Leadership Lessons In Unexpected Places: From Lab Coat To Pastor With Keith Minier
Have you ever felt like you were on a completely different path than what you originally planned? In this episode, Sean Olson interviews Keith Minier, Lead Pastor at Grace Fellowship, about his surprising journey from the world of beakers and Bunsen burners to the pulpit. Keith shares his story across unexpected twists and turns that led him from being a chemist to a pastor, and the effective leadership lessons he learned along the way, especially when it comes to leading a big organization. This episode is sure to inspire anyone who has ever felt called to a different path, but unsure how to make the leap. Tune in to learn Keith's story and his practical advice on taking charge and living a life with purpose.
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Leadership Lessons In Unexpected Places: From Lab Coat To Pastor With Keith Minier
Welcome to episode 27 of the show. This is the show where you read about real stories of normal people like you who have become extraordinary leaders. You’ll learn some valuable lessons from their lives and lessons you can apply to become the best leader you were created to be. When you become an intentional leader, lives are changed. Thank you for joining us. I’m very excited to welcome our guest, Keith Minier. Keith is the Lead Pastor of Grace Fellowship Church in Columbus, Ohio. It’s specifically in Pickerington, Ohio, but it has multiple campuses across the Columbus area. Keith also happens to be my pastor.
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Keith, welcome to the show. It’s great to have you.
Thanks for having me. I’m glad to be here.
From Chemist To Pastor
We’re going to dive in as we normally do with our opening question where we ask our guests to tell us a little bit about their story, the progression through their career, and specifically the leadership lessons gained along the way. I know you have a great story because you didn’t plan on being a pastor right out of the gate, did you?
No, not not at all. I started college with the intention to be a Chemistry teacher and a coach. I was going down that journey and was coaching at my high school where I played at for a summer league game. There was a kid that was playing who had played with me when I was a senior. He was a sophomore. He was really good, but he wasn’t hitting his full potential in terms of playing where we were playing. I said to my high school coach, “What do you do about kids who don’t reach their potential?” He said, “If you can’t handle kids not reaching their potential, you can’t coach.” I then realized I probably can’t coach. I’ll probably go crazy.
I shifted and said, “I’m not going to coach. I’m going to teach Chemistry.” That morphed into, “I’m going to do Chemistry.” I graduated with a degree in Chemistry and moved to Columbus, Ohio after college. It’s where my then girlfriend, now wife was from. I moved here two weeks after college and got a job at the limited corporation in Columbus, Ohio with the company Bath &Body Works. I started working in R&D at Bath & Body Works. I was working in what was called their home fragrance division. If you’re familiar with the company, there’s Bath &Body Works, and then there’s the other side of that world that was White Barn Candle Company. I was doing a lot of work for the White Barn Candle Company.
I was doing that for a few years, and then my boss’ boss at Bath & Bodyworks ended up saying, “I want to do a startup company and I want to hire a few people away from Bath & Bodyworks.” She had left to go do something else and came back. She hired me. I went from a big company with lots of rules, organization, cafeteria, all the kinds of things, and big HR to four of us trying to figure it out. That was a big shift for things, to be honest. I didn’t even know all the lessons I was learning from those two worlds that would impact what I do now, but I went through that.
In the middle of that, I had promised my wife that I would spend some time overseas with her. We felt led to take a six-month space of that time when I was working as a chemist. We went and lived in Cambodia. We were thinking about going back and serving over there for a while. I learned a bunch of things about the world, about leadership, and about myself in that season.
I come back and some things shift. I found myself in a place where I had a very interesting week. The week was, as some things led up to it, I interviewed with the church that I pastor on a Sunday, I interviewed with Kimberly Clark in Appleton, Wisconsin on a Monday night and Tuesday, on Thursday night, my wife and I got approved to be global missionaries in Cambodia, and on Friday, I got offered the two jobs that I interviewed for.
On that Friday, I found myself saying, “Do I want to go be a global missionary? Do I want to go work in Appleton, Wisconsin at an incredible job in a really amazing company or do I want to go be a pastor of this small church that was struggling to pay its bills?” That was a very interesting moment. I’ll pause the story there and see maybe where that takes us, but that led me to the church that I’ve been at going on twenty years.
A couple of questions as you’re going through these different pieces. That shift you made working for Bath & Body and then jumping into the smaller firm, most readers, the leaders that we have that tune in to us, there’s always that risk factor and the fear factor involved in that. On paper, most people will look at a shift like that where you’re going from this large company that probably compensates well. You had upward mobility there to the startup before. Yeah. What drove you there?
