I Grew Up in Hawaii

Not really. I grew up in Michigan. But as a I leader I came of age in Hawaii. I’m in Hawaii right now. It’s Jan’s favorite place on earth. We were driving up to the north shore of Oahu, it was raining so hard it was difficult to see and she wistfully says, “Oh, I could live here.” I’m thinking, “Hey girlfriend, if this was New York, we’d be in a blizzard. I just want to get where we’re going safe.” That’s my reference right now. Snow.

At any rate, I worked here for 2 ½ years at a church. Flew back and forth to Oahu. Things at the church didn’t turn out as planned and some of it was our/my fault. It was that difficult experience that allowed me to grow up as a leader. Here’s some things I’ve learned:

•Don’t worry about transitioning people if it’s the right thing to do, either from a job or off the staff entirely. It’s probably in the best interest of all involved especially if people are burned out or in the wrong position to begin with.

•As a leader, I am a steward of the gifts of the people I/God bring/s on my team. To fail to address real issues in their lives, or to fail to serve or help a team member when they really need help, is to fail in that stewardship. (One of our staff graciously this to me)

•Make the hard organizational decisions regardless of what happens. My failure to push organizational, structural, leadership and constitutional issues at the church created conflict that could have easily been avoidable.

•Put standards and policy in place for your team before you are forced to by your mistakes. I was forced to. It was my fault. Lesson learned. We have lots of really good standards and policies that govern our team and protect our staff and the churches we work with so that we can serve others unencumbered. Policy that is an anchor around your neck to fulfill your organizational vision is bad. Policy that allows you to accomplish it is really good.

•Take care of little things like job descriptions and performance reviews.

•Don’t hire people who aren’t on board with the vision, values, and mission of the team.

•Reconcile with those you are at odds with even if others won’t own their stuff. This is mission critical.

•If you know something won’t work, don’t let a team member, or anyone else for that matter, force you to go in that direction. Just say, “Hey, I think we are going on a different direction on this one and I’m going to have to make some choices.”  

In the long run, the conflict generated by that experience has been what’s catapulted our team forward. I reconciled with the other staff guy involved, and he has taken a part of our team to another level. I shudder to think what would have happened had he left in anger or I just fired him outright in frustration.

Hawaii is a great place to grow up. Aloha.