ClickCease
Matt Rusten
Why Joy is Vital for Your Leadership and Company

Is joy an underrated asset in your leadership? In our latest article, Matt Rusten explores why joy, much like humor, plays a vital role in building a thriving company culture. From increasing team engagement to fostering resilience, joy can transform workplace dynamics and inspire purpose-driven work. Discover three key ways to cultivate joy in your organization and why it’s essential for leaders who seek both results and fulfillment.

Why Joy is Vital for Your Leadership and Company
Business, Faith, Faith at Work
Convene
Do Not Worry

‘Do not worry.’ We’ve read Matthew 6:25-34 in the Sermon on the Mount, but what does that look like on a day-to-day, minute-by-minute basis? God knows our every worry, fear, and concern – and He can handle it. Many thanks to Darrell Passwater, Convene Forum Team leader, for his encouragement to think about how our lives might be different by truly living out this scriptural principle.

Do Not Worry
Greg Leith
Who Will Lead Your Firm the Day After the ...

Got a quick minute to chat? I’ve been wanting to share something with you as you lead in the midst of the election cycle in the USA or when your political election takes place in your country. When the dust settles on the election and the new country leader is declared, one thing will still be as true as it is right now. You’ll still be the one leading your firm the day after the election. Your team members will still come to work the day after the winner is declared. They’ll still be looking to you for leadership, for a paycheck, for a sense of community at their workplace.

What do they want most that only you can deliver? It’s meaning. That meaning they’re looking for begins with you and your leadership. To be sure, what Washington DC does actually can impact your business significantly, however, the president of the United States or the leader of any country does not lead your firm. You do. It’s an enterprise entrusted to you to lead as a steward. It’s a place where people look to you for answers, where people want to be part of a team that cares about them and where people want to be valued, appreciated, and loved. The next president of the country will not show up this week at your office to encourage your team, fix a broken piece of equipment, hire the next team member, sell a big account, or cast a bold vision about how your team will reach your goals and impact the culture.

Who Will Lead Your Firm the Day After the Election?
Chip Neidigh
A Safe Place To Fall
A Safe Place To Fall
Dave Ulrich
3 Principles of Hope That Enable Transitions

As we find ourselves mid-October and a blink away from a new calendar year, it is an opportunity to prepare for how we view transitions. Transitions allow for reflection and renewal, for letting go and beginning anew, and for learning from the past and creating the future. Instead of laying out trends for the next year, I would like to comment on a fundamental enabler of any transition: hope. Leaders who want to improve, CEO’s who work toward excellence, HR professionals who aspire to deliver more value, and employees who seek well-being all achieve their transitions by realizing hope.

Hope integrates many of the positive traits that shape transitions for others and matter to me personally: learning, patience, service, faith, humility, optimism, gratitude, and so forth. I send hundreds of formal and informal e-mails every month to invite people to programs, to thank people for attending programs, to check in on those I mentor, and to stay connected to those I care about. I begin almost every one of these notes with “Hope you are well.” Hope is one of my personal desires, tag lines, and biases and an enabler of any transition.

If I could implant one trait in my family, friends, and colleagues who are undergoing continual transition, it would be hope. 

3 Principles of Hope That Enable Transitions

schedule

The Most Important Meeting on Your Calendar

I remember the day like it was yesterday. My wife, Karen was having a rough time in her classroom, schedules were changed, kids were misbehaving, and she was exhausted. What kept her going was the promise of the nice dinner date we had planned weeks before. You can probably see where this is going …

I spent the day checking things off my list, one of which was to return a call to someone who wanted to meet with me. It just so happened that he was free that very night. As I looked at my calendar, I noticed our scheduled date night, and thought “it won’t be a big deal to break that … Karen will understand ...”

If only I practiced what I preach!

Karen was devastated and upset when she got my message breaking the date. My action made her feel like she was playing third fiddle to work and this other person.

I teach the “Pyramid of Priorities” here at House on the Rock. They come out of the flow of Ephesians chapters 4, 5 and 6.  I see hierarchy, or priority, in how the Holy Spirit revealed this list to Paul. Our first priority relationship is with God (chapter 4- 5:21). Then Paul explains how we are to treat our most important earthly relationship, the one with our spouses (chapter 5:22) … followed by our children as our third priority (chapter 6:1-5). In chapter 6:5-10 Paul tells us how to be good masters (CEO’s / employers) and slaves (employees) … that sounds like work to me; and it is to be fourth on our priority list!

Too often, we’re “upside down” with our priorities … allowing work to become the most important thing – while our relationships with God, spouse and children get the “leftovers”. By breaking my date with Karen, I told her she wasn't as important to me as my work and colleague. I had my priorities wrong side up.

My encouragement for you is to schedule your “date nights” and times together as a family in INK on your calendar. They need to be the most important meetings on your schedule …

When you do this, and keep those dates … your spouse … and children … will not only hear that they’re important … they will experience it through your actions!

www.fantheflamedates.com

Leader Strategic Capacity: To-Do Lists

Peter Drucker referred to the above principle as Purposeful Abandonment. His prime point is that first, a limited and defined opportunity exists in the marketplace, and second, that each organization has boundaries in the products and services it can offer with excellence—and thus deserving of a profit. BUT, now let us apply that to our individual leader/manager lists. How many of you have a to-do list? Most of us, I surmise. More importantly, how many of you have a STOP-DOING LIST? Unless you have both lists, you may find yourself less effective than you want to be and/or you may find your life/work balance off kilter.

Scripture illustrates this pattern for us: we are encouraged to "think on those things that are good, wholesome..." (the to-do list)  even as we are admonished to "put off..." many behaviors (the stop-doing list). As Christ followers we are to grow into "Do These Things to Reflect HIM" and to also "Not Do These Things because They Detract from Reflecting HIM."

Start a STOP-DOING list today. It will free up your schedule AND it will help you focus on those responsibilities for which you are the accountable leader.