At the core, it’s what we know as leaders. What drove me there was another leader. It was a leader who had great vision herself who saw something in me, called that out of me, and talked to me as such. She was willing to say, “I don’t know where this is going to go, but you could be a big part of something that would be great, and I want to see that happen in you.”
This was a stage in my life where while my wife and I were married, we didn’t have any kids yet, so some of the risk factors were a little bit lower for us at the time. If you said, “You get one answer, why did you move?” It was her leadership that called that out of me and allowed me to step into something. It was a risk and I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was a really young man. Sometimes, you don’t know what you don’t know, and that’s helpful. It was her leadership.
I love that. There are times in life that I’ll have to take big risks, times in life to take calculated risks, and times to be stable. That’s great. You made the decision to go to the church. God worked in your heart in a lot of different ways to reveal that to you and your wife. You made the quick comments. We’ll pick up the story from there. From what I recall, it was a small church barely paying the bills and about 80 people. Pick up the story from there and how you’ve led the church through transitions over the years.
It’s been going on for twenty years. It’s a little over nineteen and a half. I showed up. The church existed for a while, but it had hit a peak and came back down. It was going through so many challenges that my very first weekend there, there were 52 people in the church and probably 65 to 70 that called it home. There was no real direction. They were really good people. They had built a small building a few years before that. They weren’t sure what was next for them. They were struggling so much that they were paying interest-only on their mortgage at the time. They couldn’t even pay their total bills.
What I saw when I went there were two things though. One, I saw a group of people that were really faithful and hungry. They wanted to be led. They didn’t know where to go. They hadn’t had strong leadership, so they wanted to be led. The second thing was I had a pretty strong confidence, not that I knew what I was doing, but that God wanted me there to be used. Some of that came from a pivotal conversation that I’m happy to share in terms of going into that.
I get there, and as I step into that moment, what I said was, “I want to do the next right thing. Let’s win this day. Let’s win the next day. Let’s win the day after that. Let’s do the next right thing.” Sometimes, the next right thing was to have a great conversation with people that have already been there. Let’s get to know them. Let’s build trust with them and keep them there. Sometimes, the next right thing was to win that new person who came. Go get in front of them, connect with them, and win them forward. Sometimes, the next right thing was changing some of how we were going about our weekend services. Sometimes, the next right thing was creating something.
I always tell people that leaders have to do four things really well. They have to know what to fuel. They have to know what to create. They have to know what to ignore, and they have to know what to kill. You come in, look around, and go, “What do we need that we don’t have that’s going to help us get to where we want to go? We’ll create that if it doesn’t exist. What can I ignore? If I don’t give it oxygen, money, or sound, it’s going to die on its own. I’ll probably lose chips killing it. What do I need to kill right away? This is keeping us from going forward.” I always tell people, “If you’re going to kill something, bury it with dignity. Honor it. Nobody was wrong on purpose.”
You then step back and say, “What do I have to fuel? What’s working that we can give energy?” I still spend a lot of time doing that, but early on especially, it was like, “What do we need to do with that?” Sometimes, that was to move forward and be like, “What’s the next right hire? What is the next hire? How do we get good people? What’s the next right leadership decision?”
We moved, and by God’s grace and a lot of hard work, we started growing family by family. Some things happened, and then we had a big bump in attendance. The next thing you know, you go from a 70-person church to a 120-person church. It’s then, “We’re filling the room. We’re going to go to services.” It expanded.
We got to the point where we were full and we were shuttling people from up the street at our small building and shuttling staff. It was then like, “We need to buy land. We’re going to have to sell a building, build a building, and go portable.” We went through all those processes. Here I am all these years later and we’ve been portable. We’ve added campuses, built campuses, and changed campuses. We have lots of staff. The principle that I would say all along the way is to do the next right thing. Build the culture the right way and keep doing the next right thing. That allowed us to win.
The Next Right Thing
I love that. The interesting piece about that story and the next right thing, that concept, is it sounds very localized. At the same time, I know that you and the leadership team at Grace are incredibly strategic. Help our readers understand the concept of the balancing act between this 1-year, 3-year, 5-year, and 10-year long-term strategy as well as staying focused on the present and the next right thing.
