of either one of their lives. Now this is my perspective to if you have been in the position of my roommate or friend then don't judge me, but I am over it. Maybe its because I am single, maybe its because I'm jealous that I don't have someone special in my life. Whatever it is as relationships change, regardless of why it really sucks. As a 28 yr old single female I have had my fair share of girlfriends and guy friends grow up, get married and live happily ever after. As many times as I have experienced this it never gets easy and it never is handled perfectly by anyone involved. I will end this post by stating that I am sick of being the only person in the wrong, and the only one admitting wrong. It really hurts when people forget who you are as a human being (w/ feelings and a heart) and gang up on your faults as you have become vulnerably by living life with them. This makes me want to close my heart to those around me and not let anyone else into my inner life. I realize this is not a right attitude, I'm just venting here on my blog to be honest of my current "adventure" and struggle.