Controlling Your Own Destiny

One of the things I learned in a Mega Church is learning to manage self by learning to handle stress. I have made all the mistakes possible in this area. I allowed the power players to put intended, implied, and perceived pressure on me and I let that control my actions.

Caving in to the will of others is a form of under functioning as a leader. The reciprocity is that others assume more power than is reasonable or appropriate. Setting appropriate boundaries and adhering to those boundaries is the responsibility of leadership. I even let subordinates control my decisions in a very passive-­aggressive way.

I allowed the stress to minimize my effectiveness.

Looking back I categorize these situations as learning opportunities. What I didn’t not know how to do was define my guiding principles for my leadership, my team, and for my life.

The stress of the big deal event, big job, and big congregation (live, virtual, and on tv) created an awareness of vulnerability that I didn’t know how to deal with at that time. I have since developed systems for managing priorities, controlling stress, and setting standards for managing self that have proven to be effective for my and for my clients.

Here are my tips for setting up strategies for managing stress due to multiple priorities, politics, work load, performance anxiety, or other factors that might compromise your leadership effectiveness:

1. Identify Your Sources of Stress Name your stressors. Write them down. Write how you felt and how your respond. Identify what you will do differently next time.

2. Create Your Guiding Principles Write statements that govern your decisions. Will you be intimidated? Will you take a break and respond rather than reacting? Will you allow feelings to replace thinking? How will you define your boundaries.

3. Define a Self Management Strategy Create a process to define your process of personal growth. Learn from others and learn from yourself. Define the patterns of behavior to address and the patterns for making decisions. Decide to be disciplined in adhering to your principles and do not cave in to please others.

4. Create a Support System Hire a leadership coach. Get a mentor in the area in which you want to grow. Recruit a mastermind group of peers in other professions to create a mutually beneficial support groups that meets on some regular basis with a co­-created process for the meetings. Join a study group. Attend a continuing education session paid for by the church that’s not music, but leadership.

5. Set Aside Time to Care for Self Schedule regular time weekly on your calendar to walk, read, pray, reflect, regroup, and revise plans, to breathe and to think. As I said, put this on your calendar. Be intentional. Be consistent. Be committed.

It won’t happen if you don’t make it happen.