• Coltrane and Calling: A Faith and Work Message for Jazz Appreciation Month. Caroline Cross writes “Os Guinness writes that Coltrane’s finest work came after this divine appointment, including his famous piece A Love Supreme, in which he responded musically to his experience of the power of God’s love.”
• 7 Non-Negotiable Values for Teams I Lead. Ron Edmondson shares these values.
• Is Happiness a Dangerous Goal? Dr. Alan Zimmerman writes “A much healthier goal would be that of joy. Joy is a lifestyle that does not depend on things to “happen.” You can have it anytime, all the time. Indeed, joyful people know that happiness is nothing more than the bonus they receive for living their lives a certain way.”
• Self-Leadership. In this “Minute with Maxwell”, John Maxwell talks about self-leadership.
• Cultivating Creativity in Times of Crisis. John Maxwell writes “To face the greatest challenges of life, we need to cultivate creative thinking. In times of crisis, you need to tap into every good idea you have. And of course, the best time to increase your creativity is before the crisis occurs. This can be done by establishing the discipline of creative thinking.”
• Challenges. In this “Minute with Maxwell”, John Maxwell talks about challenges.
• Cascading Communications. Mark Miller shares principles that may help in cascading communications.
• When a Leader Lets You Down. Gavin Ortlund writes “How can we endure disappointment without becoming disillusioned? This article is not a comprehensive answer, but here are four principles from the book of Nehemiah that might be helpful.”
• The Biblical Meaning of Success: Working Diligently for the Master’s Glory. Hugh Welchel writes “We work at the pleasure of the Lord, and our work is to be driven by our love of the Master. Our only desire should be to hear Him say, “Well done my good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of the Master.”
• What You Do Right Before Bed Determines How Productive and Focused You’ll Be Tomorrow. Michael Hyatt shares nine activities make up his nighttime ritual.
• What if Your Workplace is Your Mission Field? Dan King writes “The goal of evangelism is to move people one-step closer to God. Approaching my workplace as a mission field has resulted in several opportunities to move people closer to Christ. It’s not Bible-thumping, turn-or-burn evangelism. It’s about relationships and living the Word of God in everything we do. I may go on mission trips to foreign countries regularly, but my workplace will always be my favorite mission field.”

 Faith and Work Quotes

• You can’t expect others to listen to advice and ignore your example. Dr. Alan Zimmerman

• The only time people change is when they are confronted by strong leadership, crises, or both. Dr. Alan Zimmerman  

• How do you build leaders? You first build character. Jim Collins

• The most important action a leader must take to encourage trust-building on a team is to demonstrate vulnerability first. Patrick Lencioni

• Make a positive difference in people’s lives because when you become a manager you also become the topic of discussion at the dinner table. Ken Blanchard

• Live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else. Dave Ramsey

• Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. Lou Holtz

• Happiness comes when we stop complaining about the troubles we have and offer thanks for all the troubles we don’t have. Coach K

• Dwelling in the past prevents doing something in the present. John Wooden

 Faith and Work Book Clubs – Won’t you read along with us?

The Conviction to Lead Book Club

The Conviction to Lead: 25 Principles for Leadership That Matters by Albert Mohler

We’re reading this excellent book from Albert Mohler, one of the best that I’ve read on leadership. It is broken down into 25 relatively short chapters. Won’t you read along with us? This week we look at Chapter 14 Leaders Are Managers.

• That powerful observation underlines exactly what leaders must do—“put people with different skills and knowledge together to achieve common goals.” As a matter of fact, that is why leadership exists, and that is why management is essential to what leaders do.
• While we can agree that many good managers are not really leaders in the visionary and strategic sense, leaders absolutely must manage.
• Leaders lead by definition, but they also lead by management. There are certain management tasks that cannot be delegated, or can only be delegated with adequate supervision and oversight.
• Healthy organizations are constantly bringing new people into their workforce. These new people will not embrace common goals by accident. There must be a structure in place to inculcate, define, and affirm these goals throughout the organization.
• The leader’s task is to define and articulate certain values, and then work to see them driven throughout the organization.
• Leaders must work to make the organization’s structure serve, rather than impede, the work. That requires a lot of attention to how the work is actually done, which is to say that a leader who does not know how the work is done cannot possibly lead with effectiveness.
• Leaders instinctively gravitate to what is most important. This is good, but trouble comes when leaders fail to grasp that some simple and practical tasks can lead, if ignored or neglected, to humiliating disaster.
• A leader who takes a hands-off approach to the budget isn’t leading, but merely suggesting. Effective leaders give intensive personal attention to the budget because that’s where the real convictions of the organization show up.
• The effective leader deploys others within the organization to become specialists in the wide array of knowledge necessary to the total work. But that same leader has to make sure that he can at least hold an intelligent, helpful conversation with each of those leaders and managers about their work. The best leaders take this as an intellectual and organizational challenge that they grow to relish and appreciate.
• Management by conviction is not a theory, just a commitment. That commitment means that the leader exercises management so that the convictions of the organization are honored, perpetuated, communicated, and put into combined action.