Below are some thoughts I shared a few years ago as I was reading and interacting with a great book by Daniel Harkavy. I found it to be a very meaningful book for me as I reflected on pastoral ministry. I thought I’d pass this post along once more.

Becoming A Coaching Leader by Daniel Harkavy
Chapter Two

Title: The Fuel of Great Leaders

For Harkavy, the fuel of great leaders is the combination of convictions and courage.

Harkavy points out that the desire to help other people is a fundamental conviction that energizes coaching leaders. He asks, “…do you believe that you have something of significant value to offer your key team members?” He assumes that someone reading his book will answer yes. Thus, he says, “This primary conviction, the commitment to help others improve, usually gets strengthened by a few other important convictions.”

He then briefly hits on what these important convictions are. A coaching leader will…

1. Tell the truth
2. Serve others
3. Be aware of time
4. Appreciate talent (side note – Harkavy says that “One of the greatest benefits of being a coaching leader is that if forces [him] to improve [his] own disciplines and actions)

Here are a few questions that some coaching leaders he knows ask their employees…

1. If you were to die today, what would be said about you?
2. What accounts in your life are most important to you?
3. What vision do you have for each one of those accounts?
4. Who do you want to become?
5. What do you want to experience?
6. What are the three to five things you need to do in each of those areas so that you can accumulate net worth in all areas of your life?

The point is this: a coaching leader cares for more than just the business-side of the clock. A coaching leader cares about the people in his or her life –whether at work, home, etc. Therefore, “They want to help their team members succeed in all of life, including after 5:00p.m.”

I preached a sermon last year that highlighted some of my spiritual mentors and how important they were in my life. Harkavy helpfully makes a similar point to his readers by asking…

1. Who has made the most significant impact in your life? Why?
2. What did this person teach you or share with you?

He follows up by saying that, “Chances are, you are thinking of an individual who really cared for you, someone willing to take a risk and invest in you.”

He then makes this important point as a way of summing up the chapter…

“Do you want to know something? Your offices are filled with people who would love for you to be just that person.”

I was speaking with Len Sykes (who works with Ken Boa) a couple of years ago and he mentioned to me almost the very same thing and it has really stuck with me. He said that men don’t have other men who will really listen to them, without an agenda. He also said that men just don’t have another man who will come along and speak honestly into their lives. That’s really true. I’ve experienced that.

I think what is easy to miss in our culture is the veneer that people hide behind so that others won’t know how badly they’re hurting. Building relationships and trust with others is such an essential step in the process of investing your life into the life of another. It requires keen listening (a point that Harkavy will make in a later chapter). It also involves asking good questions. I’ll deal later with those two points in the order that Harkavy unpacks them.

Another good chapter. I enjoyed it because I resonated with his description of what undergirds and motivates a coaching leader. While I fall short of the qualities he outlines, it’s still a goal that I strive for.

Blessings,
Dale

This is an older post (I think around 2009). However, I’ve just started rereading this very good book and thought I would share some of the highlights from it again.

Blessings,
Dale

Chapter Highlights for… Becoming A Coaching Leader by Daniel Harkavy

Introduction and Chapter One

A few years ago I became interested in the discipline or ministry of “Coaching,” probably because I felt it was something I had been doing (or trying to do) throughout my ministry. I figured that educating and equipping myself in  another aspect (or from another angle) of something I was already doing could only add value to my life and ministry… and by extension… to the lives of those entrusted to my care.

The very first line in the Introduction to Becoming A Coaching Leader by Daniel Harkavy confirmed that I had chosen wisely regarding my most recent read on the subject. (Or… that God was very gracious in directing my hand in the choosing of it. Don’t want to steal his glory.)

Harkavy’s first words are these…

“You want to make a greater difference in the lives of those you lead and experience more success and significance as you do so.”

To that I can only give a hearty, “Amen.”

Chapter One begins by asking, “What is your vocational purpose?”.

That’s a question that I think about often. Yet I can’t sever it from my deepest purpose in life, which is to please, honor, and glorify God and to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. My other sub-purposes in
life flow out of that over-arching purpose.

