Winning as a Rising Leader
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The reality, you do not want to be well rounded, well rounded people or not highly successful people. You want to be you want to specialize. So if there's some weakness, hold me back.

You got to develop IT, even if you don't like IT. But there are some things that you don't ever need to be good at. You don't try to develop all your witnesses, just the ones that are holding you back, just the ones are essential for your role.

I shout out to our leadership community. We're going died in to another episode show, leadership podcast. We are doing a series of episodes right now dropping one a week.

And I want to talk about what you wants to talk about. I'm answering your questions. If you have questions at any time comments you want to give feedback, you can email us at leadership at life dot church.

My goal is to give you the best value per minute of your podcast. So let's dive in. We're going to answer questions today from some of our emerging leaders, some of the Younger leaders in our leadership community.

And lizy asked this question. Lizzy asked, what are your top pieces of advice for gin z leaders? Just enter in the workplace.

What advice we have for genie leaders in the in the workplace? You're not familiar, genee. They are born between one thousand nine and ninety seven and two thousand and twelve.

So there going to be somewhere between the ages of twelve dish and twenty seven or so. And we're talking about those who are now in in the workforce, ed. There's a bunch of them and they are important to us.

So I don't want to over generalize my answers because all gen z leaders are different, but is not uncommon for any generation to have. Some were generally common traits. And so we're to talk about some of those.

As I said, as of this recording, we're talking about ages twelve or so to twenty seven. And again, these are not absolute qualities when we talk about um but they're often true amongst the emerging leaders. So if you are a gensec leader, you are generally more innovative and more creative.

You're thinking which is great for organza. You bring fresh perspective and can often be really creative at problem solving mindsets. Those who are my age, we are often kind of more systematic in the way we think.

But you kind of look holistically and you come in with really um great problem solving skills that are different from the way older leaders think. Um if you're gene leader, you can really believe that A A lot as possible that you can be successful fast. That can be a great trade or can be a downside.

You seen a lot of people go viral and have become famous or blow up overnight. And so you tend to believe that you have the capacity to start a business to be created. You can be very entrepreneur. A lot of gensec leaders are proactive.

We're going to start a business and we're going we're going to have A T shirt business and they're fourteen and they do IT know we started youtube channel and you do IT a lot of you you're interested in financing. Um some say you know that this is the generation is perfected, this the side hustle or or so and so you bring a self starter mindset. Those are all good qualities also.

Um you value purpose and impact you you many of you will value purpose um over profit and you want to work that matters, I would say want to make sure you are profitable just from someone who knows that you have to be profitable to continue doing work that matters. But nevertheless you um value purpose over profit. And more likely you're going to engage in roles as often as you can that line with your personal values.

Those are really good things. Those are the strength in. There are many. I'll talk about the areas to develop. And again, these are not for all twenty three year old, everyone's different. But these are common among the emerging y generation. Many people would say, I would agree that lot of gene leaders lack with some people call the soft skills. For example, um you grew up communicating and relating over devices and so sometimes just interpersonal communication skills could be an area for development.

Same with conflict resolution that sometimes um giving and receiving feedback is more difficult for science, is difficult for every age, but is very visible different often times in the Younger generation jensie can be overly sensitive to receiving feedback, and sometimes conflict avoided or not always handle difficult conversations well. For example, i've seen at many times someone says, hey, you can do that Better. And like through this place I matter here, they quit and I know that someone was actually trying to help you and sometimes a Young leader will take a person and and fall apart.

Um again, like I sit earlier, you've seen um influencers go viral. And so because you know someone can blow up, you have high actions which can be good, but at times a gz later actually be less patient and that that can be kind of a limiting thing. And you might get frustrated whenever you feel limited like you've been in stuck in this dead in job for four months.

And the reality is that kind of just life sometimes. And so if you find yourself seeking instant gratification, developing a little patients in your leadership development, patients in the process, we can be patient in the process. That can be a good thing.

Um we do see a lot of gensec leaders like other generations but especially treated gensec facing work life baLance conflicts. Um some struggle to be resilient meaning like um a longer work week can be hard on some people and there's a tendency because of a lot of reasons, many reasons that are not the fault gensec, but there they're real. There's a tendency toward the anxiety and burn out and just a sense of like this is too much.

