The only way to be different is to do different—seeing our autopilot ways of being and disrupting them is the only way change happens.

I rarely struggle to know what I believe the right thing to do is but I often have the inability to do the right thing…I normally know the right things about how to relate, how to do relationships, and when I get anxious sometimes and maybe some people would say often the anxiety gets in the way of my ability to do the right thing"

This is the first episode in an ongoing theme we'll be exploring the rest of the year about practices that help us all grow our emotional maturity.

Conversation Overview

• Why is it so hard?
• What is an autopilot?
• How can we learn to see our autopilot?
• Do we really want to change?
• Ways we can learn to change our autopilot
• Organizations (teams and families) have autopilots

References:

• Immunity to Change
• Hunger for Healing by Keith Miller

As a learning community, we want to share some of our best resources with you, let you get to know our team a little better and give you a peek into what we're learning. We hold a shared belief that, especially in a context where the pace of change is so rapid, ongoing learning that is fed by curiosity about what's happening in our ministry context, is an essential way of being.

In this episode, we've gathered a handful of our teammembers toogther to talk about what we learned last year, to share a resource that will be helpful to our listeners, and to let us in on what they want to learn this year.

Trisha Taylor

• Learning to see her autopilot and intentionally disrupt it to "live more consciously, more thoughtfully, more awake."
• Two tools that have helped Trisha do this have been journalling and a "professional who knows how to hold space and listen."
• Don't Look Up [movie]

Aundrea Baker

• Learned about emotions, the science behind emotions, and practiced "allowing myself in certain situations to feel the feelings and pass through them and get to the other side."
• Two books were primary for me in this learning, one was Emotional Agility by Susan David, and the other one was, It's Not Always Depression by Hilary Jacobs Hendel.

Mac McCarthy

• Over the past year Mac has been learning "how to process pain in ministry" and setting appropriate boundaries.
• Two resources that have helped Mac work through this learning has been a coach and resources from Dan White Jr. and The Kineo Center
• This year he is planning to do a deep dive with his team into a leadership model that includes both men and women working together using Better Together

Tim McGee

• This past year Tim has focused a lot of his learning on the power of clarity on communication and design.
• "Clear is Kind" by Brene Brown
• A book that has helped Tim process and practice this over the past year was Strategy is Your Words by Mark Pollard

Dawn Bird

• This past year Dawn has been learning to be compassionate with herself around patterns in some of her closest relationships.
• Two resources that have helped Dawn explore this has been an episode of the We Can Do Hard Things podcast titled Breaking Cycles & Reparenting Yourself with Dr. Becky Kennedy and the book Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy
• Hello, Molly! [memoir]

Victor Chiao

• Victor said this past year he has been learning how to practice courage and draw from his guiding principles in the face of anxious situations.
• And while he says he didn't have any tangible resources he offered these thoughts, "find others with a shared vision, a community that fosters safety, that allows you...to lean into those areas of discomfort and to have a chance to choose courage."
• Another way he is planning to lean into discomfort is by up Jiujitsu this year.

Jim Herrington

• This past year Jim has been deepening his learning around trauma and exploring the connections between trauma and family systems.
• A couple resources Jim mentioned in the episode were,
• In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Mate M.D., The Wisdom of Trauma by Gabor Mate M.D., and Amazing Place Family Caregiver Support Resources

Thank you for listening. If you enjoy listening to The Leader's Journey Podcast, the best way to support us is to take just a few seconds and leave a rating and/or comment over on iTunes or share it with your friends on Facebook … Thank you!

The gold standard of leadership is calm, principled presence in the face of challenge. This requires commitment and practice to do the inside-out work of growing a calmer self. About Nate Pyle

Nate is an author, blogger and ordained pastor in the Reformed Church in America. In 2015, Nate released his first book, Man Enough: How Jesus Redefines Manhood, with Zondervan. He contributed to Learning Change: Congregational Transformation Fueled by Personal Renewal. Nate's second book, More Than You Can Handle: When Life's Overwhelming Pain Meets God's Overcoming Grace, released in March of 2019 with Zondervan. Currently, Nate serves as the pastor of Christ's Community Church in Fishers, Indiana where he lives with his wife and three children.

"And so the biggest growth edge for me when it comes to growing a calmer self was growing my understanding of myself and who I am, and who I believe I've been created to be and what my values and beliefs and principles are and that's still an ongoing learning, but before I could ever grow a calmer self, I just had to figure out who my self was." – Nate Pyle

Conversation Overview

• What is the role of self?
• Managing yourself vs changing others behavior
• Calm vs reactive
• Examples of calm leadership
• Growing our capacity to manage ourselves
• Examples of calm leadership

Links and references

• Murray Bowen
• Edwin Friedman
• Steve Cuss book, managing Leadership Anxiety
• Nate Pyle Website
• Nate Pyle Books
• Chronically online
• Better Together
• https://twitter.com/NatePyle79

Learning to Surface and Test the Mental Models: Part 2

When you are leading off map, learning to surface and test the mental models—yours and those of your team—that guide your decision-making is an essential leadership skill. In this episode, we are going to name what we believe to be the dominant mental model and then compare and contrast it to what we see emerging. As you listen, join us in asking how is the new mental model similar to what we are currently practicing and how is it different?