While the book seems primarily addressed to leaders in the business field, many of the principles that Harkavy deals with apply to my life as a minister of discipleship. Throughout the book I sought to (and sometimes really labored to) make connections between what Harkavy was describing about an office setting and what I’m attempting to do in a church setting with folks who don’t work for me.

I really resonated with a couple of quotes on pages 4 and 5…

“Your purpose as a coaching leader is to add the most value to the people you lead and to help them improve.”

“Leaders are called to develop people. Their passion for people drives everything – and few things in life feel sweeter than investing in the lives of others and then watching them grow and succeed as a result of your
efforts.” Greg Harkavy

Amen to both statements.

I first heard the phrase, “add value to,” in the context of pouring your life into another person (or persons) from John Maxwell. It has always stuck with me because, at the end of the day, I want to add value to the lives of others for the sake of Christ and his Kingdom. I want others to experience the abundant and eternal life of those who know Christ and who are seeking to please him, honor him, glorify him, love him more, know him better, and become more like him in every sphere of their lives. This book offered some great ways to help me grow in my ability to add that value in the lives of others (as well as my own life).

One of the penetrating questions Harkavy asks on page 11 is one that I’m wrestling to answer: “What is your plan to develop your team?”

For me, the paraphrase of that question is this: What is my plan to disciple, shepherd, educate, equip, encourage, enrich, nurture, lead, coach, mentor, etc., the folks of my church family (and perhaps beyond)? Do I have a plan? How intentional am I being? How strategic am I? Are minds being renewed, hearts changed, and lives transformed as I minister to those entrusted to my care? That’s my great calling and passion. Is it happening? How can I do better? Tough questions… but ones that need answers.

In that respect, Harkavy and I are on the same page. He writes,

“…coaching is not merely ‘another thing’ for me; it’s the chosen focus of my life. I love adding value to leaders and showing them how they can do the same for the members of their own teams.” (p. 15)

Good stuff!

I’ll try to draw more from this book by taking a look at Chapter Two on another day.

Blessings,
Dale

UPDATE  – Michael Hyatt just reposted (8-25-09) his article on developing a Life Plan, which is an idea based on the book, Becoming A Coaching Leader. A very fine article and well worth your time.

Question: Who has been a leadership role model for you (outside of Biblical characters) and what have you learned from him/her?

Answer: The leadership role-model who has done the most to shape my ministry is Richard Baxter. Richard Baxter was a pastor in the 1600’s who served a local church in Kidderminster, England. He was much admired as a pastor by the Wesleys.

“John Wesley’s father Samuel, once a nonconformist wrote: ‘I wish I had [The Reformed Pastor] again: Directions to the clergy for the management of their people which I lost when my house was last burnt… [Baxter] had a strange pathos and fire.’”

“John [Wesley] himself told the Methodist Conference: ‘Every travelling preacher must instruct them from house to house… Can we find a better method of doing this than Mr. Baxter’s? If not, let us adopt it without delay. His whole tract entitled The Reformed Pastor, is well worth a capable perusal.’ On another occasion he challenged his preachers: ‘Who visits the people on Mr. Baxter’s method?’”

“Charles Wesley and William Grimshaw of Haworth conversing together agreed that preachers should ‘visit from house to house, after Mr. Baxter’s manner.’”[1]

Baxter was a living example of all that he wrote in his book, The Reformed Pastor. By “reformed,” Baxter meant “revived.” His book was originally written to clergy in his area and appealed to them to rediscover their calling as shepherd of souls – to really care for their flocks as Christ loved the church. The book is moving and was used of God to pour conviction on my soul as a pastor. However, mere words can often fall flat. There must be a life behind those words that matches them. His was such a life.

Baxter was known throughout England as a godly man. He sought to live a life that was above reproach and one that could never be attacked as hypocritical. Like Wesley, he lived a very modest life because it was more important for him to give his money to the poor as well as to purchase  books and Bibles for them.

He truly loved his flock at Kidderminster. He developed the practice of visiting every family in his church at least once a year at their home (over 2,000 people). There he would pray with them, make sure they knew the life-transforming truths of the faith, and see about any areas of their lives in which they needed help. He did not then leave them, go home, and forget about them. They were continually on his heart.