When you think about the next right thing, what you said is 100% right. That’s split up into different pies that you’ve got to focus on and say, “What is the next right thing?” The bigger your organization gets, the more you can have subsets of eyes focusing on that. Back in the day, a lot of my energy was not only on the day-to-day, but it was on the 30,000 feet and everything in between. This time, I’m able to task staff and other leaders to keep their eyes on the right culture and the next right thing in their ministry, at their campus, or in their team. I can stay with the leaders and think about the big picture of that.
It’s a little bit of both. Sometimes in organizations, you have to act a little bit bigger than you are if you’re going to move forward. Other times, you need to act the exact size you are. Sometimes, it is thinking about what that looks like. We’re a big church. You know this. It’s hard for our main location to say, “Have a church picnic.” Back in the day, we could have a church picnic. It made sense to act that size then. Now, it doesn’t.
Leadership Lessons: Sometimes, as an organization, you have to act a little bit bigger than you are if you're going to move forward. Other times, you need to act the exact size you are and think about what that looks like.
There were other things that when we were small, we said, “We’re going to try to think like we’re a little bit bigger. We’re going to try to build our communication strategies a little bit bigger. We’re going to try to build the weekends a little bit bigger.” Within leadership, it’s saying, “At all those different levels, what does it look like to think about that next right thing?”
You can’t look so far down the road for danger coming that you missed the stop sign in front of you. At the same time, the people who are the most successful and safe riding motorcycles or four-wheelers, they’re people that have the ability to look down the road and close at the same time. It’s doing both of those and going, “This is where we are. This is how we win this weekend. Do we need to buy land? What do we need to do about our savings? What do we need to think about for hiring?”
I hope I’m answering your question. It’s trying to juggle both of those things at the same time and then empowering people and leading people that you can trust to go do the things that allow the culture, the organization, and their abilities to win at the next right thing while you might be thinking about something else.
A Leader Of Leaders
That makes sense. I love the parallels, though, between church and business. There really is no difference. We have a different deliverable. The church is there to impact people for their eternity, but it’s still a business. There’s a budget. There are buildings. There are people. There’s leadership. I have a question for you, and I’m going to give the readers the rest of the story. Grace Fellowship has five campuses here in the Columbus area. There are thousands of people who are part of the church as a whole. From a business view of this, you’ve gone from this small business of 50-some to 80-some people to this business of 4,000 to 5,000.
As the lead pastor, you have an elder board like businesses have a board of directors and things like that. For technical purposes to make the translation, you’re the CEO of this company. You knew everybody for a while, and you were touching everybody for a while. You’ve gone through all these stages of growth where they will see you maybe live on stage and many of them see you on video, but there are probably a couple thousand people that have never met you. How have you handled that stepping up, stepping away, and realizing, “This is the church God’s blessed us with. I’m their pastor, but I don’t even know them.”
To be honest, it’s been hard. There have been different transitional moments. I was telling someone this story. There was a moment when we hit about 1,200. I have a really good memory. I’m a little bit of a freak in that I can hear something and lock it in or see things and visually remember them. I used to preach and take attendance while I was preaching. I would know names and all of this.
We got to 1,200. I remember one weekend, I was standing up there preaching, and I looked out and was like, “I can’t do it anymore. I can’t get my arms around everything.” I went to the elders at our next elder board meeting and said, “I got to quit. I can’t do this anymore.” They’re like, “What are you talking about?” I said, “I feel that I’m overwhelmed. I can’t do it anymore.” It was like, “Let’s calm down. Let’s talk about this.”
That led to a number of things. One of the things is recognizing that my job isn’t to know everyone but to make sure everybody’s known. How do I lead to that concept? How do I empower, create vision, and do that? Some of it is to recognize that my job was going to change, and it has changed a lot. In a lot of ways, I’m the pastor of Grace, but I’m not a pastor of a lot of people. I’m a speaker. I’m a leader of an organization. I’m a leader of a team. There are a lot of people that I don’t know.
Leadership Lessons: My job isn't to know everyone but to make sure everybody's known.
I had to embrace the change. I had to recognize my job was going to become different. I had to recognize some things that weren’t always fun. I had to recognize that there were some people who would never meet me who would think I was great and some people who would never meet me who would think I’m an idiot and a terrible person off the jump. I had to become okay with that in my own skin as a leader based on, “This is what I feel called to do and led to do. I’m going to step into that and understand that’s part of the price of admission to this role and this opportunity. “
I’ve also had to learn that in the moments when you do see the people, do your best to win. Be polite. Be kind. Be courteous. Some are like, “Pastor Keith, I’ve never met you,” when I’m in a restaurant and they come up to me. I need to do my best to make the next 30 to 60 seconds feel very real, genuine, kind, sincere, and not dismissive.
