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Many aspects of leadership are written about, or taught about, from a very high-level perspective.  Things like vision-casting, communicating, coaching, equipping, encouraging, and managing can sometimes be hard to put into practice regularly.  This series of posts contains practical ideas you can implement to become a better leader.

Systems are the core of any group, community, or organization.  I wrote a series of blog posts about systems you can find here.  If you really want to learn a ton of great things about systems and their importance, buy this resource or the 06 Drive Messages.  But, if you want some free advice that isn't nearly as good, these ideas might help:

• List the systems you are responsible for – It's hard to tweak and improve the systems in your organization when you don't know what they are.  Also, there are probably more than you think.  Here are some involved with CCC Kids:  Volunteer recruitment, volunteer assimilation, volunteer training, room management, curriculum editing & distribution, volunteer scheduling, leadership development, weekly preparation and Sunday morning systems for each environment as well as the systems to pull off events like Parent/Child Dedication, orientation, Promotion Sunday, Dive In….the list goes on and on. 
• Identify behaviors – In the resources I linked to above one of the principles that is taught is that systems create behaviors.  A great thing to do regularly is to identify behaviors you want to go away and behaviors you want to reinforce.  From that list, you can look at each behavior and identify the systems that help create it.  Then, you can change those systems if needed to provide the behaviors you want.  We'll actually be going through this exercise tonight in our children's ministry leadership team meeting.
• Document each system – Documenting systems is a difficult task than can seem pointless when the pressures of everything else (like Sunday) are weighing on you.  But, documenting systems allows you to:
  • Find the missing pieces – When you're documenting systems you have to think of everything involved and usually you'll find the things that are missing from the system. 
  • Replace yourself – Having good systems allows you to replace yourself easier.  It's easier to hand off responsibility when the responsibilities are documented.  Every franchise is built on this idea.
  • Reproduce your program, event, environment – As CCC plans to go multi-site, the need for strong, documented systems has became even more clear.  Documenting the systems needed to pull off those environments or events allows you to reproduce them with much more ease and consistency. 
• Re-evaluate and improve – Put regular dates on your calendar to evaluate your systems and make improvements.  Asking what behaviors exist that you want to get rid of is a way to identify a problem in your systems.  Use that information to make improvements. 

Systems exist whether you recognized them or not.  Systems are functioning well, or functioning poorly, whether you recognize it or not.  Great leaders aren't necessarily great system thinkers, but they understand the importance of systems and make sure their organizations and environments have great systems whether they help create/improve them directly or not. 

Many aspects of leadership are written about, or taught about, from a very high-level perspective.  Things like vision-casting, communicating, coaching, equipping, encouraging, and managing can sometimes be hard to put into practice regularly.  This series of posts contains practical ideas you can implement to become a better leader.

Project Management is a huge career area within itself but it's also a part of leadership.  Projects are typically a part of any leader's responsibility and some are small and easy to manage while others are large and complex.  Most people have some way in which they tackle big projects but not everyone has an efficient system to do so.  Here are some ideas of how you can successfully manage your projects:

• Use software – There are tons of project management software packages available for free or at a price that you can use.  Microsoft Projectis well known but may have a higher learning curve.  Online solutions such as Action Method, Deskaway, and Basecamp are pretty popular solutions that are cheaper and easier to use.  You can find an extensive list of solutions here.
• Create your own system – You can manage projects using your own system as well.  The key is to have some type of calendar, some type of task-list, and a way to organize sections of the project and their corresponding task lists.  You could do that with a spreadsheet and use a shared online calendar to keep track of deadlines.  You could also go completely offline and use calendars, planners, and notebooks instead.
• Delegate responsibility – Most projects will take multiple people to pull off.  It's important to not just delegate tasks but instead to delegate responsibility.  Allow team members to own their portion of the project and be sure to help them any way you can.  Be sure to have a way to track everyone's progress regularly so you always know how well the project is moving along.  When a project has nothing to do with a team member's regular responsibilities, you can assign them a responsibility which will help them stay on board with the overall vision of your organization rather than just thinking about their specific area. 

You may be thinking that project management is not a big part of leadership, and in some cases you may be right.  It could be that someone else on your team plays the role of project manager and you don't have to be involved in that realm as much.  If that's the case for you, that's great.  However, if you don't have someone else, it would be wise to find someone who would do a great job or learn to manage projects yourself.  Like most things, experience is a great teacher as well.

Many aspects of leadership are written about, or taught about, from a very high-level perspective.  Things like vision-casting, communicating, coaching, equipping, encouraging, and managing can sometimes be hard to put into practice regularly.  This series of posts contains practical ideas you can implement to become a better leader.

