Rare Leadership: 4 Uncommon Habits For Increasing Trust, Joy, and Engagement in the People You Lead

"This was a worthwhile introspective tome, which was truly on the level of John Maxwell’s extensive collection of exemplary lessons in leadership. As a leader within my organization, the information within the pages of this book was absolutely priceless. This book goes a step beyond ordinary books on leadership, by helping to understand the importance of finding connection, fulfillment, and joy with not only the people that they serve, but also within themselves as well." Reviewed by Anino Ellis on NetGalley, Mar 4, 2016 "A rare focus in the leadership genre. This 240 page book goes well beyond the typical vision and strategy focus on many books. With a deeper look at what really matters and a compelling writing style, leaders at all levels will benefit from this book. Filled with insightful illustrations, I was both convicted and convinced that too often I neglect these essentials of leadership. Going forward, with the helps in this book, my leadership will be better because I am better." Reviewed by Chris Jordan on NetGalley, Apr 2, 2016 " 'Rare Leadership: 4 Uncommon Habits For Increasing Trust, Joy, and Engagement in the People You Lead' by Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder is primarily written for religious leaders, but there is enough solid information in it for the layperson. A lot can be learned from bad leaders, but healthy leaders is what we really need. Using brain science and some leadership models, the authors show how leaders can lead with joy and act like themselves. They encourage remaining relational and modeling what it's like to endure hardship. They also talk about a sliding maturity scale that all leaders can measure themselves against. Many good and bad examples of leaders are given. Both as leaders the authors have served under and some of their own mistakes. If we are going to have healthy churches, we need to have the kind of healthy leadership that grows and doesn't rely on using emotions to browbeat others into obedience. This holds true in the business world. The authors use a curious quirk of using parentheses to denote who is writing. I understand why they chose to do this, but I found it a bit odd. Other than that, the book reads well, the science seems solid, and the guidelines seem positive and encouraging to follow. I appreciated the advice given and I will definitely take some things away from reading this book. I received a review copy of this ebook from Moody Publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook." Reviewed by Wayne McCoy on NetGalley, Apr 13, 2016 Revive your leadership. Grow healthy teams. See great results. Healthy teams begin with healthy leaders, and at the heart of this dynamic is emotional maturity—the quality the greatest leaders possess. Combining solid theology, cutting-edge brain science, and decades of counseling and consulting experience, Rare Leadership equips you to: Cultivate emotional maturity in yourself and others Cultivate emotional maturity in yourself and others Develop the four habits of R.A.R.E. leaders Develop the four habits of R.A.R.E. leaders Promote a strong group identity Promote a strong group identity Keep relationships bigger than problems Keep relationships bigger than problems Increase productivity through trust, joy, and engagement Increase productivity through trust, joy, and engagement When you prioritize people and lead from a secure identity, you’ll be amazed at the freedom you feel and the results you see. Read Rare Leadership and discover the secret of leading people well. DR. MARCUS WARNER has served as the president of Deeper Walk International since 2006. Marcus earned three degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School—M.Div., Th.M., and D.Min. He has written 16 books on topics ranging from brain science to spiritual warfare including Rare Leadership , The 4 Habits of Joy-Filled Marriages , and A Deeper Walk . Marcus is a conference speaker who works with ministry and coroporate groups around the world. A Bible teacher at heart, Marcus has taught Old Testament and Theology as well as serving as a senior pastor. His passion is taking complex topics and making them practical and accessible for everyone. JIM WILDER (PhD, Clinical Psychology, and M.A. Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary) has been training leaders and counselors for over 27 years on five continents. He is the author of nine books with a strong focus on maturing and relationship skills for leaders. His coauthored book Living From the Heart Jesus Gave You has sold over 100,000 copies in eleven languages. Wilder has published numerous articles and developed four sets of video and relational leadership training called THRIVE. He is currently executive director of Shepherd's House Inc., a nonprofit working at the intersection of brain science and theology, and founder of Life Model Works that is building contagiously healthy Christian communities through equipping existing networks with the skills to thrive. Dr. Wilder has extensive clinical counseling experience and has served as a guest lecturer at Fuller Seminary, Biola, Talbot Seminary, Point Loma University, Montreat College, Tyndale Seminary and elsewhere. