4 Tips for Spotting a Lazy Leader

by: Eric Geiger

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Lazy leadership is unfaithful stewardship. Instead of wise stewardship, lazy leaders foolishly squander resources, gifting, and opportunities rather than make the most of the brief season in which they are privileged to lead. When attempting to uncover and address laziness, people often look in the wrong places. Lazy leadership is not about office hours, email response time, and vacation days—as someone can be incredibly lazy while checking emails in the office. Here are four ways in which lazy leadership tends to manifest itself:

1. Lazy leaders dump rather than delegate.

It takes work and intentionality to effectively delegate responsibilities to another person. Training, care, and being continually available are all essential in effective delegation. Dumping responsibilities on someone else requires only laziness.

2. Lazy leaders rely on personality rather than preparation.

Here is why laziness does not always reveal itself immediately. Someone can rely on his or her personality for a while, but in time the lack of preparation is obvious.

3. Lazy leaders take on too little rather than too much.

I am not suggesting that it is wise to perpetually take on too much, but lazy leaders never get close to that threshold. They avoid overwork like the plague and err toward taking on too little.

4. Lazy leaders offer excuses rather than results.

Lazy leaders may have new excuses, but they always have excuses. Someone else is always at fault for the lack of execution or follow-through.

The people of God have always understood laziness to be a sin. Laziness is a sin because laziness fails to appreciate the gift and blessing of work and fails to make the most of the time we have been graciously given. The writer of Proverbs exhorts us:

Go to the ant, you slacker! Observe its ways and become wise. Without leader, administrator, or ruler, it prepares its provisions in summer; it gathers its food during harvest. How long will you stay in bed, you slacker? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the arms to rest, and your poverty will come like a robber, your need, like a bandit. (Proverbs 6:6-11)

Developing a Leadership Pipeline will minimize the risks of lazy leaders. Connect with an Auxano Navigator to learn more.

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Tags: Eric Geiger, Lazy Leaders, Leadership Pipeline

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Three Items for the Most Important List You Will Make This Year

by: Eric Geiger

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The second law of thermodynamics revolves around entropy, the principle that things move to disorder and chaos over time. Left alone, things do not become more orderly or more effective. Your once well-ordered garage digresses to clutter. No matter how much you attempt to wish it into existence, your garage will not get more clean and organized without your intervention.

In the same way, our calendars and organizations become more cluttered without intervention. Organizational entropy is currently happening unless you are actively fighting against it. For this reason, leaders are often encouraged to develop “stop doing” lists so they may transfer time and energy and resources to what is more important. Without a “stop doing” list, unnecessary tasks will remain on job profiles and unfruitful meetings will remain on calendars.

So what items should make a “stop doing” list? Here are three:

1. The Unnecessary (no one should be doing)

An unnecessary task is something no one should be doing. Not anymore. Think of scaffolding that is used to build a building. The scaffolding, though extremely important at one point in time, does not always remain. Sadly, some unnecessary work and systems can remain if leaders don’t regularly remove the unnecessary. Peter Drucker said, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” When you eliminate unnecessary work, you are able to reallocate energy and resources to what is most important.

2. The Redundant (someone else is doing)

A redundant task is a task someone else is already doing. There are necessary tasks that are often redundant, meaning, someone else is already handling them. Instead of two people doing the same thing, two people can focus on two different important actions and add more value to the mission of the team.

3. The Less Important (other things should be done instead)

The most difficult task to stop is the less important one so that something more important can receive more resources and time and thinking and organizational focus. It takes great focus and discipline to steal energy from the less important and devote it to the most important. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wisely said, “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”

Because of entropy, a “stop doing” list is not a one-time exercise.

> Read more from Eric.

Tags: Eric Geiger, List, Stop Doing List

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Pastors and Their Personal Finances…Why the Struggle is Real

by: Eric Geiger

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Of the more than 700 pastors’ spouses surveyed in a recent LifeWay research project, more than half expressed that their income from the church is insufficient, and more than two-thirds are concerned they do not have enough saved for retirement. Why is this? Why do so many families in local church ministry struggle financially?