Encouragement is another key component of leadership.  John Maxwell once said "Remember, man does not live on bread alone:  sometimes he needs a little buttering up."  It's a funny spin off of a Biblical quote but it definitely rings true.  I think everyone would agree that some people need more encouragement than others, and some encourage more than others.  I've found that the 2 go hand-in-hand, as those who need encouragement more tend to encourage more.  I'm quite the opposite, not needing much encouragement but also failing to give it if I'm not careful.  It's easy to think that because I don't need encouragement then nobody else does either.  Here are some ideas of things you can do to encourage your teams regularly:

• Calendar it – It almost sounds insensitive to "plan" encouragement but the truth is you want to have a system of encouragement.  It's not like a marriage, where you have plenty of opportunities to show encouragement (but probably still don't do it enough).  With teams you may only see them once a week, or once a month, and time, budget and other factors probably wouldn't allow you to encourage them all at once anyway.  One idea is to plan different times to encourage your different teams every year.  You can think about how to encourage them once it's on the calendar.
• Write notes – I've really slacked off at this lately but writing (not typing or emailing) notes to your team members is a great way to encourage them.  I learned this from Jeff Henderson and have seen the fruits of it.  The key is to write notes that encourage and thank people for specific things they have done.  I used to just think through my day on Sunday and remember the specific things people did, and write them a note about it.  Make sure they're genuine and put it on your calendar each week to do.
• Gifts – Give them gifts.  Some people love to receive gifts more than notes or anything else.  A great idea is to add to your calendar dates when you will give gifts to each of your teams.  It may seem like a waste to spend ministry dollars on rewarding your teams, but that couldn't be farther from the truth.  Invest in people before you invest in programs.
• Just say it!  – This is one I struggle with.  If you're like me you often think about the specific things that people do you would like to encourage them about.  But, you may not say it because it's awkward or you're too busy.  Say it anyway.  As long as it's genuine (and not creepy) it's worth saying.

The last 3 were examples of specific things you can do but the most important one might be calendaring it.  That's just another way of creating a system of encouragement.  If encouragement is extremely natural to you, you may find this post completely irrelevant, and you might be offended that somebody would even need a system.  But, I'm sure there's something that's natural to others that you need a system for as well (maybe, organizing?)  It's easy to think other people are messed up when our strength is their weakness, especially when that strength/weakness is a Biblical virtue of some sort.  Regardless of whether you're gifted at it or not, encouragement is important.  Make sure it's part of your practical leadership.

Many aspects of leadership are written about, or taught about, from a very high-level perspective.  Things like vision-casting, communicating, coaching, equipping, encouraging, and managing can sometimes be hard to put into practice regularly.  This series of posts contains practical ideas you can implement to become a better leader.

JFK said "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other".  I would completely agree.  People follow leaders for many reasons, but a big one is because the leader can help them grow.  Without learning you limit your ability to develop other leaders as well as develop yourself.  Here are some things I do to learn as much as possible:

• Read books – I try to read as many books as possible.  I'm no where near some prolific readers like Jeff Henderson or Bob Franquiz, but I wish I was because I benefit from it greatly.  I try to read books that I know I'll like, rather than try to learn in areas I'm not even interested in.  Subsequently, most of the books I read are about leadership or church strategy.  I dog-ear pages in order to go back through the book when I'm done to make a "to-do" list of things I need to implement or try in order to put what I've learned into practice.  I need to start tracking the books I've read as I've heard others do.
• Read blogs – I read A LOT of blogs.  I subscribe to them in Google reader and typically read through them each night.  I'll totally skip a blog if it's about something personal and/or I really don't care.  So, I don't actually read everyblog post I'm subscribed to which helps with the time required to keep up with that many blogs.  I keep blogs marked unread in Google reader if I need to use it somehow (to implement an idea or share with my team).  Reading blogs from great leaders helps me grow as a leader through their experience and wisdom.
• Attend conferences – Fortunately at CCC every ministry leader is required to attend a conference every year.  I love conferences and have always learned a ton of practical things from them.  Some of the ones I've been to are Purpose Driven, Orange, SatNP, Drive, and our staff team is going to Exponential this year.
• Listen to podcasts/conference audio – I listen to various podcasts and conference audio regularly.  For instance, I've listened to audio (or watched video) from Catalystfor the last 4-5 years and loved it.  I subscribe to podcasts such as Catalyst, Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, Harvard Business IdeaCast, The Passion Podcast, National New Church Conference Podcast, Church Leader Insights, as well as some church message podcasts – such as NPCC, Mosaic & Mars Hill.  Obviously I don't listen to every podcast, not even close, but they are helpful.
• Follow people on Twitter.  Seriously.  I know most of it is fluff, but every now and then you find some good things you can learn from, or at least you hear about them and get a link to the details.  You can follow me here (although you probably won't learn much)
• Listening to people – I intentionally seek time with leaders I can learn from.  I just had a conversation yesterday with Casey Ross and learned a ton.  The other day I met with Tally Wilgis and learned some things from him in our time together.  I'll ask leaders if they can give me time to learn from them and if they can, I seize the opportunity……..and take a lot of notes!
• Experience – This one is obvious, but the part that isn't obvious is taking time to reflect/evaluate on things in order to learn from them.  It's easy to move on to the next thing and never learn from our success or failure.  Don't do that.
• Store information – With all of the different ways to learn you really need a way to store ideas or thoughts you want to put into action.  If I think of a specific task or project, I'll put it in one of my to-do lists (see this post).  If I just want to save it for later, I'll save a digital copy in a folder on my computer (some articles/blogs I copy into a Word file first).  For instance, I have a folder on Parenting even though I have no idea when we'll have kids.  But, I've come across good stuff so I've saved it in that folder. 

I hope this helps you in some way.  In reading it you could have the perception that I learn a lot.  But, this is a collection of every way I learn (that I can think of) so it's not like I do all of this all the time.  It's been said that the most important person you have to lead is yourself.  One of the greatest ways to lead yourself is to become a lifelong learner.