I’ve had to understand some of the new roles and what that means when people meet me or see me and embrace that. It means that I’ve had to get really good at trusting other leaders to do the things I can do. I’ve become a leader of leaders that I have to make sure they get after. Some of that has been fun, easy, and seamless, and some of that’s been difficult.
I’ve had to be told, “You can’t have your hands in that anymore.” I used to be very involved in certain things that our elders, our staff, or myself came and said, “I can’t anymore.” I love global missions. I love international missions. I was super involved in so much of that process for years. The elders came and said, “You can’t. You got to put your attention on other things.” Those are some of the things along the way I’ve had to experience.
That’s similar to a lot of people who elevate inside companies where they have some things that they really enjoy, but as they move up, they have to let go of those things. In your sense, missions were maybe one of those heartbeats that you had to let go of. As my company has grown, I’ve had to let go of a lot of things that I love, treasure, and enjoy.
How do we stay focused though to make sure that we’re not letting go of all that we enjoy and that we have something that’s still driving us? In your sense, you’re a leader of leaders and you are a teacher. Do both of those drive you? Is there one that drives you more? How can our readers as they elevate and let go still stay focused on what gives them passion?
We all have to be honest, do some really good personal EQ and self-assessment, and say, “What are you great at?” Let people around you tell you what you’re great at. There’s so much that’s been written and talked about this when you talk about things like Working Genius, StrengthsFinders, and all of these things that you can process. We all have to be careful that we don’t deceive ourselves about what we’re good at and what we really can do. Once you know what you’re great at and what fuels you, you’ve got to fight pretty fiercely to hold onto those things. You’ve got to do your best to let the organization and people around you know that.
What’s true though is most people on the outside see what you’re awesome at, what you’re great at, and what you shouldn’t let go. Good leaders won’t let other people give that stuff up. They’re going to try to keep them in their sweet spot. If someone’s trying to take that from you, you fight for it. Maybe you’ve heard the principle that if somebody’s 80% good at something that you don’t love, give it up, empower them, let them go after it, and all the leadership models of that.
I do think what you’re good at and what you win at, you have to fight for. You got to say, “I’m going to hold onto this. I’m going to go after that.” Sometimes, that means saying that out loud to your board and other leaders, like, “If you take this away from me, something inside me is going to die. Our organization won’t be as good, and I don’t think I’m going be as good, and I don’t think either of us won’t be good.” There’s some honest conversation about that.
Another thing is when you’re good at something, keep cultivating that craft so that you become indispensable at it. You listen to me preach a lot. I’ve preached a lot. I’ve preached a lot in my lifetime at this point, but it’s something that I still work really hard at and take very seriously to continue to get better at. I feel like that improvement and that ability to get better at it continue to give me the energy to continue to want to hold onto it and go after it. Some of it is knowing what you’re good at, letting people affirm that, and then telling people, “You can’t take this from me.”
“When you’re good at something, keep cultivating that craft so you become indispensable at it.”
What is your greatest contribution to the organization? What’s the thing that if you go away from, the organization is going to going to get hurt? For me, leading and preaching both give a ton of energy to me. Our church, on the surface, would think the thing that Grace would miss the most if I went away was the preaching. While they would miss my preaching and while that would impact our church, the truth is I think our church would miss my leadership more. Most of the church doesn’t know that because of what’s behind the scenes and in the environments that take place. Both of those give me energy. What gives me energy is communicating to lead. Both of those find themselves in my position and in preaching.
I’m with you. I love that. It’s impacting others. That’s the heartbeat of leaders. We want to elevate them. When leaders begin to think it’s about them and not others, that’s where we mess up. Ironically, you preached about selfishness. It’s so easy as leaders to become selfish and think that it’s about us and what’s taking place.
Influencing Volunteers To Step Up
I want to transition for a second because this is an important thing. I know a lot of people lead in nonprofits. I’m going to draw a similarity here. In Grace, I know that you have a paid staff that’s pretty large. That is way outnumbered by the volunteers that make Grace go every single week. It’s not on Sundays. It’s every day of the week. There are volunteers that are impacting. Help our readers understand how can we, as leaders, impact people who aren’t paid to follow us. We have to influence those volunteers to step up, step out, and do more than they’ve ever done, but we can’t make them do it. How do you lead in that capacity?
You both win and keep people in a relationship that you work really hard to get to know them to the best you can. In a big organization, that can be hard. Part of what I’m saying is valuing them, like seeing them, supporting them, standing alongside them as they serve, and coming alongside how they win. It is relationship and winning and keeping them.
