Leading change is something that all leaders must do and quite frankly, most struggle with. I have looked a long time for a tool to help me navigate the troubled waters of change and I have finally found it.
Over the Christmas break, I finished Carey Nieuwhof’s book Leading Change Without Losing It. Carey is the Founding Pastor of the multi-site Connexus Community Church near Toronto, CN. I can not recommend this resource enough to all leaders.
It may surprise you but leading change in a church setting is more difficult than any other field. One of the primary reasons for this is that in a business environment, you can at least threaten people with their paychecks. Not good leadership but you can do that. In local churches, you lead volunteer armies of which some of them control your paycheck.
You can order Carey’s book by clicking here or the image above. The following are 25 leadership quotes from the book that we can all learn from:
- Dreamers always try to bring about change. And dreamers almost always encounter opposition.
- Your dream necessarily involves change: moving from what is to what could be.
- Leaders rarely imagine spending their lives curating the status quo.
- Leaders who used to be optimistic, passionate, and excited enter several rounds of attempted change and emerge cynical, defeated, and jaded.
- Your dream dies. And with it, so does something inside you.
- Sometimes people think they are speaking for God and steamroll others who disagree with them. Humility is always the companion of a great vision.
- Pain is a necessary part of change leadership.
- Almost every biblical “hero” is a hero in large measure because he or she led people through complex change at critical moments.
- Despite the fact that the former slaves (Jews led from captivity by Moses) were free and heading to a new home in the single greatest act of liberation on the front side of Easter, the people weren’t happy.
- When you join the company of those who lead change, you sign up for conflict.
- Not all leaders are Early Adopters, but most Early Adopters are leaders.
- The loudest people affected by proposed change are those who are most opposed.
- The kind of people who oppose things as a matter of course often don’t have an alternative vision…Opponents generally don’t possess a vision for the future, only a vision for the past which is an impossible vision.
- A progressive vision of the future has a trajectory of hope.
- Loud may be memorable, but loud does not equal large, and volume does not equal velocity.
- When you listen to the loudest voices, you miss the most important voices.
- Decide whether you will focus on who you want to reach or who you want to keep.
- Moses was far more concerned about how outsiders would be impacted than he was about what insiders wanted.
- Just because you’re reaching unchurched people today is no guarantee you will reach them tomorrow.
- Make sure you have lots of unchurched friends in your social circle.
- If you focus on complaints, you lose sight of the plan.
- A leader who learns that it’s about far more than just how popular he or she is can actually develop a deeper humility in the process of developing a greater courage.
- The greatest enemy of your future success is your current success.
- In my experience it’s actually not that often that opponents of change talk about the Bible.
- Some ways of being the church are actually more effective than others…our priorities tend to show up in our budgets.
- A leader needs to discern who the people will be that will help lead the organization into the future.
- Without a filter, everything sounds compelling.
- If your definition of “success” in ministry is that the “good” people are only those who agree with you, you will lead a fairly lonely ministry.
- You should never try to create an organization where everyone agrees with everything.
- Like all revenge, the satisfaction lasted about one second.
- Separate the people from the problem. This is a critical component of effective negotiation.
- It is almost impossible to get movement and momentum on an issue if you are attacking people.
- People rally around leaders who are committed to solving problems.
- Attacking problems is a sign of great leadership.
- Leaders who attack people rather than problems are a very different breed. They can leave a trail of bodies in their wake.
- You will never look back with regret if you remain generous and kind to people who are not kind to you.
- The longer I wait when responding to something that frustrates or angers me, the better I do in responding maturely.
- Waiting a day doesn’t mean you won’t be upset anymore – it just means you’ll be rational.
- The high road is the hard road, but it’s also the best road.
- We are often most tempted to quit or give up moments before our critical breakthrough.
Finally, I want to give you this final quote from Carey – “Navigating change is about making it to the end. If you quit before the breakthrough happens, transformation doesn’t happen. If deep and revolutionary change were easy, everybody would be doing it. And they’re not.”
Leaders, regardless of your area of discipline, I can’t recommend enough that you order this book today. It may be the key in you being able to survive leading change.
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