Tag: young leaders

My #1 post in 2011: How a Young Leader Can Gain Influence

Young leaders often feel behind the curve.

Every meeting they attend, every team they lead, every trip they plan…they’re the youngest and least experienced. And, in my case, I’ve been in the room where everybody present had children older than me.

I can’t tell you how many looks I was flashed that said, “How cute…he’s trying to lead us…isn’t that neat?!?” As a leader, that’s frustrating.

When I started in my current role, I was the youngest on staff.

When I started in my current role, I was the younger than every one of the small group leaders at Grace.

But over time, I’ve been able to grow some level of influence. And here’s one principle I’ve learned:

Be faithful in the little things.

If I was given a task, even if it didn’t directly relate to my area of leadership, I worked to make sure I completed the task well. Not just half-heartedly, but with excellence.

If I took on a new responsibility, I made sure that I was 100% faithful, to the best of my abilities and even more so, to exceed expectations.

And this principle is biblical:

One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much… – Luke 16:10

It’s the little things, the smaller responsibilities, that are the greatest test of character, not the bigger ones. Letting the ball drop on the “little things” is a symptom of a heart that’s not ready for bigger, weightier things.

If you’re given smaller, less significant assignments and you fail to meet and exceed expectations, why would those who are in leadership over you trust you to meet and exceed expectations in more significant roles?

The insignificant tasks you take on early in leadership may be just that…insignificant. Except for one thing: they show your character. And if you want to gain influence, character (even more than age and experience) is key.

A certain level of trust must be granted to you because you’re young. But a deeper, more substantial level of trust, the one you’re looking for, is earned.

Trust is earned one faithful step at a time.

Be faithful in the small steps. It’ll pay off in time.

Have you ever dropped the ball on a small responsibility?

Did you see that affect your influence?

*Image credit Creation Swap user Drew Palko

 

Experience or Ambition?

image by James Cronin

Young leaders are often frustrated because so many job requirements start with this:

‘Must have 5 years experience…’

I know I’ve been frustrated by that in the past.

How can I get experience if you’re not willing to give me a shot?!?

Organizations hold up “experience” as the roadblock.  It doesn’t matter what your remaining qualifications are, what you’ve done, where you’ve been, how you think, or how you work…if you don’t have experience, you are relegated to the bottom of the stack of resumes.

A word to older leaders

Let me speak to older leaders for a moment: You don’t really believe that experience should be the trump card. You just wave that banner so that you don’t have to take a risk on unproven leaders.  I get it.  There’s no real way to measure if a young, wet-behind-the-ears leader is going to be successful.  That is, if you think that past success is the predominant determinant of future success.  But I don’t.  And I don’t believe you do, either.

Experience teaches us a lot.  But like my coach used to tell me

Practice doesn’t make perfect.  Perfect practice makes perfect.

I’d rather use “ambition” as the net that catches would-be employees.  Ambition is a stronger quality in a leader.  Great ambition leads to innovative, hard-working, growing, changing, productive, magnetic, dynamic leaders that propel your entire team forward.

Experience without ambition leads to grumpy, lazy, complaining, limiting, small-minded, controlling leaders.

Experience may give you context, wisdom, and insight. But it guarantees no drive or motivation.  I’d much rather hire and work with an ambitious leader than one that simply has experience.  Wouldn’t you?

I’ve been able to get things accomplished in my current position at Grace because I have ambition…not because I have experience. And even though I now have a few years experience, it’s ambition that continues to drives my production.

Ambition: an earnest desire for some type of achievement; drive, force.

Ambition will get you further down the road than experience alone ever will.

Experience isn’t worthless…it’s just not a good measuring tool.  Because it gives you no real context as to how motivated the person will be to grow, improve, work harder than expected, and fight for their long-term health and that of your organization.

Next time you get a resume on your desk that represents less than 5 years of experience, don’t dismiss it.  That experience isn’t as important as you think.

Is it time for you to take a risk on an unproven leader?

 

 

The know-it-all

A word to young leaders* everywhere:

You don’t have it all figured out.

If a 19 year old, single college student comes up to me and starts telling me how I, a husband and a father, need to care for my 2 year old son, it’s going to feel weird.  Why?

Not because he’s young.  Or because I don’t respect him.  Or even because he doesn’t know who I am.

It’s because he’s not a husband or a father.

We young leaders need to make sure we don’t have all of the answers to every question and scenario that’s thrown our way.  It’s wise to sometimes say, “I don’t know…because I’ve never done it like that.”

John Maxwell says that there are two great teachers in life: pain and experience.

And since we’ve had less experience than so many other leaders, let’s back off on knowing it all.

I’m not saying that we don’t have innovative, company and ministry-altering ideas.  But we’ve got to respect the years of life and ministry that older leaders have on us.  Writing them off, speaking down to them, treating them with little respect, and acting like we, the younger leader, know it all

  • is damaging to their reputation.
  • is damaging to their organization.
  • is damaging to our reputation if we are gaining at the expense of someone else.
  • completely discredits the value of experience.
  • cripples you by chaining you to your limited ideas and insights.

Maybe those in leadership above us, or who outrank us based on experience, are stuck in the we-can’t-do-it-that-way-because-we’ve-never-done-it-that-way mindset.  But somehow, someway, we’ve got to find a way to learn from their years of experience.

In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because,

“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”

(1 Peter 5:5)

* I include myself in the young leaders category, so this post is as much written to me as it is by me.

 

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