I am learning a few lessons this week in regards to leadership. I am not an expert on leadership and I don’t believe there is an expert in this subject. I will also contend that being great at something does not make you an expert. With that being said I will start in on how I suck.

Lesson #1: “Mission before men” does not apply when working in the ministry.

• Your mission is men.
• If you cannot communicate your mission effectively how do you expect your men to carry it out.
• Your mission is personal, so are your men.
• Your men do not change to your standards you have to be willing change to theirs, so long as it doesn’t compromise the mission.

Ok now let me give a few explanations. When I was in the military there was two schools of thought in leadership. The first mentality is “You place your mission before your men”. The second mentality is “Your men are the most important thing”.

The ideal mentality is to find a perfect harmony with both thoughts. I can say that I never met one leader that found that harmony while I was serving. Most of the leaders I knew had a “mission before men” mentality. To be perfectly honest I prefer that. That was the way I was taught to lead. You complete your mission no matter what the cost, what you are working for is the “Greater Good”, you may have to make sacrifices. I never charged any machine gun nests while I was in the military, I was a power lineman. Not a lot of machine guns or Iraqis to deal with when you are changing out street light bulbs, looking back I didn’t have a lot of friends either. But the streets were well lit and there were very few power outages on my watch, mission accomplished.

Working as a volunteer leader at my church is making me totally relearn and change how I lead. I am having to learn that the mission is men, or mankind if you will, and that includes the men that work side by side with you in your mission. Communication is always the biggest key to carrying out any mission, but  leading people in the ministry it is how you communicate what your mission is. You can bark orders and they will be carried out. You can ask someone to do something for you and there is a better than 99% chance that it will get done, but the person you asked will feel better about what they are doing as opposed to having a “task master” barking at them. Your mission is a personal mission because you are working for your personal Savior. The people you serve with are just like you, screwed up mutts that love Jesus, get to know them. Be willing to change how you do things to accomplish your mission. Being nicer to someone does not compromise your mission, getting personal with someone does not compromise your mission, you will accomplish your mission with greater success and fewer sacrifices by changing how you do things sometimes. Leaders are in control of the things around them, the people around them and themselves.

Unfortunately I suck at all these things. This past week at church I got into a disagreement with one of my very best friends. The disagreement got heated enough that he left so he could cool off. The disagreement essentially centered around my leadership style and communication. I won’t go any further into the whys but the whole thing really set me back on my heels and has made me think long and hard about how I do things. My friend and I have already reconciled like most men do, I let him punch me just as hard as he could in the arm and I got to ride his bicycle. Bottom line is I needed that from him to show me where I fail. Thanks buddy, I’m sorry.