While there are likely many reasons, I want to offer four possibilities—three of which place responsibility on the church for not providing enough support and one that places responsibility on the pastor for not being a wise steward. In my more than twenty years of serving in local church ministry and working alongside pastors and churches, I have seen all four reasons at play.

1. Churches comparing apples and oranges in compensation

Early in my ministry I was in a committee meeting and heard someone make a complaint about a pastor’s salary. The printed number that the person was looking at was the total cost of compensation—which included social security tax at 15%, retirement, book allowance, and health insurance. The person said, “I did not know we were paying this.” The reality is the pastor was not being paid that. And if asked about his own salary, the person making the argument would never have given total cost of compensation. You don’t budget or live on the total cost of compensation. While it is important for those who prepare budgets to understand total cost of compensation, total cost of compensation analysis can give the perception a pastor is being paid more than the reality.

2. Church members projecting old costs to a new context

Imagine someone who bought a house in a growing community fifteen years ago. If a pastor moves in next door this year, the pastor will be paying much more to live in the same size house. The costs of property taxes and the price of the house (mortgage payments) are much higher. The person who has been there fifteen years is locked in at a much lower cost. So people who have been in the church a long time can easily make decisions without really feeling the weight of how much it costs currently to live and start a ministry in an area.

3. Bad theology in a church

The first two reasons are common and can happen among good people who just are not thinking clearly. The third reason is erroneous thinking about the Lord, about spiritual growth, and about the relationship between a church and the pastors. It is bad theology to believe it is a church’s job to keep a pastor humble by paying very little. It is the Lord’s role, not the role of the compensation package, to keep a minister on his knees. While it is scriptural malpractice to teach the godly will be wealthy and not suffer, it is also a disregard of Scripture not to take care of a church’s leaders. The Lord commands His people to take care of those who lead and preach and teach (1 Timothy 5:18). Sanctification ultimately comes through the Lord, not through poverty or prosperity.

4. Bad stewardship among pastors

Pastors are not immune to the temptation in our culture to live outside of one’s means, to accrue lots of debt, and to grow cold in generosity. Pastors who are bad stewards of their own finances lose credibility to manage the finances in a church. According to the apostle Paul, managing the home is no small matter for a pastor, and this includes our personal stewardship. “If anyone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of God’s church?” (1 Timothy 3:5).

A local church does not benefit if her leaders are struggling financially. A church benefits when her leaders are able to serve with joy (Hebrews 13:17), and ministry leaders who are struggling financially are often distracted and filled with constant grief and worry.

> Read more from Eric.

Tags: Eric Geiger, Financial Struggles, Pastor finances

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The Secret to Meaningful Blogging

by: Eric Geiger

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I never intended to become active on social media. My boss intended it for me and I am glad he did. It has helped me formulate thoughts more clearly, has pushed me to keep learning, and has broadened the types of people I can connect with.

At first, I did not have a social media or a blog strategy. As I started hearing feedback from people about things I wrote, I thought, “I really need to take this more seriously.” So Chris Martin helped me form a blog strategy. We sit down once a month and he brings me a list of potential topics, shows me data on what seems to be helping and resonating, and makes suggestions on tweaks I should make.

Culture might eat strategy for breakfast, but that doesn’t meant we abandon strategy. If you are a leader who uses social media, here are three reasons you should have a strategy:

1. Strategy saves time.

I don’t feel like I have any extra time, so when Chris nudged me to get on the Five Leadership Questions Podcast and to start Facebook Live videos, I was like “Dude, are you crazy.” He showed me we could simply plan to tweak and adjust existing content to move into different mediums. So Facebook Live videos are simply me explaining and articulating something I have already written. The podcast takes zero prep time, but then becomes prep time for future blogs.

2. Strategy simplifies processes.

Without a strategy incredible amounts of time are wasted having the same conversations over and over. Because we know the plan for what content will go where and when, we are not daily rehashing the same conversations. I write, send for editing, it gets posted, which later becomes a video, etc.

3. Strategy serves your audience.

Having a strategy allows you to think more intentionally. Having a strategy and being strategic are not the same things. But having a strategy can help you be strategic. Having a blog or content strategy provides a framework for you to think about how to best serve those in your audience.

Read more from Eric.