I'm overwhelmed and so that's something that we all need to work together on helping you become more resilient, more um to make just more durable and I have studied this like crazy and so I actually have compassion for a little more understanding White there and there's not judgment so those you are my age the moment you speak down to um kind of have a condemning Better than attitude we all we're all going to lose. We all have our areas to develop. And so some of those um or areas of genee to developed, I think I want to forget to mention is that some gensec leaders can be more resistance to to traditional leadership structures.

They may be uncomfortable with traditional high arches or the authority management styles, and I may not prefer them. But you know, sometimes you going to work in an environment where those things are there. And so you might need to get a little more tolerant or adapt to some situations that may be different than your expectation.

So the question was, and spent a long time get to the answer, but what advice do you have for jensie and how to say this? My vice is is honestly similar to any other generation and leadership. But i'd say since you emerging this way, three things.

One is write for authentic and unfilled self awareness. Number two, you you can want to leverage your unique drinks that you have, both generally and personally, and then develop the weaknesses that are holding you back again. This would be my advice to pretty much everyone.

But let's start with the first one. I will encourage you rope twenty one year old leader in first job, but twenty seven year old to two years into A A career fight for authentic, unfiltered self awareness. And the reason I say this is in the history for everybody, but is especially true when you're starting out, is you don't know what you don't know like, you really don't.

And I cannot overstate how important is to understand this. And this is true for every single one of us. And my twenty years in my first, I looked back on thirty five, what I thought was true, know, I thought I knew so much, and that I had no idea so much that I had him had exposed to that you do not know what you don't know.

And so when I say fight for self awareness, you have to fight for IT. You have to like welcome feedback the moment you push you away, people can be hesitant to give IT to you again. You have to listen to feedback at the seek feedback.

Um the natural reaction is that someone says you could do this Better. You're not doing great job as you get your feelings heart like try not to when someone says you can do this Better. I thank you.

Tell me more and because that's that's really the only way you learn what you don't know. And the reality is you can't fix something if you don't know is broken. And there are parts of all of us that are broken. And so you want to work for that, ask for feedback. Listen, when someone tells you something, ask for clarifying feedback.

You might say, what can you give me an example of when I didn't do IT right? Or can you give me example if someone who did IT this way and see you really trying to clarify and drive into IT and is so important because if you're not open to feedback, you're not open to growth. If you're not open to feedback, you're going to be limited in your growth.

And again, want to say, watch for whatever you push back the most when someone says, hey, you know you're not doing this so you could do this Better and you know that wrong, what's for you push back the most because where you push back the most often reveals we have the most to learn wherever we get, like violently resistant to a suggestion IT often shows um some area appliance spot something that we haven't developed. So we're gna help me grow. Tell me what I needed to, tell me what I don't know.

And we're going to see really get an understanding of who we are, where we are and where we need to go as a leader. Second thing you don't want to do is leverage your unique strength and you're going have like unique personal strength and then you're also going have more unique generational strength. So both you're wired different than other twenty three years old, that's personal and this is generational strength.

So can think about both those. But um when I I often meet with Younger leaders because they are so important to our mission, like ridiculously important meaning if we're not pushing Younger in the church or just get older and die and out and so I meet with Younger leaders because they matter so much in organization. So those who get are older, if you don't see the value of those that you're Younger, you're not you you you're missing out.

So I meet with the Younger leaders and I asking questions, like, what do you see that I don't see in our church? Because they they have a whole different minds. They see things I don't see. I'll asking, like what advice you have for me to be more effective reaching your friends and then i'll tell me thinks like I never thought before. Um I i'll ask you like what questions are you asking that i'm not answering, i'm not talking about or what question are not asking that I should be asking.

So what I wanted do is I want to I know with the Younger generation that has unique strings, I want to tap into IT and I want you to know if you're Younger person, you bring. Valuable insight, like valuable insight, we want, we want a variety of people, the table, we want different genres, we want different ages, we want different perspectives. We want different mindset and your Younger minds that is very, very, very important and essential for almost every type of organza.

I know how my peers think, but I need wisdom for the emerging generation. Then what you want to do is so you're to understand where you are. You are real understanding. And then you want to leverage your strength, both your personal ones, meaning like you're really good with numbers, you're really good with people, like you're really good programme, you're really good singer, whatever is you going to leverage those strength or generation and you're coming in with a different mindset. You're more creative.

