Month: August 2021

Back to Basics, Pt 3

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“Leadership is Influence. Nothing more, nothing less.”

John Maxwell

Can I share a secret with you? The scariest part of leadership for me is actually asking people to help me.

I dread rejection. I dread losing control. I dread failure. I dread under/over estimating a relationship.

But, if John Maxwell’s quote above is true, then learning to leverage influence is leadership in it’s simplest form.

Enter the third question.

A few years ago I started teaching students a simple framework of questions to help them think through a practical approach to leadership and influence. I reference it often here, even giving this framework it’s own page on the navigation bar (The Foundation), but I thought it might be time to write something fresh about the Three Questions.

The concept is simple: teach yourself (and those around you!) to ask and answer the following three questions, and watch your influence slowly begin to grow. As it becomes part of the language, you’ll begin to see a difference. So, without further delay, here you go:

When you walk into a room (or approach a situation), ask yourself the following three questions:

  1. WWhat Needs To Be Done? (Awareness)
  2. What Can I Do? (Willingness)
  3. Who Can I Get To Help? (Leadership)
  4. A Bonus Question!

Today, let’s talk about the third question. The first two questions lay the foundation for leadership, but truthfully just make us people others like to be around. Who doesn’t like to spend time with that friend who is willing to do anything to help? Don’t we all have a friend who stays pretty clueless to needs around them?

But if we want to grow in our leadership, if we truly want to expand our leadership influence, the third question becomes the opportunity to unleash (sorry, I’m listening to the Imperial Death March) leadership.

I can’t speak for everyone in what I’m about to say, but here’s my experience. I continually ask myself the third question as a form of accountability. I don’t want to do everything myself. I really don’t. Part of the reason for not wanting to carry it all by myself is I can become a pretty miserable person when I’m over burdened.

Something I’m coming to discover, though, is sometimes people are just waiting to be asked. So why would I let my fear and insecurity get in the way of helping someone find a way to get involved?

So when we learn to ask and answer the third question, we begin to unleash opportunities for others.

Not inviting people to join us can actually be an act of selfishness. Not wanting to share the spotlight. Not wanting to put ourselves in an uncomfortable situation. Not wanting to let go. Not wanting to admit we can’t do it all.

Your leadership will never grow if you don’t learn to invite and include others.

But, when you invite others to join you, or to even take charge, the result can be truly beautiful.

I know today I’ve gone way more personal than usual. So, I want to hear from you: do you invite others naturally, or is it work? Comment below.

Back to Basics, Pt 2

Are you ready to take the next step in your leadership?

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“When will I ever use this in real life?”

Raise your hand if you ever uttered those infamous words, most commonly spoken in upper level math classes. We all have something intrinsically wired inside of us desiring to use what we learn. We may not always be able to verbalize the need, but it exists regardless.

In response to this hard wired desire, I started teaching students a simple framework of questions to help them think through a practical approach to leadership and influence. I reference it often here, even giving this framework it’s own page on the navigation bar (The Foundation), but I thought it might be time to write something fresh about the Three Questions.

The concept is simple: teach yourself (and those around you!) to ask and answer the following three questions, and watch your influence slowly begin to grow. As it becomes part of the language, you’ll begin to see a difference. So, without further delay, here you go:

When you walk into a room (or approach a situation), ask yourself the following three questions:

  1. What Needs To Be Done? (Awareness)
  2. What Can I Do? (Willingness)
  3. Who Can I Get To Help? (Leadership)
  4. A Bonus Question!

Today, let’s talk about the easiest of the three questions: What can I do?

After we identify needs in a room (or situation), we then ask what are we willing and capable of doing. While this is the easiest of the three questions, it’s no less important than the other two. Why? Because if we are unwilling to meet a need, it will be incredibly difficult to continually inspire and equip someone else to meet the need.

To answer the second question efficiently, discover your strengths and weaknesses. What are you good at doing? Where do you struggle?

In John Maxwell’s 5 Levels of Leadership, he talks about there are generally two types of people – task oriented people and relationship oriented people. Neither is better than the other, because neglecting our weak side makes us that much weaker as a leader.

I’m very much a task oriented leader, so I naturally see tasks that need to be accomplished in a room. In order to grow and expand my leadership, however, I make myself look for relational opportunities in a room.

Here’s why: my willingness to meet a need will serve as an example to those around me, and it helps me learn the struggles of what I may ask someone else to do.

Ultimately, we cannot lead people where we have not gone. So if I’m unwilling to learn to meet needs, then it will be much more difficult for me to lead others to do the same.

Are you ready to take the next step in your leadership? Then step up and be willing to meet the need!

Check back next week for the continuation!

Or even better, click here to subscribe so you don’t miss a single post.