A clear vision that is compelling and exciting like, “This is awesome. This is what’s going to go on,” some of that we call as, “I see in you,” conversations. It’s like, “I see in you on that this is what you can be. I want to call this out of you.” I personally think that one of the biggest mistakes that organizations and nonprofits specifically can often make is they don’t call their volunteers to a large enough vision and a large enough thing. They set the bar too low.
Quality leaders and quality people don’t want to be a part of something that doesn’t really matter. They want to be a part of something that they think is significant. They want to be called to something that’s meaningful. Setting a high bar, calling people to that, and saying to volunteers, “We can fire you as a volunteer because we’re expecting a quality thing based on what we want to deliver.”
In the church world, we’re sometimes so afraid to lose people that we won’t call them to hire. The Little League doesn’t have any problem asking a lot of me. The sports world doesn’t have a problem asking a lot of me with coaching, volunteering, or whatever it is. It’s calling people to big things, and then with anything in leadership but with volunteers, it’s clarity. It’s like, “What is a win? What do I want? What are the expectations? What am I not asking? What are the things upfront that are going to fail and they’re going to say, “You’re failing or winning.”
At Grace, one of the things we’ve done really well early, and we’ve drifted from it but we’ve come back to it hard, is a high-expectation volunteer culture. If you want to win with volunteers, it’s relationship. It’s like, “I won you on the front end. I’m going to keep you at that touchpoint.” It’s clarity, high vision, and the, “I see in you,” and putting them in their sweet spot. What are they great at?
Along the way, the celebration is huge. It’s telling them, “We couldn’t do this without you. You’ve heard me say that. I mean this. The heroes of Grace Fellowship are our volunteers. We wouldn’t be who we are without them. It’s making sure they know that and all those kinds of things. You also have to recognize that volunteerism is a lot like anything that if you don’t deal with your worst, your best will leave. You got to deal with the people that are problematic in those environments and say, “That’s not going to happen.” That manifests itself in lots of different worlds. One of the places in the church world is the arts world. You get some divas sometimes on the stage. how do you deal with those folks so that you can have the best still want to be around?
Those are some big things. Volunteers who believe in what you’re doing don’t even feel like they’re volunteering. They love it. They’re like, “I would kill myself for this.” It’s why we know the person who’s been involved with Little League or youth sports for 30 years and have seen kid after kid and family after family are like, “I wouldn’t give this up.” People who get a sense for that and are plugged into a great nonprofit feel the same way.
I love that. One of the things I appreciate about Grace that you do differently from a lot of other churches is you don’t use the word membership. I understand the heartbeat behind that. For those of you in the church world with membership, the worldly phrase of membership has its privileges that carry over. It’s people who become members of a church and then they expect things from their church.
Grace uses the word partner, but there’s a course you have to go through. You have to sign on the dotted line, “I’m committing to these things.” What I love even more, because this verifies where you’re coming from in the high expectations, is it’s a yearly renewal. Every single year, we have to read those things again, watch a video, and commit to those things, including serving.
I look at the corporate world as leaders. Once we have somebody on board, we do annual reviews and stuff, but we don’t tell them, “Reminder. This is why we exist. This is why you are here. Are you going to re-up? Are you in this year?” What drove you guys to make that decision to say, “We want these volunteers to have high expectations. We want them to say it every year.” What drove you to that point?
One of the things was when an organization grows really fast, you got to sometimes ask yourself, “Why? Is that all good?” For us, one of the things we were saying was like, “We don’t want to be 35 miles wide and 1 inch deep.” In the church world, the product we produce is disciples. Are we producing people who follow Jesus? We don’t produce people who go to church but people who follow Jesus. We said, “We want to make sure that our mechanism of partnership or commitment is discipling people. It’s moving people to the end goal while at the same time, it’s reflecting not just a commitment to Jesus but a commitment to this church and this community.”
“When an organization grows really fast, you have to ask yourself why and is that all good.”
We know that the natural entropy and inertia of any person is to become internal, not external. They drift to themselves, not to what they’re a part of. That happens in an organization or a business. We said, “We want to make sure that everyone is like, “I’m still committed to this thing. I still believe in this thing. I want to be a part of this thing,” and that there was a yearly mirror to look and go, “Not only am I saying I’m committed, but I’m practicing the things that show I am committed.”