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Rare Leadership 4 Uncommon Habits for Increasing Trust, Joy, and Engagement in the People You Lead By Marcus Warner, Jim Wilder, Elizabeth Cody Newenhuyse Moody Publishers Copyright © 2016 Marcus Warner and Jim WilderAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-0-8024-1454-0 Contents Foreword, 7, Preface, 11, Introduction, 13, 1. Leadership at the Speed of Joy, 19, Section 1: Understanding Fast-Track Leadership, 2. The Difference Between RARE Leaders and Sandbox Leaders, 41, 3. The Elevator in Your Brain, 61, 4. When the Fast Track Needs Fixing, 77, 5. Don't Take Your Eye Off the Fast Track, 89, Section 2: Building RARE Leadership, 6. Where You Start: Imitation, Identity, Intimacy, 107, 7. Remain Relational, 123, 8. Act Like Yourself, 141, 9. Return to Joy, 159, 10. Endure Hardship Well, 175, 11. Where Do You Go from Here?, 191, Notes, 205, Glossary, 209, A Day in the Life of a RARE Leader, 215, About Life Model Works, 221, About Deeper Walk International, 223, About the Authors, 225, Acknowledgments, 227, CHAPTER 1 Leadership at the Speed of Joy Wisdom from the Bible, discoveries from brain science IF YOU ARE a student of leadership, you know about the importance of engagement and emotional intelligence. You have also read a wide variety of case studies that tell us what successful leaders do. What you probably don't know is that recent developments in brain science now reveal that leadership skills are learned in a different way and in a different area of the brain than management skills and academic studies. We now know how leaders can train this powerful brain system to produce full engagement in their team and develop a high level of emotional intelligence that keeps them plugged into a renewable, high-octane source of motivation. In this book, we want to help you in two ways: 1) We want you to understand the fast-track brain mechanism that learns and distributes leadership skills, and 2) we want to help you train the leadership system in your brain using four core habits of effective leaders. These four habits will cause your emotional intelligence to soar. As we saw in the introduction, these habits can be remembered with the word RARE. They are: Remain Relational Act Like Yourself Return to Joy Endure Hardship Well Many leaders, business people, pastors, team leaders and influences never receive any training in leadership. This contributes to mistaking management for leadership. Management is the efficient accomplishment of tasks. Leadership is producing and maintaining full engagement from our group in what matters. The RARE leaders we wish to emulate inspire us because they do this well. Now, we will show you how it is done. ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS VS. PEOPLE SKILLS Dr. Chris Shaw has over thirty years of experience training leaders and pastors across Latin America. With two devotional books to his credit, his daily devotional is read by over 6,000 website visitors a day. Dr. Shaw edits a leadership magazine for both men and women leaders with a subscription of 185,000 readers. Chris holds his doctorate in leadership development with a thesis on A Philosophy of Education for Leadership Formation through Theological Studies at Fuller Seminary. His master's degree was in Christian formation and discipleship. He began teaching as full-time staff at the Buenos Aires Bible Institute and this position opened international doors to conferences where Dr. Shaw draws crowds of pastors. We asked Chris for his observations on leadership. Chris immediately observed the problems caused by mistaking management skills for leadership. He says: Leadership has become heavily influenced by managerial models, so that the term "lead" has come to mean organizational skills rather than people skills. What Chris did not learn in his doctorate program (that we now know) is how leadership skills are learned. The brain uses a "fast-track" process for relational leadership skills and a very different "slow-track" process for management skills. The "fast track" operates at speeds above the level of conscious thought and primarily governs relational reality. The "slow track" is what we notice consciously. It monitors results and provides explanations and solutions to problems we face. (These are challenging concepts, we know. We will explain these ideas more fully at the end of this chapter. For now, understand that both learning processes are super-important.) But the how is less important than the what — the impact on our organizations and on real people. Chris sees the impact on both pastors and churches. He says: The Kingdom, however, is not about organizations, projects or even ministries. It's about people, and so leadership, in Kingdom terms, would refer to the development of the kind of "people skills" that would help those we have been invited to walk with to achieve their full potential in Christ. This is rare in many church leaders today. Despite the fact that the Church is all about people, I find that many pastors have woefully inadequate people skills, and are often even uncomfortable around others, unless it is within the context of a programmed meeting. Leadership, for many pastors, is exercised from a platform whilst holding onto a microphone. Dr. Shaw began his journey by becoming an assistant pastor to a church that was actively planting congregations in the slums of Buenos Aires. In this context he began training young leaders — a practice he continues to this day. He began to notice very quickly that lectures, classes, and Bible studies were needed, but that something was missing. Early on in my pastoral experience I discovered how easy it was to experience painful loneliness whilst being surrounded by a community of believers. The loneliness seemed to point to the fact that many of the congregations that we would describe as communities of