Tempering Your Strengths to Become a Better Leader

What kind of leader are you?  Skilled interventionist?  Great communicator?  Arrogant?  Nurturing?  How do you think other people view you?  For after all, what people think of you when you are trying to lead them is even more important than how you view yourself.

Casting aside self-awareness when intent on getting a job done is not making the most of your strengths.  Never having time to lead an examined life will produce insensitivity and a tendency to use people to gain your ends.  You can only bring out the best of your team by seeing how they view you and what they base that on, because you are then able to temper your strengths.

Temper strengths?  Does that mean not use them?  Or use less of them?  Why would you want to do that?

Consider if a football team used the same play every time.  Consider if a piece of music consisted of a single note plinking repeatedly.  In their overuse, they have rendered themselves irrelevant.  We've all seen leadership become arrogance, or a nurturing humility become martyrdom.  Creativity can become impractical farce and a laser vision can become an obsession.

The four dimensions of a good leader are: confidence, enabling, planning and operating.  So what do you consider your natural talent when it comes to leadership?  If you easily identify a talent in one of these areas, the more likely you will be to utilize it, and thus overuse it.  Therefore, you must assess the situation and see if your strength is the best answer, or if you need to choose a different strategy.  Soft music may be the best fit for the baby's quiet naptime, not rock music, even though we may like rock music.  Forceful commanding might not be the best approach when handling a wedding or a funeral.

In calibrating which approach is most effective, and going with that even though it may not be our greatest strength may lead us to discover that our underused talents improve with time, thus giving us a greater return on our leadership.

I Hate Getting a Haircut

Every woman I know simply loves getting their hair done.  My mom went every single week to get hers done.  I consider the beauty shop a house of horrors.  On top of that, you have to pay them.  They rank right up there with gynecologists are as least favorite activities. 

I’ve tried taking pictures.  Make me look like this!  Whack.

I’ve tried commenting after every cut. “Little shorter there.  No!  Not so much.”  Butchered.

Just got it cut this week.  Does pulling on your hair make it grow faster?

A few rare times I’ve found one I’ve liked and they’ve moved, or simply lose interest and yak to their fellow operators.  I walk out looking like a buffoon.  Most of the time I race home as fast as I can.  Don’t even stop by the grocery store.  I dunk my head under the faucet and apply the hair dryer to repair the mess.  Then eat chocolate.

When I got my hair done for my wedding, I paid a goodly sum. The stylist, “John Pierre” asked how I liked it.  I could not resist reaching for his comb and re-doing what I could.  My mom was horrified that I hurt his feelings.  The bride-to-be rushed home and dunked her head under the faucet.

I must fail at articulating that I want the top fuller than the chin line.  I never come out that way.  I don’t want to look like a pixie or an elf or Dorothy Hamil.  It takes about three weeks to recover, at least.

My daughter says I should learn to cut it myself.  My husband say while some of my cuts do nothing for him, most are fine.  He suggests to keep trying with a photo of a style I like.  Most everyone else says, “Really?  I loooooooove getting my hair done.” 

Is there an activity that YOU hate?  One that everyone else just loves?

Maybe I just like the chocolate I console myself with.  Think I’ll go have some more.

What is Your Favorite Phone App?

Which phone app can't you live without?  How often do you use it?  Is it a navigation aid?  Coupon app?  I love being able to check email and Facebook on the phone, as well as texting, but I'm not counting those as apps.  Nor the two games I play.

Winner: Probably the one that I currently use the most right now is a white noise app for the grandchildren during nap time, but that is just a temporary phase.  It's called Relax and Sleep, and it plays everything from rocking chairs to waterfalls.  I've combined three of them (campfire, frogs and owl) to make a very soothing scenario, but the one they seem to like best is a train clicking over the tracks.

Semi-winner: I've got one that reads recipes out of Cooking Light magazine called Digimarc.  I aim it at a photo in the magazine and it puts the recipes, preparations info and shopping list right on my phone.

Loser: I've got an app called Level Up that allows me to pay for certain things with my phone, but I don't use it.  In fact, I've never had the occasion to.

Another lesser used app: I've got a navigation aid, but prefer paper maps as it gives me a bigger picture.  By the way, good luck finding a paper map at your local store these days, they are being phased out.  More's the pity, I like them.  That bitty screen doesn't compare.

Used it a couple times app: Slacker Radio.  I liked it until I had to give them my email.  Phooey.  Now I've got to set up a fake email account.  Bother.

Also used a couple times when we were traveling last year: Currency converter.

So what do you like and use?