Tags: Eric Geiger, blogging, blogging strategy

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3 Common Scapegoats for Developing Leaders

by: Eric Geiger

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Great leaders intuitively know they are responsible for future leadership, and all leaders have heard these catch phrases: “There is no success without succession” and “Work yourself out of a job and you will always have a job.” Yet few leaders plan and prioritize developing others. There is always something else to do, always an email inbox pulling leaders away from the importance of development. So instead, leaders can offer excuses rather than take the task of development seriously. Three common and very bad excuses are:

1. Those I develop may leave.

There is a fear that if you develop someone for leadership, that person will long to be deployed somewhere else, that there may not be a spot in your organization for the developed leader. In response to “If we develop our people, they may leave,” someone quipped, “If we do not develop our people, they may stay.” Much better to deploy people you have developed than to labor alongside indefinitely those who have not been developed. A group of stagnant people, people who are not growing and learning, is a miserable team to be a part of.

2. Things are so busy.

Yes. Yes, they are busy. And they will not be less busy in 18 months. But 18 months from now, you could have better leaders on your team carrying the burden with you IF you would develop them now. Developing others takes time, but it will take less time if you start now instead of six months from now.

3. It is not on my job description.

Sadly, though it should be, developing others may not be on your job description. But all the functions on your job description would be better fulfilled if you raised up other leaders. Developing others widens the influence of the ministry or organization. Developing others equips more people for the important work that is being accomplished.

These are really bad excuses. Don’t use them.

Read more from Eric.

Tags: Developing Leaders, Eric Geiger, Leadership Development

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4 Dangers of Leading Above Your Work

by: Eric Geiger

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Leaders are often encouraged to lead at 30,000 feet, which is a metaphor to lead above the daily grind and think further out, plan ahead, and navigate towards the future. Just as airplanes fly high to rise above the turbulence and above the clouds, leading at 30,000 feet allows a leader to rise above the urgency of today and strategically think and plan the future. But just as it is dangerous for planes to fly too high (commercial airlines are limited to 45,000 feet), it is dangerous when a leader leads at 60,000 feet, when a leader soars too high above the work. Here are four failings of the 60,000-foot leader:

1. Forgets about today

When a leader operates at 30K feet, the leader can still drop in and execute today. At 30K feet the leader plans the future with a sense of the challenges and realities of today. But the 60,000-foot leader neglects the leadership responsibilities of today. Leaders who are only focused on the future can fail to execute today.

2. Creates solutions for problems that don’t exist

Leading at 60K feet means leading above the reality, living only in the philosophical realm of ideas. Ideas and creative thinking are great, but when a leader is separated from daily realities, the most pressing problems are ignored and solutions are designed for problems that do not exist. The ideas and creative thinking at 60K feet are rarely connected at all to reality.

3. Acts with little urgency

The reason people want to fly high is that there is less turbulence, typically, the higher you go. The attraction of 60k foot leadership is being above, completely above, the turbulence. But leadership removed from reality always means leadership without urgency. At 30K a leader can think and plan and strategize without losing urgency. 60k feet is too high.

4. Makes decisions divorced from context

When a leader does not lead from within the context, decisions are always out of sync with the context. And 60k foot leadership pulls a leader too far from the context and the culture of the team.

It is important for leaders to go to 30,000 feet. Go there. Just don’t live at 60,000. It is dangerous that high.

> Read more from Eric.

Tags: Eric Geiger, Leadership, Leading Above Your Work

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Communicate Change Using the Power of Momentum

by: Eric Geiger

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It is hard to overstate the importance of communication when unveiling a new initiative or introducing change. The communication of a change is as critical as the strategic thinking behind the change. The communication of a new initiative is often as important as the initiative itself. A leadership team may have an incredible strategy, but if the communication is poor, the strategy will not be embraced. Leaders who communicate well have prepared the new initiative for momentum, while those who communicate poorly doom it to failure or a slow start.

When communicating major change or a new initiative, it is wise to communicate in waves to multiple groups of people. While the nomenclature of the different levels of leadership varies from context to context, there are typically layers of leadership in every context.