For us as leaders, we said, “Not just institutionally, but, for us, biblically, what do we think the Bible has called us to be in terms of how it shows up in a local church?” We said, “Let’s put those in front of people. Let’s have a real rhythm of that evaluation that pushes them both to commitment and ownership of their church but also in the right direction of discipleship.” That led us to say, “We feel like a year is a good time for people to go, “I’m in. I can do this, but I’m also not lying to myself or the organization if I really want out. I have a fair chance to say, “Grace has changed. I’ve changed. I don’t want to do that anymore.” It got to that.
We as leaders want to own the proposition value of, like, “You say you’re a part of our church. We owe you to serve you, care for you, and love you.” We are a big church. We had 7,000 people come to Christmas. Who’s our church? Is it the 4,000-plus that come on the weekend? Is it the 7,000-plus that come on holidays? How do we determine that? What we wanted to do was, “What’s a way where somebody said, “I’m in,” and we said, “We know you’re in. We’re committed to you and you’re committed to us. We’ll make sure that works.” That also drove some of it.
Leadership Challenges Today
I love it. That’s well-explained. I want to focus on newer stuff. We live in a world where leaders need to be agile and constantly adapting because the world’s changing around us even in the church world. What’s been the biggest leadership challenge for you in the last couple of months? It’s something that has been a challenge that you’ve learned about leadership that’s new because of how the world’s changing.
I’ll go with an internal one and then an external one. The internal one is we’ve had a lot of staff shifts for various reasons. You work a long time in a place and people change and shift. There was a long time when I could assume institutional history and relational credibility in my leadership with staff. Both of those things have changed. One of the principles that I’ve always known but have had to really double down on in the last couple of months is the principle of repetition. It’s coming back and saying the same things over and over again. The way I’m personally wired is I don’t like that. I hear it and I know it. I don’t want to keep hearing it again.
Sometimes, unfortunately, the way we’re wired, we can think everybody else is wired or that everyone’s going to go the way we’re going to go. Sometimes, I don’t say things enough, especially even internally, but I have another leader who’s a great leader next to me. He’s always all over me about the rule of 7s or 8s. He’s like, “You got to say it again.” The last couple of months with some staff turnover has really driven that principle and the importance of that. We are making sure that that’s happening.
The second thing from the outside is I feel maybe more than ever the different ways, even in the world with the way that it is with all the different ways people can be communicated to and can connect to you, the value of proximity influence is higher than ever. We are recording a podcast. I’m getting ready to launch a podcast. We have messages that are online. There’s content everywhere, and it’s great content. There’s so much value. I was driving somewhere. I spent 3 hours in my car and had made 4 podcasts. It’s super valuable.
Leadership Lessons: With all the different ways people can be communicated to and can connect to you, the value of proximity influence is higher than ever.
I’m noticing that my influence is microwaved in proximity to people more than it is in great content. I’ve seen that in different times over my career, but I feel like we’re in a season where if I get 70 minutes with you over breakfast, the amount of trust and forward movement I can propel in you feels like 6 months and 70 minutes in a way that is even distinct from what I felt before.
Lead More Effectively
That’s a huge piece. That’s a challenge to leaders because we think as organizations grow, we don’t have time for all the people. We still need to make some time. The one-on-one touches make a huge difference. I know in the church world when you have had the opportunity to truly minister to someone, they are sold out to that church, but you have to have that opportunity to minister to them in some capacity. This has been fantastic. We finish every episode of the show with the same question. That question is this. What is something our readers can do intentionally to lead more effectively? Give a quick tip.
One of the biggest tips that I tell leaders with this is to put people around you who will give you honest feedback about you and your leadership. I find that a lot of leaders think they understand their blind spots, their weak spots, and their strengths, but they don’t put people around them that will tell them when they have food in their teeth and tell them the truth.
One of the most practical things that you can do is to put people around you who will truly tell you the truth. That’s not always bad news. Sometimes, they’re going to tell you great things. It’s one of the most important things. Particularly, if you’re a leader, a big part of your leadership is upfront communication, and people will come alongside you and tell you the truth about your upfront communication.
That’s great. I love that. I know the phrase, “Lonely at the top,” is legit for a lot of business leaders, but we have to be intentional to make sure it’s not lonely for us by putting those people around us. That’s great. It’s been great to have you. It’s been a blessing to have you here. Thank you for all your insights. Thank you not just for your leadership but for truly changing the lives of thousands through Grace Fellowship.
Thanks for having me. I really do appreciate it. Thanks for being involved at Grace.
We’ll talk soon.
