Simon Cox Blog: Five Ways to Be a More Effective Leader in 2019

Friday, 4 January 2019

Five Ways to Be a More Effective Leader in 2019

Some food for thought as you reflect on where God has you and who he has under your care.

As another year begins, we all have resolutions of things we’d like to change or start. We make many promises to ourselves and sometimes others. One of the things I want to commit to is being a better leader in 2019.

As I’ve considered what this means, I want to share with you five ways I think all of us can be more effective and Christ-honoring as we begin our leadership service this year. I hope these will provide you some food for thought as you reflect on where God has you and who he has under your care.

First, make that hard decision.

For most of us, there are things that we've been knowing we should do and we haven't done them, or maybe we've been putting off making the decision. One of the things I've learned is that good leaders tend to lean into pain in a way that makes them a better leader.

For a lot of people, their inability or avoidance of a painful decision causes a cascading effect. Maybe you don't make the right decision so something else isn't getting done well. Maybe there's an opportunity cost. Maybe we will lose integrity as those around us watch and say, "Well, you're just not making the hard calls."

So not only can your inability to make hard decisions impact other people's ability to see you as a leader, but not making hard decisions can also drag YOU down. There's a freedom in being on the other side of a hard decision.

Second, stop doing some things.

Almost every person I know (including me) is spending too much time doing things that don't have the maximum impact. This ‘maximum impact’ looks different to different people—only you will know what that looks like for you as a leader. Sometimes this actually means less ‘bigness’ ...