Leadership Slips

 So....you got any conflict in your workplace?  As Jeff Bell delivered this weekend, it seems that 60% of people dread their jobs... the primary reason?  The people they work with.  Yikes.

Jeff gave us 5 points to consider as so much of our relational conflict is rooted in trust:

 # 1  LACK OF CLARITY

• How do we measure success/failure should be clear
• Roles & Responsibilities need to be well defined
• Conversations can change on a dime from professional to personal, when this happens confusion can set-in
• What am I being asked to do and how do I do it?

Action:   We need to bring clarity to our workplaces and relationships.  How can you bring clarity to your leadership or workplace?

#2   FAILURE TO RECOGNIZE REALITIES

• Budget may have limitations (especially early on)
• 75% of population is drastically different than you studies have shown
  • They think you’re as weird as you think they are!
  • How they handle conflict can be completely different
• We’re all broken people   (James 4:1)

        Book:  Dark Side of Leadership       5 Types of Dark Side:

• Compulsiveness-  needs to call the shots
• Narcissistic -  world evolves around them
• Codependency- struggles to stand up on their own- need approval of others
• Paranoia- Always feeling like someone is out to get us
• Passive-Aggressive-  Manipulative

Action:  How can we recognize these tendencies in our own lives?  Who in our life is able to watch for these and help us when we get out of bounds?

#3   CAN’T GET COMFORTABLE WITH THE UNCOMFORTABLE

• Clarity can actually come from the conflict
• Critical point- acknowledge the failure (conflict) which can restore and build relationship (with clarity and more understanding)… OR spirals out of control

Action:  Many people avoid conflict.  What are the "unsaid" things in your relationships that need to come to the surface?

#4   ELEVATING THE DREAM ABOVE THE TEAM

• We can slip into sacrificing the team for the dream which can sometimes sacrifice the dream
• People are more important than products or services we offer

Action:  Are we on autopilot so focused on creating profit for our company or getting what we want in our relationships?  How can we value people more in our workplace?

#5   COMPETITION BECAME MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE COMMON CAUSE

• We forget that we’re on the same team... we get caught up in our own performance or stats and don't care if we actually won or lost the game
• The higher that climbers go on Mt Everest, the higher they have to rely on team
• We’ve GOT to find ways to work together

Action:  Who are the people I have the hardest time working with?  How can I be a better team member to them?  What step can I take to reach out to them?

Great quote:   "God can take the death of a dream and turn it into a multiplication of a dream."

I don't know about you, but I've had dreams that have been lost.  In the workplace, in relationships....  my hope is that God will take those losses and multiply them in our lives.  You believe that?

Verses from the Bible this week (The Message paraphrase):

Ephesians 4: 2-3  And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences

Jeremiah 29:11  I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.