Listen to Learning to Surface and Test the Mental Model Part 1

Conversation Overview

• Definition of a mental model
• Shift in the mental model of leadership style
• Shift in the mental model of discipleship
• Shift in the mental model of success
• Disorienting shift in influence many pastors are facing

Links & References

• Mac McCarthy
• Praxis Podcast with Mac McCarthy
• Crosspoint Community Church
• Learning to Surface and Test the Mental Model Part 1
• Alan Roxburgh
• Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge
• Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains
• Dallas Willard

When you are leading off map, learning to surface and test the mental models—yours and those of your team—that guide your decision-making is an essential leadership skill.

Click here to learn more about and get access to Better Together

Conversation Overview

• What is a mental model and why is it important to know what one is?
• What are some biblical examples of mental model shifts?
• What is the connection of chronic anxiety to mental models?
• How do leaders function when there are a variety of mental models in the organization?
• What are some of the major mental model shifts that we see clients having to engage?

References:

• Better Together
• Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge
• Mark Sayers Renewal in the Grey Zone
• Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains

We believe that it is God's design for men and women to collaborate as equals in the missional life. We believe living according to God's design is a matter of justice and a matter of missional effectiveness.

Learn more and get access to Better Together here.

Conversation Overview

• How Jim & Trisha started working together
• Some of what we've learned over more than 20 years of working together
• Our commitment to an egalitarian vision
• What if our church isn't egalitarian?
• What about the risks?

Burning out is not an inevitable part of leadership but it is a common one; leaders can care for themselves and each other as they avoid burnout where possible, heal from burnout where necessary and use burnout to learn new ways of life.

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Conversation Overview

• What is burnout?
• How do we distinguish between burnout, stress, depression, fatigue, etc.?
• How do our mental models and vows contribute to our tendency to burn out?
• How can we recover from burnout?
• How can we protect ourselves and those we lead from burnout?

Links

• Faithwalking
• Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory by Tod Bolsinger
• A Non-Anxious Presence: How a Changing and Complex World will Create a Remnant of Renewed Christian Leaders by Mark Sayers
• Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski & Amelia Nagoski
• Emily & Amelia Nagoski on Unlocking Us podcast with Brene Brown
• Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue by Edwin H. Friedman

Thank you for listening. If you enjoy listening to The Leader's Journey Podcast, the best way to support us is to take just a few seconds and leave a rating and/or comment over on iTunes or share it with your friends on Facebook … Thank you!

Leading from the Second Chair with Mike Bonem

Leadership is not just about being in charge. The best leaders know how to use influence and relationships to lead up, down and sideways in order to shape the things they care about.

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What is a second chair leader? "a person in a subordinate role whose influence with others adds value throughout the organization."

Conversation Overview:

• What is a second chair leader?
• Joseph as a biblical example of a second chair leader
• 3 apparent paradoxes of leading from the second chair
  • Leader and subordinate
  • Deep and wide
  • Contentment and dreaming
• "How do we dream, and yet, not get so wrapped up in making my dream happen tomorrow that we lose contentment today?"
• Consider some resistance to leading from the second chair
• Deep change is a process and takes time

About Mike Bonem:

Mike Bonem is a consultant, coach, author, speaker, husband and father. He offers a unique mix of world-class consulting and executive leadership experience to help churches, ministries, and their leaders turn vision into results.

Mike holds an MBA, with distinction, from Harvard Business School. He was a senior manager with McKinsey & Company, one of the world's leading management consulting firms, and held executive leadership roles in two businesses. He subsequently served over 10 years as the executive pastor of a large Baptist church in Houston.

Links:

• https://mikebonem.com/
• The Art of Leading Change by Mike Bonem
• Leading from the Second Chair
• Thriving in the Second Chair
• Leading Congregational Change
• Genesis 37-50
• Jim Collins - https://www.jimcollins.com/
• Leading Change, With a New Preface by the Author by John Kotter

Leadership is not just about being in charge. The best leaders know how to use influence and relationships to lead up, down and sideways in order to shape the things they care about.

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Conversation Overview

• What are some of the frustrations and challenges that come with trying to lead in an organization where you're not in charge?
• What does it mean to lead up?
• What are some mental models we need to let go of to effectively lead up?
• What are the practices of leading up?
• The importance of learning to lead myself
• Influence and systems thinking
• Continuum of commitment
• Emotional bank accounts

Links:

• How to lead when you're not in charge
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization
• Leading from the Second Chair: Serving Your Church, Fulfilling Your Role, and Realizing Your Dreams

In this episode, we talk with Ben Sternke and Matt Tebbe authors of "Having the Mind of Christ: Eight Axioms to Cultivate a Robust Faith". During the conversation, we explore deconstruction, how our response to it impacts those we lead, and much more!

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Conversation Overview:

• Ben & Matt's Book: Having the Mind of Christ: Eight Axioms to Cultivate a Robust Faith
• "Lenses don't change the world, but they change how we see the world."
• What is deconstruction?
• Is deconstruction a bad thing?
• Code-switching
• "We have to abandon the pursuit of the one universal way of describing everything. I think we have to abandon that because it just doesn't exist."
• The mental model shift in the book of Acts
• "The kind of deconstruction we're talking about is necessary."

Links:

• Having the Mind of Christ: Eight Axioms to Cultivate a Robust Faith
• Nate Pyle
• Gravity Leadership, gravityleadership.com
• theleadersjourney.us/newsletter
• [email protected]
• [email protected]