You you've got um you understand how to use A I and you can program your mom's phone and and you can't whatever is you can bring your unique strings and then you're going to want to develop the weaknesses that are holding you back. This is important. You're not going to develop all your weaknesses.

There are some weaknesses. You're just going to live with. There are some things you're not good at.

You don't have to be good at. You're never going to be good at. Don't develop all of your weaknesses.

The reality is you do not want to be well rounded. Well rounded people are not highly successful people. You want to be, you want to specialize.

So if there are some weakness, hold me back. You got to develop IT, even if you don't like IT. But there are some things that you don't ever need to be good at. You don't try to develop all your witnesses, just the ones that are holding you back, just the ones that are essential for your role. Um there are some people on that are gensec and our team, the here's what have noticed is they really need to develop the weakness because they don't understand organizational communication.

For example, my kids, uh most of them are in ministry or their spouses are in ministry ah and when they when my kids came on at the age of when you whatever, they didn't really care about email because in the home school world that wasn't A A big thing and they didn't know email will on our team lot of communication takes place on email a true story with a Younger staff member genes that got to the team the email some information to fill out he didn't fill IT out the email began IT didn't fill IT out email gin email and copied his um direct uh his supervisor uh team to uh he never responded they finally discovered the Young person on team had six hundred and forty five and open emails because you said, you know I need check email he didn't know and the bottle line is like you don't know what you don't know and someone older my law let's stupid well, we all don't know what we don't know and then i've heard other people say I don't like email and I kind of just say say if your organza uses email didn't matter what you like like you literally have to adapt to whatever style communication your orange zone is and there will be things about every organization, every style of works that you don't like this apart of IT um my broad piece of advice and i'm going to say this and some people won't like IT, but that is really um special that you want to do work that matters that that's important. But sometimes you just have to do work. Me you do like I want to do something that makes the difference.

Well, when you can you do but you can always do that but I want to this doesn't lie with my passions like yeah you hope that does but the bottom is IT doesn't matter what you do even if IT aligned with your passion, there's going to be eighty percent of your job that's just mundane like stuff that you don't enjoy. And i've seen sadly, some Young leaders just like quit with nothing else to do because what didn't line with my patient like, yeah, ultimately hope, hopefully your passions in your work can alone. Sometimes your worker is your work mean like you just got to get in there, you ve got to get this done.

And I found that we often grow by doing things that we don't enjoy. And I just want to say that a big percentage of whatever job you have, you will not enjoy. That is a part of life.

You will never find the perfect job, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. Sometimes you just push your roots down and you learn to like IT. And then you start to learn to like the people around you. The teamwork, the mission and then which you're creating together matter so much more than the little parts that you don't like.

I will say to the Younger leaders that sometimes you feel nervous being Younger, like know twenty three, and i'm working with that like a really old person, like a forty eight year old, right? And what I want to say is that forty eight year old wants to be light to like they generally do. And what's interesting is just free to know that forty eight year old may feel a little bit insecure around you because you're Young and you're cool.

And you know, you got the tiktok. They don't know know I don't know what to say. I don't know what a tiktok is.

And so they feel more vulnerable. Everybody wants to be light. Everybody wants to be needed. Everybody matters.

And so if you come in there and realized that there they they want you to like them just as much as as as you want them to like you ah you can actually really get close to people and is really powerful when different generations compliment each other, learn from each other. And um they're all necessary in in a viable strong organization. What I would say to you is like you're valuable.

You really are you're gene leader. You're valuable. Tell our leaders all the time, our Young leaders. You are not the leaders of the future. You are the leaders of today.

You have a lot to offer and and you don't know at all and so show up we're hard. Have a good attitude at value um yourself bring your best and I always say people to follow leaders always real than always right? Let's talk about Matthews question.

Math asked this. What advice would you give to those who've been in the workplace for a while but are new to a senior leadership position? So congratulations if you got promoted.

I want to take this, that if you ve got promoted, there are some people on your team that are excited in your world and summer, skeptical there might even be wonder to. They're disappointed that they didn't get the promotion you got. And so there's a lot of emotion when someone new steps into a role everyone is interested in.