His preaching and teaching concentrated on the essentials of Christian doctrine and holy living. He did not have time for those who focused only on divisive and nonessential matters. His view was that life was too short for such things.

These are some aspects of his life and teaching that have impacted mine. Though my ministry falls short of his, humanly speaking, it is my goal. I have tried to develop a ministry that goes to the people and meets them where they are. My purpose is to create a warm and friendly environment where they can share the hopes, joys, fears and struggles of their souls with me. In my teaching I attempt to concentrate on those things that matter most, those things of eternal significance, such as knowing God and his Word, living holy lives, bearing witness to Christ in the world and displaying mercy and justice. Baxter has helped me expand my view of ministry.

How does this relate to leadership? Well, Baxter modeled what he taught. God has been unfolding before me the idea that our lives must be lived with profound consistency. If I say something from the pulpit, in a Bible study or a committee meeting or, in a one-on-one counseling experience, and live in a way that is radically inconsistent with what I’ve said, then I have demonstrated poor leadership indeed. Why? Because my words will soon begin to fall on deaf ears and rightly so. Leadership must be daily lived and modeled before those one is leading, and that is one of the most important things that I learned from Richard Baxter.

Grace and Truth,
Dale

[1] From J.I. Packer’s Introduction to The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter. Page 15.

I love Acts 20! As a shepherd entrusted with the care of a local assembly of God’s flock, I get a lot of mileage out of these farewell words of the Apostle Paul to the church leaders in Ephesus.  Paul spent three years shepherding and building the church in Ephesus – longer than he spent with any other church. He poured out his life as he invested in theirs.

As he prepared to depart from them, Paul both reminded them of something important and warned them about something important.

First of all, he reminded them that he had never hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to them. I get the sense here that Paul did not preach to their felt needs, but instead, ministered to their actual needs before a holy God.

Furthermore, he didn’t just preach from the pulpit to the masses. Like the pastoral giant, Richard Baxter, who would use this text as one of the foundations of his ministry some 1,600 years later, Paul went house to house – teaching both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance as well as place their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ if they would be saved.

This effort, for Paul, was the cornerstone of his ministry there. He said in verse 24,

However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me–the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.

His faithfulness to this blessed task was what enabled him to say in verse 26 that he was “innocent  of the blood of all men.” For he did not hesitate “to proclaim to [the church at Ephesus] the whole will of God.” In other words, there were no essential doctrines of the Christian faith omitted because of how uncomfortable they might make the intended audience. The whole counsel or will of God was preached. That meant that Paul preached on the character, attributes, and decrees of God, heaven, hell, salvation, sin, justification by faith alone in Christ alone, holiness, the cost of discipleship, etc., etc., etc.

If it was a.) helpful to the people (verse 20), and b.) part of the whole will of God (verse 27), then the Apostle preached it.

I’ve heard it put this way before: If you knew you only had five years to minister to someone, what would you want to make sure they heard, understood, and began to put into practice before they left your influence? Paul only had three years. And we don’t have to guess what he spent every minute preaching and teaching. We need only read the Book of Acts and his epistles to know the heart of Paul’s focus.

That leaves me with this question: What am I preaching and teaching the people entrusted to my care during the time that I’ve been given? That includes not only my church but also my family…and anyone else whom I may influence. In that sense, we are all shepherds who need to ask ourselves that penetrating question. We are all called to pass on the whole counsel of God to the next generation of followers and would-be followers of Christ. It’s what Christ meant when he said that included in making disciples is the order to teach them to obey everything that he commanded. He also said in John 8:32, that if we would hold to his teaching, then we are really his disciples.

For us, today, that “whole counsel” of God would include things such as repentance of sin, trust in the person and work of Christ alone for salvation, the great doctrines of the faith, holiness of life, etc.

Some of this will soothe the wearied soul. Some of it will be a balm to the hurting. Even for some of the rebellious it will be inexpressibly good news. For others it will prick the conscience and even stir up anger. It will be repellant for yet others. But we can be assured that it will all be for the good of those whom God has entrusted to our care…to our sphere of influence And that, along with the joy of obeying God in such things, should be all the affirmation we need.

Grace and Truth,
Dale