faith were really just gatherings of people who happened to meet in the same building at regular times throughout the week. Multiple encounters with Christians who felt used (and sometimes discarded) by their leaders moved me to find another leadership model. There was no real interest in them as individuals, aside from the way they fit into or furthered the leader's personal projects. As a resident chaplain at the Bible Institute, I counseled dozens of disenchanted Christians, and it strengthened my resolve to explore alternative leadership training methods. I was disappointed as a student (and later as a member of faculty) to notice how uninterested many professors were in the lives of their students. Some couldn't even be bothered to learn the names of their students. All their focus seemed to be on getting through their material. When I began to work as part of the faculty I wanted to be a shepherd to my students, and not just somebody who delivered lectures. Because I speak at a lot of conferences I guess many people would evaluate my success or failure by the number of people I am able to attract to a given event. Perhaps the most frequent phrase I hear, as I travel around Latin America, is how blessed people feel by what I have shared through a presentation, or in my books. My greatest change has been the crystallizing of a concept that I have worked with for many years: "Leaders influence more through who they are than by what they do." Today I place much greater value on the informal moments at an event than the formal times, because they offer me precious opportunities to interact with people on a personal level. What is that mysterious thing that happens when people interact at a personal level? How does it work? Who taught you leadership, and did you learn how to develop leadership under you for the teams you lead? How can we become more effective? The RARE leaders whose team we would love to join, and whose style we would like to emulate, lead by some means we cannot quite fully capture. We can see they have built a strong repertoire of positive relational habits that produce trust, joy, and engagement around them. Chris could intuitively tell by his own growth that relationship played an important part. (Actually, intuition is another brain process that runs in the fast track. We call it intuition because our mind figures things out before we are consciously aware that our brain has been figuring.) For Chris, his leadership development began when he was invited to join a small, home-based congregation. Chris found great inspiration and encouragement to develop leadership in this relational environment. In time, they founded a leadership magazine, traveled and taught pastors, and even ran a small publishing house. I (Jim) began to travel and teach as part of their international training ministry, too. By then the team was reaching over 60,000 pastors who subscribed to their printed leadership magazine. Then it happened. The organization was devastated by moral failures. The shakeup that followed left behind distrust, low joy, and a disintegrating ministry for Chris to lead. These are the moments when RARE leadership is required. Chris says, The focus of my work over the next three years became stabilizing the ministry and helping staff to recover from the shock precipitated by this crisis. We began a major process of reorganizing and renewing the focus of the ministry so that it continues to be an effective tool for leadership development in a rapidly changing world. How could this leadership failure happen? Two observations will help us at this point. First, the team had all the information, education, and experience needed. They had even heard the Life Model taught and explained multiple times by me, the author. However, all the information had been learned on the slow-track brain system we use for management and not on the fast-track system we use for leadership and guidance. We have observed that leaders often believe that understanding an idea is sufficient to make that idea a reality in their own lives. Many times, our years of success blind us to important flaws. Hidden flaws bring us to our second observation. The common ministry leadership model Chris had learned and distributed through teaching, conferences, counseling advice, and publications gave no importance to joy levels in leaders' lives. Joy is a delight in our relationships with God and others. While faithfulness to God, Scripture, and others seemed important, the loving joy from fellowship and family became an afterthought. Dropping joy levels create risks the way dry conditions affect a forest. Many leadership failures can be traced to declining joy levels in leadership teams, marriages, and families. As joy drops, the "fire danger" reaches critical levels without being noticed. RARE leadership is powered by joy. (We'll explain how to monitor "joy levels" later in the book.) We have found in our study of Scripture and brain science that joy, that feeling of well-being in the deepest part of our soul, is primarily relational. To the human brain, joy is always relational. Even those times of solitude as we dig in our garden or read an absorbing book are relational experiences. More about this later. We might say that leadership travels at the speed of joy. Joy levels are important in at least three ways. 1. The fast track in the brain is motivated to learn through joy. 2. People with emotional intelligence and relational skills always create joy around them. 3. Leadership skills do not transfer from one person to another in the absence of joy. Leadership