Their curious harvard business review has an article by David sluice, and he ask people, what do you want to hear from a new boss? So let's say you're promoted now. You're over your department.

What do people want to hear? The survey revealed to clear categories, one that he called workers and another when he called warriors. What's the difference? Three warriors and warriors, warriors.

They evaluate your knowledge, your competencies, uh, and your experience. They're looking at IT going, can we fight with this person? Are they worried y to be a battle? Do they have the skill? Are they competitive?

Do I trust them that the warriors, then there's the warriors and the warriors, they're like, how is this gonna? How is is going to impact me? Are you safe as a leader? And so when you step into a new leadership role, you want to kind of develop a little bit of a pitch that you're going to say over, over, over again.

You can say in meetings and you're going to tell them why the mission matters, why the people matters, why you took this and at the lead of everything you say. Most leaders want to start by talking about themselves, but you're not going to do that. why? Because you're a Better leader, you're going to start with A U while U A U focused approach to your leadership.

You're going to do a little pitch, you're going to talk to people, you're going to be a meeting the first time we're going to see you in that role, and you're going to do a you focused pitch. And I suggest you something like this. You start and say, hey, hey, i'm guessed in all of you maybe a little nervous about the new guy or the the new guy, right? You've got lots of questions and you're wonder, how is this going to impact you now i'm in the role.

Well, we got a lot of to learn. And so I want to start by getting to know you. I want to find out more about what you value.

I'm going to tell you little IT about me. I'm going to share my thirty day plan with you. O, K, so let me just slow that down for minute.

And what what are you going to do? You're gna start and you're going acknowledge they got a new boss and they are going on how? And the world's good impact me is my new boss competent, is my new boss safe? And so you're going to come in and say something like, hey, you're probably little uncomfortable or you're might be curious or get lots of questions.

How's going to impact you? You're leading with the you focus and then you're gonna well, not let me tell you about me. No, I wanted get to know you and I want to give you the chance to hear a little bit mice start, but you start with them and then you're going to say something like, and here's the seven day plan, the thirty day plan or whatever.

You're not going to come and say here's our five year goal and here's everything to change. What you're going to do is you're going to present a little plan and it's going to be short and loose, but you want to have some sort of a plan. Thirty day plan, seven day plan is a short term plan and you're not over promising because you don't really know that much.

But what you are doing is you're communicating we ve got some direction and you're starting to build trust. Your plan might just be, i'm going to interview everybody, find out where they are. Your plan might to beat and meet with the person who before you, you know the you to peat with your supervisors.

Your plan might be to go investigate the culture. What whatever is is, is a real loose. Hey, here's the first few things we're going to do together.

And remember, you're talking to two groups. You're got warriors and you got warriors and you're helping them see both. You are competent, Andrew, easing their fears you're doing at at the same time.

And before you formulate a strategy, don't come in thinking, you know a lot. You you, you want to come in and observe and listen and assimilate everything. Then I might give you a real short matter class on the basics of leadership.

Um i'd Normally add maybe two things to this, but I keep IT very simple. What you going to lead with the basics? You're new to a role.

What are you going to do? You're going think vision, values, people, cultural systems and accountability. You going to walk and you can think vision and values.

You can think people, leaders, who, who's in the role. You can think culture. You can think systems.

You can think accountability. You can think vision, because where there is no vision, the people perish. Every organza ends up somewhere.

If you end up somewhere on purpose, we're going to up somewhere on purpose. Here's the vision. Here's where're going. You can think values.

why? Because what you value determines how you behave. What you believe determines what you do.

What are our cultural values? You're going think people. why? Because the potential of your organization rest on the string people.

They are the right people and the right seats on the bus. The people matter. The people matter. The people matter.

The people create the culture of the system, kind of people, people, vision, values, people, culture, as someone said, culture eats s strategy for breakfast. Okay, culture, when you have the right culture, IT corrects the wrong behaviors, the wrong correct tires, anything goes. And so we're going to create the culture, the parameters they're built on, the values.

You're going to create the right systems. The system is how we accomplish the what. That's what IT is how we accomplish the what. H to quote James clear ah you don't rise to the love of your goals.

