Three Questions to Ask About Your Spiritual Connection to Leadership
Last year I made a big stink about appearing as a guest speaker at an event that I eventually referred to simply as “The Event.” If you were there, you know what I’m talking about. If not, allow me to enlighten you. It was the Leadership & Spirituality program at Princeton’s Theological Seminary, where an incredible cross-section of business and church leaders came together last May to discuss what it means to connect a spiritual purpose to their careers. We became an instant community.
If you missed it last year, then you are in luck. The Event is coming back again to Princeton, this time on April 11- 12, and I have the inside scoop on what promises to be a bigger and even more exciting program, with more speakers, more group interaction, and more terrific content relevant to our spirituality at work.
This year’s program is entitled, “Leadership and Spirituality: Finding our Greater Purpose.” The platform for our discussion will be based on three very fundamental questions, which are good questions to think about regardless if you plan on attending.
1. Do you believe that you are completely safe, secure and unconditionally loved by God in your leadership role?
When we are driven by external factors, such as greed, insecurity, image or status, it is reflected negatively in our actions and behaviors at work. We become self-centered, insecure, anxious and controlling. Unfortunately, the competitive and unforgiving nature of the marketplace and organizational politics can often throw us headlong into these altered states of spiritual uncertainty and confusion. Instead of trusting God, we grab at everything else around us to build up our confidence and competence.
To continue reading, please click here to head over the High Calling Blogs!
How to Speak Like a Smart Northeastern Professional
Last week I met with a well-heeled trio of cheerfully determined strategy consultants. They came prepared to convince me that their proprietary knowledge of strategic business model frameworks would lead my company to growth and success.
Following the obligatory small talk, the designated leader took charge and launched the meeting. He began his presentation with this:
“So.”
Just like that, his entire delivery hinging on that little word, “So.”
Maybe I shouldn’t care so much, but I am noticing this more and more in my professional minglings, especially among those who are inclined towards the consulting and investment banking fields. Any serious conversation one might have these days now starts with this seemingly harmless, but powerful little word:
Five Tips for Dealing With an Adversary
Does this situation sound familiar?
There you are in the conference room, discussing an important issue with your team. Eventually you make a well-purposed recommendation, one which everyone knows that you are extremely well qualified to offer.
Just when you expect the applause to break out, you instead begin to sense a palpable whoosh of negative energy blowing in from one corner of the room.
“Forget it,” says one unenthusiastic team member. “Bad idea. It won’t work.”
But you, being the hard-charging and persistent manager that you are, won’t take this without a fight.
“Oh yes it will work,” you retort. “It will work very well because of x y and z. I’ve done my homework and I know what I’m talking about.”
Your adversary, however, is also a very competent and tenacious manager who has shown you again and again that he is intent on making his opinion known, and will see it through to the death. Read the rest of this entry »
Nine Things I Learned From Guest Posting on Michael Hyatt’s Blog
Last week I had the privilege of publishing a guest post on Michael Hyatt’s blog, Leading with Purpose.
This was a pretty big deal to me, seeing as Mr. Hyatt is the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing, the largest Christian publisher in the world and the seventh-largest book publisher in the U.S. All of which is to say that this man gets hounded by thousands of desperately frustrated unpublished authors, which makes for a conveniently captive blog audience.
Writing a guest post was great exposure, for sure, and many nice people stopped by to congratulate me when they heard the news. But here it is a couple weeks later, and sadly, everything’s all back to normal again. Read the rest of this entry »
Middle-Schooled
I spent last weekend at my church’s annual Youth Retreat. In honor of that cherished and enviable leadership position, I wanted to re-post one of my favorite stories involving the unlikely match-up between an uptight executive (moi) and a gangly group of Junior High School kids.
Warning: This is not your typical blog post made up of scannable chunks and lists of information. It’s a real story, the kind you would find in an actual book or magazine (remember those?). So relax yourself, put up your feet, and take in some slow reading. Enjoy!
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Here’s a valuable tip for those of you thinking about volunteering with your church’s middle-school youth program: have very low expectations. Taking a few mental steps down the staircase of Acceptable Standards for Organizational Behavior proved to be very helpful for an executive manager such as myself in more effectively leading a gangly group of thirteen-year olds at my church. Read the rest of this entry »
Four Reasons to Ditch Powerpoint in Your Next Presentation
Most people fear public speaking over death, but I was one who happily embraced it as part of my professional development. At some point mid-way along my career I realized that, if done well, public speaking can create a certain air of authority. Something about the boldness of standing confidently before a crowd, offering up packaged bits of useful information and well-researched insights, and then bringing it all home with a compelling recommendation; well, it simply causes people to think you are much smarter than you really are. I liked that part of public speaking very much.