A Bed of Red Tulips

Last fall Hans and I planted a bed of red tulips.  We did it on a windy, drizzly October day, putting the little bulbs to bed and wishing them a good winter.  Then we set to work welcoming little twin grandchildren, flying down to California to take care of my mom for a month, then back up here to begin day care for the twins when our daughter had to return to work. 

Everybody knows that twins are a lot of work, Saturday mornings affords me a long luxurious shower, time on the computer, baking scones, even brushing my teeth when I want to without dashing in to the bathroom during nap time.  But the real luxury is having them in the first place. 

Disappointment mounted month after month as no baby was forthcoming, then joy of joys, here they are full of all the delights of babyhood.  Squishy legs and pudgy cheeks, cooing and splashing in the bath.  Sweet little eyelashes closed on porcelain skin.  Smiles and kicking of booties.

Since we are between Good Friday and Easter, a good question to consider is what might have gone on in the sepulcher, or down under the ground with tulips, or how one might be growing as they withdraw from the world to care for family members.  I have great hopes that this time will be even moderately as fruitful. 

Raising the Strong Willed Child

When our youngest was kindergarten age, several of the other mothers at school started suggesting books like Your Strong Willed Child.  I read them and laughed.  They might have worked on some children, I suppose.

Little Go To It liked to ski straight down the hill.  In her puffy green jacket and panda bear hat, all I could do was holler “Watch out for that ski lift pole!”  Pretty much everything was hell bent.  Screaming down our cul de sac on her bike, she forgot to brake and ran into a car, breaking her knee while we had a baby sitter.  

Wasn’t the only time.

After school sometimes she’d go into the office and ask Mrs. LaDuca if she could have the rest of the Costco muffin tray that someone brought in that morning.  Mrs. LaDuca nodded, rather surpised that Little Go To It could eat them all, but Go To It wouldn’t eat them herself.  She’d take them out to the carpool lane where parents were picking up kids and sell them.  Then into the basketball game and sell the rest.  She’d give the money to the school or buy a book for the library. At least that’s what she told me she did with the money.

Her fourth grade teacher wrote on her end of the year report card: “…has made such progress this year!  She used to come in from recess and say ‘MOVE’ to the other kids that were in her way.  Now she bellows ‘EXCUSE ME!’”

When she finally left that small private school and moved to public school, they gave her some tests to see where to place her.  One of them was a creativity test.  I asked what was involved with that.  The administrator said that the child is given a box to draw in.  Inside the box is pre-printed something like you or I might have drawn for a seagull flying away into the sunset.  You know, sort of like a cursive “M”.  Two humps.  If the child draws seagulls flying away into the sunset, well…not very creative.

When Go To It came out we asked her about this. 

“What did you draw?” we asked.

“Well, I drew a man.  Fixing the pipes under the sink.  You know.  A plumber.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.  You can’t see much of him.  Only the part that you can usually see on plumbers. Don’t blame me, they had already put in the butt crack.  You know, two humps. I made sure they got it by drawing a tool box next to him with the name Rising Moon Plumbing Company.”

My guess is that she passed.

All grown up know, as an event coordinator, she has to have plenty of creativity.  Even in the Army, she better have creativity, for she helps her company plan parties for family welfare and recreation. One must come up with great ideas on a shoestring.  And I’m thinking, that since she’s in the Army, it is also good that she knows how to say MOVE or EXCUSE ME when she has to.

I couldn’t be prouder.

The Straw Bonnet Fiasco

I love bonnets for my reenacting hobby.  Can't have too many bonnets, a girl might say.  My grandmother  left a box of old clothes to be used for costumes, and in there was a dilapidated straw hat, which still bore some serviceable flowers.  Their life might be extended on a new straw hat, so I purchased a straw bonnet form.

I've torn apart straw hats to turn them into bonnets, so blithely ripped off the front of this form, as I didn't like the front of it.  I prefer the rounded shaped of the 1850's to the later high brim of the 1860's.  The plaits of this bonnet were very narrow and it was taking forever to sew back together, so I decided I simply must do it by machine.

Rats!  The straw plait got caught in the presser feet.  So I know!  Wash away stabilizer.  I checked my supplies, and just happened to have some.  I cut numerous strips and it worked wonderfully.  I then soaked the bonnet form.  How long is this supposed to take?  Isn't it fairly instant?  The stabilizer would NOT wash away, and I had strips of white something-or-other hanging on the inside of the bonnet.  Perhaps it was tear away stabilizer.  No, it was not.  It would not tear.  Period.

Rats!  So I spend the greater part of the morning painstakingly cutting and gently pulling, but still had to resew a great deal of it by hand.

Although the white strips mostly came off, I can still see some and can't get it out.  So I know!  I'll dye the thing black.  I will go perfectly with the flowers I intended to use, and a dark pink bow will be lovely.