that neglects joy rapidly becomes management instead of leadership. Most people are moved into leadership because they are effective workers. They do more or better work than others. They often do not distinguish improving work productivity from leadership. As leaders manage increasingly larger workloads and focus energy on better productivity, objectives, and results, they easily miss the decline in joy levels in their lives, families, and work teams. A discussion of how our joy gets low will have to wait until later in this book when we examine the four RARE habits of great leaders more carefully. You can be sure that low joy involves a failed training strategy in how we learn to deal relationally with unpleasant emotions. Chris now says: The concepts I have learned through The Life Model have provided some of the answers that I have sought for years. All of the fast-track skills that I have been Learning just make so much sense, in light of the priorities that God seems to have been stressing for my own ministry over these past decades. If the Kingdom is all about people, then learning how to stay in relationships, through thick and thin, has got to be something where we excel and that we teach well. The call to leadership for us, then, would seem to be a call to walk with a group of people, as we strive to make our relationship with God visible in the context of the challenges that each day brings our way. THE FOUR HABITS OF RARE LEADERS As we have already seen, the thesis of this book is that there are four uncommon habits developed by high-capacity leaders that distinguish them from "common leaders" whose attention is diverted by problem-solving and driving toward results. These four habits all relate to the fast-track system in the brain. R–REMAIN RELATIONAL. Common leaders tend to be problem focused. They are driven by fear of failing to get results and solve problems. Consequently, they value results and solutions more than relationships. This tends to leave them isolated, overwhelmed, and operating out of a motivational system in the brain that virtually guarantees their pace will not be sustainable. RARE leaders have trained themselves to operate from a completely different brain system that we'll look at in a moment. This alternative brain system and the habits that it cultivates help them keep their relationships bigger than their problems. A–ACT LIKE YOURSELF. As a leader, when I don't know how to act like myself, people don't know what to expect from me. They never know when I'll be angry or sullen, anxious or upbeat. Thus, they learn to walk around me on eggshells as they wait to see which leader they are going to get. RARE leaders have a consistency of character anchored in a positive core identity that lets people know that whatever emotions I may face, I still know how to act like myself. R–RETURN TO JOY. Perhaps the single biggest factor in producing sustainable motivation is the leader's ability to return to joy from a variety of negative emotions. Leaders who can experience upsetting emotions such as shame, anger, fear, and despair — yet possess tire skills to recover quickly and help their people recover as well — are rarely overwhelmed by the situations they face. Groups that learn how to face these emotions and recover collectively grow a strength that can face almost any problem. E–ENDURE HARDSHIP WELL. In some ways, this is the goal of the whole process. Leaders who learn to suffer well are truly rare. Most of us are doing everything we can to avoid suffering. Our capacity to handle hardship can be thought of as infant, child, adult, parent, and elder-level maturity. Just as a parent can handle more hardship than their child, so an emotionally mature leader can deal with more than one who is a functional child (emotionally speaking). THE FAST-TRACK SYSTEM IN THE BRAIN There are two systems in the brain that are often oversimplified as "left brain" and "right brain." The one that is dominant on the left is the slow-track system. By using conscious thought, the slow-track system operates more slowly, but it is, of course, what we notice consciously. The slow track is optimized for management. Its primary job is to monitor results and provide explanations and solutions to the problems we face. The slow track gets most of the attention in leadership development. But did you know that there is a system in the brain that operates faster than conscious thought? We call it the fast-track or "master" system. People have known for years that there are things happening in the brain we cannot quite catch consciously. While most people have been looking below consciousness for that activity, we are only now discovering there is activity above consciousness. This supra-conscious action does its work faster than we can "keep up" consciously. Its primary job is relational reality. Who am I in my world must be clear before I can think about other things. The fast-track system controls how we regulate our emotions, how we remember who we are, who our people are, and how it is like us to act (that is, acting like the self God gave us). In other words, it is our identity center. It controls functions related to: • Identity • Motivation • Emotional control • Ability to focus • Relational skills • Care for others • Conscience • Values (Continues...) Excerpted from Rare Leadership by Marcus Warner, Jim Wilder, Elizabeth Cody Newenhuyse . Copyright © 2016 Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder. Excerpted by permission of Moody Publishers. All rights reserved. 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