Over the years, I have led many a presentation, mostly with the help of a wonderful invention by Microsoft called Powerpoint. In fact, the more I think about it, it might be better stated that Powerpoint was the surrogate for all of those presentations, and I just helped it along by presenting the slides. Perhaps I have become a bit too dependent on Powerpoint.
It all came out last week when I was forced to conduct a powerpointless presentation. Five minutes prior to my appointed time, I waltzed into the conference room where the meeting was supposed to take place only to discover that the organizers had switched the room. The new room had no access to our company’s network; thus, no access to my precious slide show. There was no time to run back to my office and save the file to a flash drive, and the terrifying truth dawned on me: I had to make a presentation without using Powerpoint. Read the rest of this entry »
Six Ways to Take Your Micro-Sabbatical
My pastor recently took a three-month sabbatical. I imagined him sleeping in until ten every morning, followed by extensive periods of crossword puzzles and personal grooming. But he assured me that his time off was really more professional in nature: he studied up on the Emergent Church, and did a biblical tour of Turkey.
Am I jealous? No, of course not. Resentful is probably a better word. Not that I dislike my job, but the idea of taking three months off to focus on just-for-me time, well, that’s hard to stop fantasizing about. In fact, I already have it planned: the German lessons; the family rafting trip; the Executive Strategy conference; the monastery retreat; the writing seminar; the culinary tour of Spain – I would keep very, very busy working just on me.
Although sabbaticals are a defining element of academic life, they are practically unheard of in the corporate world. Yet I keep hoping they will catch on, since I have noticed a handful of culturally hip companies are paving the way by offering corporate sabbaticals as a means of retaining superstar employees and spurring innovation.
To continue reading, click here to read my guest post at Michael Hyatt’s Blog, Leading With Purpose.
(And thanks to nAncY for the photograph, used with permission.)
The Camel’s Back (Well, maybe…)
Here is the photograph that was featured on my home page for the last several months. I must confess, I am struggling with using it any more, because I don’t actually have permission.
This photo was originally discovered by a Google image search for “Camel in the eye of a needle.” I have made several attempts to contact the owners of this wonderful camel photo (like it was made just for me!), but to no avail. No returned email responses. The website where it came from is not active, just gathering dust.
Since I am not using my own website to advertise or to make money, some have suggested that it might be okay to use the photograph, that there would not be much of a case for any copyright lawsuits.
But, still.
What do you think? What is your advice?
My Other Job:Content Editor at The High Calling Blogs
Robert Pagliari over at CBS Money Watch has recently released a book called The Other Eight Hours. His schtick is that you work eight hours, you sleep eight, and then the other eight hours are available for you to build wealth and purpose for your life. So when you come home from work, instead of watching TV, eating, playing with your children or communicating with your wife, Pagliari says you should be investing that energy into developing your lifelong dreams because it will payoff bigtime in the future. Otherwise, you are just wasting precious time.
Pagliari may be overstating his case, but I can definitely relate to his advice. For the past 18 months, I have devoted a significant amount of my free time to writing this blog. Certainly not eight hours a day – more like one or two hours a day, or sometimes as little as twenty minutes. Eight hours would be nuts, because I want to do other things during those free hours. Like having dinner with my wife, or watching American Idol, or just hanging out with my teenage daughters once in a while. Even so, I somehow managed to sneak time in here and there to write, wedged in between the busy calendar of a demanding work and home life. Read the rest of this entry »
Religious Expression at Work: Persecution, or Pushy Employees?
A recent article at MSNBC.com by career-journalist Eve Tahmincioglu flatly asserts that “wearing your religion on your sleeve in a largely secular American workplace could hinder your career.” The author goes on to recount two cases of workers getting into trouble for “expressing their Christian beliefs.”
One young woman working at a ski resort in Vail was told to stop playing Christian music. She complained to HR and was fired in retaliation. Now she’s filed an EEOC suit. Another guy working at a Home Depot in Florida was fired because he wore a button that mentioned God on his orange apron.
Persecution? Religious harassment? Vicious attacks on Christians in the workplace? Read the rest of this entry »