I read the directions on the package of Rit dye, even though I've used it before.  I've never done straw before. They said you could use two cups of hot water and sponge it on.  I got on disposable gloves and and apron, read the directions again, and set to work.

Rats! The result was the ugliest mottled straw bonnet I've ever seen.  I rinsed as much dye out as I could.  The left glove had a leak in it and now I've got a black hand.  So I know!  Fabric paint!

So it's off to the craft store to buy some paint.  Hope this works.  Anybody out there ever paint a straw hat?

Mary and Martha

In the story of Martha and Mary, we read that Martha was encumbered with much serving.  But nowhere does it say that she was serving in the kitchen.  Indeed, she was from a well-to-do family and probably had servants out in the kitchen.  Our own prejudices and assumptions about women put her there.  In order to get a better view about where Martha was, and what she was actually doing, let’s look at that word “serving”. 

In Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, we see that the original New Testament, written in Greek, uses the Greek word diakonia for “serving”.  Diakonia means service as a teacher or minister, and its root word, diakonos, is where we get the word “deacon”.  Diakonos means deacon, minister, servant.  Martha was very likely serving as a deacon or church leader in those early days of the Christian church, and it is easy to see, when starting a new church, how easy it would be to be encumbered.  No doubt the reason this story was in the Bible is the early church wanted to stress the importance of following the word of Christ rather than to get too wrapped up in church business.  Martha might have been too concerned over what color to paint the Sunday School! 

How is this applicable to us?  Does it really matter if Martha was serving in the kitchen or the church?  

Probably not, but her feeling encumbered does, for stress is an issue we find all too often pervading our lives.

Are we racecar types?  Going really fast but just round and round in circles?  Our culture fuels this, and there is little incentive to slow down.  How many people zip through intersections on the yellow light, or impatiently scan other lines at the grocery store to see if their line is “winning”? 

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Matt 11:28 says, “Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Jesus came so we could have abundant life.  John 10:10 says: I have come that they might have life and have it to the full (or a rich and satisfying life, or abundant life, depending on your translation). The focus is on fullness. What it doesn’t say is, “I have come so that you can have a stressed out life.”

There is a connection between the abundance promised in John 10:10, and rest for our stressed out lives.  They go together.  We must join with the Christ, be yoked together so that we can work side by side.  We can look over and see him is beside us, and learn.  Check with Jesus as often as you check Facebook, or your email, or Pinterest!

Hurry is the enemy of rest.  Jesus was never in a hurry.  Are we racing ahead of Jesus, who walks?  Your spiritual growth cannot be rushed.  Love cannot be hurried.  What we long for, and what we need, and what Jesus promises, is not available in the rat race.

Dallas Willard, who wrote Renovation of the Heart, asks, if you were to describe Jesus in one word, what would it be?  Savior?  Love?  Compassionate?  Teacher?  How about RELAXED?  That probably wouldn’t be the first word many of us would use, but think about it.

In the classic book, Your God is Too Small, J.B. Phillips wrote, “…God is never in a hurry.  Long preparation, careful planning, and slow growth would seem to be leading characteristics of a spiritual life…It is refreshing to study the poise and quietness of Christ.  His task and responsibility might well have driven a man out of his mind.  But He was never in a hurry, never impressed by numbers, never a slave of the clock.  He was acting, He said, as he observed God to act—never in a hurry.”

Consider that Jesus waited 30 years to begin his ministry.  He moved slowly and stopped for people.  When the ruler of the synagogue, Jairus, asked him to come heal his daughter, who was at the point of death, Jesus stopped to heal the woman with the issue of blood.  If you were the dad and your daughter was dying, wouldn’t you be frustrated?  Yet Jesus modeled a love that stops and treats people like they are the only ones that matter.

When Lazarus was dying, Jesus tarried two more days, and Lazarus dies.  But his resurrection was an even greater event than his death.

Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be done.  HAD TO BE DONE?  Martha has chosen to be distracted.  Mary has chosen the better part.  Chosen!  Let us be focused on the better part too.  Let us choose to sit and listen.

We might rationalize the push to go faster by equating an unhurried life to laziness or one without productivity.  If Jesus were here today would he care about the things we think are important?  The greatest commandment is not “Get more things done.”

John Ortberg wrote in The Life You’ve Always Wanted that hurrying is a disordered heart.  What happens to the heart as it gets and receives love, how does it grow and change? 

No matter what Martha’s job was, she might have thought Mary was wasting time.  But don’t think that efficiency equates solutions.  Real love is willing to “waste” time.  So this week, slow down.  Experience the rhythms of Jesus.  He owns your burdens.  Your life will become less about your pace, and more about His.  Hear that still, small voice of His unhurried, abundant nature.