You fall to the level of your systems and you're going to have accountability that who just one by one accountability closed the gap between intentions and active vision, values, people, culture, systems um and accountability and that's how you lead. You're new. You're getting no people.

You have you focused attitude um and you're focused on the basics and that's how you approach a new job with you one more adam asked this question he said in your interview was cent martial if you missed that episode descent is the CEO the dallas mavericks you can pick them up on episode thirty six um when your interviews said, adam said SHE noted that her first step in a new role was to interview every employee can you share what questions you would ask in that same situation? I like this. Um cint is brilliant. SHE is successful.

A T N T uh and rose to high leadership and um SHE would come in anytime she's in a new role and go on A Q and a tour and he was start with saying, tell me your story and people say I start to work in here four years ago in the session service part SHE now not your work story like are you a person? Tell me your story where were you born and tell me about your childhood and he got to know the people and heard their stories super, super important um we put together twenty questions you can ask on a tour like this for the second time. I'm going to give you five if you want all twenty um we'll put that in the leader guy got a life that search slash leadership pot test.

If you don't subscribe to the leader, guide that to you. I'll give you five and I want you to see why we're asking this topic questions, not the Normal questions. I would ask something like this, hey, what's something unique about you that most people don't know that shake you to become who you are? We're hearing this story. What do they overcome?

What what shaped to you, what made you who you are and they might talk about, I was an out a hole lic or my mom and dad got divorce story, I was broken as a kid or whatever and you you're are going to open up you number two, I ask, um what's something you're most proud of that you have done the last year, but what do you do in there? You're helping to your helping them tell you what you value, but what they value like this is something i'm proud of and they might say, but my kid did something another or that I made IT to ten years of marriage or or you or whatever might be a work accomplishment that I did this project. But you're you're tapping into what matters to number three, i'd asked this, what's the best compliment you've ever received at work?

Now what you do there is you want that was really important to them. But like someone said, i'm all, you know, you're always on time. Okay, theyve value time on this.

Give the most encouraging person, okay, they value encouragement. So what you doing is you're finding out what's important to them. And then when you want to compliment them, you might compliment them in the spirit of what they said, if you if that's true.

But that's really important. You're learning about them. Never ask what's something that your previous boss never ask you, that you here you'd ask you it's a real wide open question that gives them plenty room to really say kind of whatever was on their heart.

And i'll tell you the question and of course, you ask to them and that's getting into the really intimate, more important things that could help you lead well. And then you might ask this um was the best way for me to earn your trust. And then again, you're going to see what's really important to them and they're going to open up and they will know to gently care about them if you want the whole list to questions, go to like that church slash leader leadership podcast.

We will send you the whole list. And these are great questions. Don't ask them all.

Make them your own. Be, be sincere, be genuine and you can make a difference. I'm going to say this before we wrap up and then i'm onna wrap up. We want to give away some books and books that I read was really helpful to generation is called the anxious generation by Johnson hype. Uh IT um helps.

He helped to me understand why the emerging generation belt with anxiety, tension and such as great for parents and great for those who are leading the next generation at this point I want to say to those of you that are leading, um no matter what you want to show value to the people that you lead, uh you do this because you care about them and when you start with the youth focused attitude, is one a reason that I want to give you, you know, a chance to win the book? Just go to the um if you want to one of the copies go to youtube and type in um I don't want to be anxious most to do that. I don't want to be ancient will draw five winners.

And then whenever you're leading at any age, you're Young and leadership, you're leading the Younger generation again. What you want to do is you want to say, I do not care about you. Why is this so important? Because we see so many leaders try to help you see that they're important.

Like, look at me. Look at good. I am not a good later, right?

Many leaders try to help you see that they're important. But the best leaders try to help you see that you are important. And I want to say that you, you are important.

God made you, in a very unique way, embrace your extremes, step into them, be the unique you that you're retreated to be. And you can make a big difference. You haven't read a review with the content.

Please do that. Hit submarine share on social media. Please do that. I can ask me, please do IT to make a big difference to me.

And then I want to work hard to bring you new content, different content, that speaks directly to your leadership. Because what you do matters. You matter.

You've greatness in you, and I believe you can do more. You can ever ask, think or imagine for the power great you have just want to god this through. You get Better. We know everyone wants when the.