Back to Basics, pt 1

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Raise your hand if you’ve ever been frustrated with people you lead not meeting needs in the moment. Is this a universal frustration, or just something with which I struggle? I mean, so many times the need seems obvious to me, so why don’t they see it? Ironically, I’m sure the people in authority over me feel the same way at times.

There has to be a better way to make sure we’re on the same page, right? Right?

A little over 5 years ago I started teaching students a simple framework of questions to help them think through a practical approach to leadership and influence. I reference it often here, even giving this framework it’s own page on the navigation bar (The Foundation), but I thought it might be time to write something fresh about the Three Questions.

The concept is simple: teach yourself (and those around you!) to ask and answer the following three questions, and watch your influence slowly begin to grow. As it becomes part of the language, you’ll begin to see a difference. So, without further delay, here you go:

When you walk into a room (or approach a situation), ask yourself the following three questions:

  1. What Needs To Be Done? (Awareness)
  2. What Can I Do? (Willingness)
  3. Who Can I Get To Help? (Leadership)
  4. A Bonus Question!

First things first. What Needs to Be Done?

This seems like a rather simple question, right? As I’ve taught this to over 100 students in the past 5 years, I’ve realized there are generally two types of people: those who naturally ask this, and those who don’t. I haven’t figured out what makes the difference (if you know or have a thought, comment below!), but neither is right or wrong. It’s the way we’re wired and it’s important to know.

Asking ourselves the first question raises our awareness of what’s going on around us.

I enjoy running sound. I’ve said for over a decade that if I wasn’t on staff at a church, I would serve in the sound booth. A few years ago, I would go to a weekly event where the microphone almost never worked the way it was supposed to work. So, I had to ask myself: what needs to be done? Well, in that situation, someone needed to adjust settings on the mic and sound system.

Sometimes the needs presenting themselves are pain points – things we notice because something went wrong. Other times those needs are rather basic – chairs set out and organized, tables prepared, equipment set out, etc. But just as often, those needs are relational – a lone student looking to belong, a disconnected visitor, a forgotten regular, etc.

Either way, the first step to accomplishing a task is knowing what needs to be done. It all begins with awareness! Until we become aware of what’s happening around us, we cannot sustainably move forward in leadership.

Check back later this week for the continuation!

Or even better, click here to subscribe so you don’t miss a single point.

The Power of an Aha Moment

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Let’s talk about “Aha” moments. Those moments where someone says something and you almost instinctively push back, only to realize they’re right.

One of my aha moments came about 10 years ago. I was serving bi-vocationally at the church where I grew up. We were seeing some good growth, but we hit a bit of a ceiling. Then one day while listening to a podcast, probably while riding a 4-wheeler, I heard Josh Griffin say something to the effect of: 30 kids is about the max a youth minister will be able to sustain by himself.

To clarify: he was saying that if I was going to do ministry by myself, the biggest number I would be able to sustain would be about 30. We might balloon over that, but reality is we would never successfully grow past that.

And I was living it. The ministry had grown to about 30, but had hit a ceiling. I had my “aha” moment, and decided it was time to make a change.

So I started looking for an adult to recruit. That’s actually a very difficult thing to do in a small town, but I set out to do it. And I found someone willing to help.

Fast forward a few years, and at the peak of the ministry at my last church, we had a solid team of adults investing in and loving on students. In fact, the success we saw would not have happened without those adults.

Now, today, a couple years into a new role, I’ve spent a significant amount of time and energy investing in and encouraging adults, and we are set for growth.

Here’s the point: leadership development means recruiting and retaining.

This comes very naturally and easy to some people, but to others (like me), it takes continual, intentional effort. But it’s worth the effort. And more than that, it’s a blessing to the people we invite for the journey.

So, youth ministers: who can you recruit today? What are you waiting for?

Here’s to Mile Markers

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We all have mile markers in life. We have moments and memories that we will look back on as pivotal transitions, or just simply moments in time worth remembering. When the Hebrew people crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land, they set up stones to serve as reminders. Funny how that works.

I got a notification over the weekend that this site (Three Question Leadership) passed 10,000 views. Now, I don’t know if that’s a lot or a little. I have a hunch that four years to reach 10k is a little slow, but I’m grateful to hit it at all. Five years ago, I never would have imagined I would blog on such a consistent basis.

Let me take a moment to say thank you. Thank you for those of you who are regular readers and click each week. Thank you to the random visitor who may find this post later down the road. Thank you to anyone who has ever shared a post. Thank you to the people who comment or send me an encouraging text after reading a post. Thank you for walking with me. Thank you for indulging my ramblings.

What mile markers have recently passed in your life? Did you adequately celebrate them? Did you adequately grieve? Do you need to take some time to celebrate or grieve today? What’s holding you back?

In the meantime, here are a few of my favorite posts from the past 4+ years (the ones I think are worth understanding):

Enjoy! And here’s to the next 10k views.

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