• Start with a small group of decision makers, a core of strategic leaders who have a view of and burden for the entire organization/ministry.
• Then communicate to the next level of leaders, often leaders of leaders, and set the pace for the entire organization/ministry.
• Then communicate again to those leaders who serve/work to make the organization/ministry what she is.
• Finally, communicate to the whole organization/ministry.

The communication plan can be illustrated like this:

While the steps can be reduced or expanded, depending on the size of the organization or ministry, communicating in waves produces two big benefits:

 1. The message is refined.

By communicating the same message to different groups of people, the communicators are able to refine the message and the delivery of the message. They learn the questions, the struggles, and the points of excitement. They are able to listen to feedback, adjust the message, and communicate again. By the time the communication is delivered to the entire organization, those who communicate the direction have tested the language and the clarity with multiple groups of people.

 2. Ownership is expanded.

Initiatives and change efforts often fail because too few people own them. When communication occurs in waves, people are invited to “own the direction.” Leaders often bemoan low amounts “vision buy-in” among the people they lead. If the direction is sound, a lack of “buy-in” is either a credibility or a communication problem. To secure “buy-in” across multiple groups of people, leaders are wise to communicate in waves, to listen, and to ask questions. To hit the bullseye on buy-in, you will need to communicate multiple times to multiple groups. If the communication is strategic, by the time the whole organization hears of the direction, ownership has been expanded.

> Read more from Eric.

 Would you like to know how to use the power of momentum when communicating change? Connect with an Auxano Navigator and start a conversation with our team.

Tags: Communication, Eric Geiger, Momentum, power of momentum

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How Do Groups Fit into the Overall Strategy of Your Church?

by: Eric Geiger

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One of the biggest takeaways from the research behind our book Transformational Groups is the need for churches to be more clear and focused in their group strategy. Church leaders must know how their groups (classes, Bible fellowships, etc.) fit into their overall discipleship strategy/process, and many don’t. They simply have groups. Once leaders know how groups fit into their overall church discipleship plan, they must harmonize their group leaders, training, and content with the overall discipleship plan. We will flesh this out more in the book, but here are some early thoughts for churches.

Know the purpose of your groups.

According to the research, the most effective groups were the most focused groups. People who attend groups in churches that understand the primary purpose of their groups reported a higher level of group effectiveness than those who attend groups in churches with a plethora of purposes. Meaning the groups that are crystal clear as to why they meet and how they fit into the overall life of the church are more effective. Groups that gather with an attempt to be everything don’t accomplish much of anything.

In other words, if a group attempts to constantly invite unbelievers to the group while simultaneously teaching the Bible in depth, hoping to connect believers together in deep relationship, and live on mission together in the community–according to the research the lack of focus is a detriment. Much better is to identify the chief purpose (or two purposes) the groups are gathered together to accomplish, and to focus energy and attention in that direction.

So as you think about your groups, it may be helpful to force rank the list below. In light of your overall church discipleship plan, what are the most important purposes for your groups?

• Formation/ Study (primary goal is teaching and study)
• Connection (primary goal is connecting believers in biblical community)
• Mission (primary goal is the group serving on mission together)
• Invitational (primary goal is inviting non-believers to the group)

What should the purpose of your groups be? It depends on your overall discipleship strategy. For example, if your weekend worship teaching is 40-45 minutes of biblical exposition, your groups may not need to be a duplication of that. You may decide that your groups should carry a different primary purpose. Of course, you would want the groups to study the Scriptures together, but the intended purpose may be connection and community around those studies. On the other hand, some churches really need the groups to carry the burden of formation and study because the weekend teaching isn’t designed to accomplish that in the life of believers.

Match leaders with the purpose of your groups.

For groups to be the most powerful, there must be harmony between the purpose of the groups and the leaders who lead the groups. The leaders should be recruited and trained based on the purpose of the groups. If a church decides the primary purpose of a group is study, then the church should recruit teachers. If a church decides the primary purpose is biblical community, the church should recruit leaders to shepherd and facilitate. If a church decides it is mission, the church should train their leaders to think like missionaries.

Frustration and friction exists if there isn’t a match. For example, if a church desires the groups to connect people together but a leader is recruited who wants to lead a group so he can lecture for 52 minutes every week, the group will lack focus and fail to deliver on the reason the group exists in light of the overall church discipleship process.

