I always enjoy listening to Bill Hybels, because he clearly has a sincere heart for God and is devoted to helping others follow Christ. Here are some key points from his message right now.
At the heart of leadership is self-leadership. “You are the most difficult person you will ever lead.”
At the heart of great leaders is energy. This is rarely talked about but is critical to leadership. Leaders have great energy and create energy in others. And key to maintaining your energy is leading yourself well.
[Some of my thoughts:] This is interesting. Hybels is talking about a time he sought to identify the six most important contributions he could make in the last six weeks of the year. This is analogous to a projects list if you follow GTD, basically. Here’s what’s interesting: Hybels didn’t list primarily individual contributor tasks, like “do this” and “get that done.” He had things on his list like “energize people to complete this initiative.”
That’s how leaders need to think. When identifying what we need to get done, it’s easy to think in terms of individual tasks. We need to fight against this tendency and think first in terms of mobilizing, equipping, and empowering others. If you keep a project list or task list, for some reason it becomes especially challenging to do this. Something about to-do lists seems to naturally incline us to think of things we need to do ourselves, rather than the things we need to do to equip others to get things done (which is a critical part of leadership).