There are other very important issues (launching new groups, communicating with groups, moving new people to groups, etc), but church leaders must first understand how groups fit into the overall discipleship strategy for their church.

Read more from Eric here.

Tags: Discipleship, Duplication, Eric Geiger, Small Groups, groups

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Money Matters: Wisely Budgeting for Growth

by: Eric Geiger

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Budgeting is a great time to develop a plan, with the right leaders, for spending. I prefer approaching budgeting with a growth mentality. If you do so, your budget will be bigger than it was the previous year. A growth budget is a step of faith, but wisdom will require you to have a plan for spending if the growth in giving isn’t realized.

Instead of displaying wisdom in spending, shrewdness in planning, and generosity in giving, church leaders often succumb to the spending values of this world. Sadly many churches are collective reflections of American spending habits-spending all we have and even money we haven’t yet received. Church leaders teach by their spending; therefore, we must display a better way to live by how we manage the resources God entrusts to us. Part of this, I believe, means spending less than you receive as a church.

But how do you reconcile this with a growth mentality? Budgeting in a growing church is very challenging because it’s difficult to predict what giving trends will be in the future. The current growth isn’t always consistent nor is it clear what the new “per-person” giving will be. Often those new to the faith don’t start giving immediately. The practice of simply multiplying the current growth rate by the current “per-person” giving is a good starting point, but it’s really more reflective of the past than predictive of the future. [To do this, a church simply estimates the number of new people and multiplies that number by the current “average per-person” giving]

The budgeting season is a good time to wrestle with the tension of growth and uncertainty, faith and wisdom. You can reconcile a growth mentality and shrewd planning by using the budgeting time to objectively and proactively plan spending so that you’re not making chaotic decisions later.

How could this look practically?

(1) Have a trigger plan for unleashing new budgeted resources. Mark the areas in your budget that will be “released” after the giving reaches a new consistent level. Once the weekly giving reaches that point, the trigger is pulled.

(2) Develop a plan for spending freezes. With a small team of wise people, plan what spending would be frozen at specific levels of giving. Examples: You may freeze new hires until a consistent level of giving is realized. Or if giving drops to a certain point, certain expenses are suspended.

Establish a flexible framework during budgeting so that clarity is gained before it’s needed. It’s much easier to have objective and level-headed discussions before the moment is urgent.

Connect with an Auxano Navigator to learn more about budgeting clarity.

> Read more from Eric.

Tags: Budgeting, Budgeting Clarity, Eric Geiger, Resourcing

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3 Signs Your Team is Getting Along But Not Going Anywhere

by: Eric Geiger

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Healthy teams are both aligned and attuned. Alignment refers to the commitment to the mission and identity of the organization. Attunement refers to the relational care and concern that the team exhibits for one another. Both are essential. In this post I wrote about warning signs your team is aligned but not attuned. Today I want to offer three warning signs your team is attuned but not aligned:

1. Fuzzy mission

Without alignment around mission, people begin to only exist for each other and not those the team is designed to serve. When a team is not aligned, the mission is unclear or buried on a document somewhere. When alignment is missing, a sense of mission is missing as well. The result is actions and activity disconnected from a sense of “this is why we exist.”

2. Low accountability

When a team has a compelling mission and a deep-seated conviction that “this mission must be accomplished,” accountability will likely be high. But because accountability can be uncomfortable, a team not aligned around an overarching agenda will fail to offer it. Conviction and mission foster expectations and accountability. When a team is not aligned, expectations are low. Low expectations always result in low accountability.

3. Results?

Attunement without alignment results in people who enjoy each other but don’t accomplish much. In fact, a team attuned to one another but not united around a grand mission will rarely evaluate their impact. Why would they? Though they may never say, “Results? That is not why we exist,” collectively they believe it.

If a fuzzy mission, low accountability, or failure to evaluate results plagues your team, engagement in and alignment around an overarching mission must be ramped up. And wise leaders know mission drift is inevitable unless it is constantly clarified and communicated.

> Read more from Eric.

If you would like to learn more about team alignment and attunement, start a conversation with our team. We’re glad to offer our input. Your vision is at stake, so let’s talk.

Tags: Alignment, Attunement, Eric Geiger, Execution

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