Lessons for leadership drawn specifically from Scripture

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Podcast Season 4, Episode 3: Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life – Rejoice In the Growth of Others

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. When we see or hear or experience something from which we can learn, it is that example and experience that often helps us remember the lesson. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illusutrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. And so I am sharing examples of circumstances and stories that I have experienced in my everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those stories, and it’s an important reminder to rejoice in the growth of others.

Here is the link to the podcast.

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Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: Rejoice In the Growth of Others

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. When we see or hear or experience something from which we can learn, it is that example and experience that often helps us remember the lesson. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illusutrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. And so I am sharing examples of circumstances and stories that I have experienced in my everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those stories, and it’s an important reminder to rejoice in the growth of others.

My grandson is diagnosed with autism, along with a sensory processing disorder. He is an amazing kid with tremendous gifts and abilities, but there are some things that he struggles with. He has a difficult time with large crowds, loud noises, heights, and confined spaces. But he also loves solving puzzles, figuring out locks and doors, and learning how things work. So a year ago, when we went to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, he loved learning about planets and rockets, and about how doors worked in space. But when it came time to walk through the 747 and its attached Space Shuttle that were outside, he would not do it. He would not go up the stairs, the crowd was too big, it was too noisy and too confined, and he could not get himself to take the first step.

But fast forward one year later, a couple of weeks ago, when we returned to the space center for another day trip. Once again, he thoroughly enjoyed learning all about the science and technology, but this time, one thing was very different. When we approached the plane and space shuttle exhibit, he turned and looked at us and said “Let’s go! We have to see all of it!” We had not asked him or pushed, but the growth that he had experienced over the previous year was obvious, and we were so happy about that that we could hardly contain it. It thrilled us to the core to see how much he had grown.

This made me think about how we respond when we see growth in others in our places of work and professional networks. Often the response is impacted by a sense of competitiveness, feelings of jealousy, or a perceived need for self-preservation. In some way or another, we see others succeed and grow, and we view it as a threat to our own success or as a reflection of our own inability or failure. Ultimately, this kind of response stems from our own selfishness and insecurities, and all it does is foster misery and bitterness.

In contrast, the healthy response is to rejoice when others grow. It reminds me of a line from the televison sitcom, “Everybody Loves Raymond,” when Robert said to Debra about Raymond, “I know; his success is his success and not my failure.” It also makes me think of Romans 12:15, which says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” True successes come out of a combination of gifts and abilities involving more than one person, not a single individual accomplishment, so when others grow, it can help us grow by extension (you have likely heard the cliche, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”). Beyond that, true kindness and love celebrates with and on behalf of others. When someone else grows, it’s not a reflection of you, it’s a reflection of them. Rejoice in that, in the same way you want others to celebrate your growth.

That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from seeing the remarkable growth in my grandson from one year to the next. I know that you want to grow, but so does everyone else. So when they do, when they take steps forward or achieve new milestones, celebrate with them. When they grow, it’s not a statement about you. It’s your own growth that makes a statement about you. So, for the good of everyone, including youself, rejoice with others when they grow.

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Podcast Season 4, Episode 2: Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life – Stay Aligned To Your Purpose

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. When we see or hear or experience something from which we can learn, it is that example and experience that often helps us remember the lesson. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illusutrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. And so I am sharing examples of circumstances and stories that I have experienced in my everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those stories, and it serves as an illustration of the importance of maintaining alignment to your purpose.

Here is the link to the podcast.

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Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: Stay Aligned To Your Purpose

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. When we see or hear or experience something from which we can learn, it is that example and experience that often helps us remember the lesson. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illusutrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. And so I am sharing examples of circumstances and stories that I have experienced in my everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those stories, and it serves as an illustration of the importance of maintaining alignment to your purpose.

One of the things God allows me to do is mentor students who are pursuing a PhD in organizational leadership. That means I get to be a guide for them as they go through the process of conducting a research study as a dissertation. Before they write a single page of their paper, they must first craft a single sentence – their problem statement. Then they must identify several key components that will drive their study – their purpose statement, research questions, theoretical framework, and methodology. At this particular university, these pieces are referred to as “The Golden Thread,” and they form the basis of the study to which they must stay aligned. Part of my role is to help them stay aligned to that Golden Thread.

For me personally, this illustration connected in my mind as a result of my own thought process at the time when I am beginning another year of the Leadership Ezra website. Almost every week for the last three years I have been writing and posting articles and podcasts related to the focus of this website: “Faith. Wisdom. Leadership.” The purpose has been (and continues to be) to connect biblical truth with wisdom for leadership). However, after nearly 150 episodes and articles, I struggled this week with the next one. I found myself thinking about it as a chore that I had to do again this week. And I struggled with the purpose.

Then I had a student I was mentoring who was drifting from the alignment to his Golden Thread within his paper. I had a conversation to redirect him back to the focus and purpose of his study, to get his dissertation back on track. It’s for this reason that recently, early in their process, I started having my students write a 1-page outline of the key components of their study as their touchstone to periodically refer back to, to help them maintain alignment to their purpose. As I was directing this student back to his 1-page outline, it reminded me to go back to the beginning of my work on Leadership Ezra, and see again what I was doing and why I was doing it.

That’s what I needed this week. I needed a reminder of the focus and purpose of what I am doing. Leadership Ezra came about with a purpose that God had given me, and for a purpose that was an outcome of what God has done in and with my life. What God does with it is not up to me, it’s up to God. My purpose is to be His vessel and to share what He has given me to share. And what He has given me to share are these lessons on leadership. I needed to be reminded of that, and to reorient and refresh my mind back to that purpose.

That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from helping a doctoral student get back into alignment in his research study. When we have been doing something for a while, sometimes we end up walking through the trees so long that we lose sight of the forest. That’s where I felt like I was, and I needed to step back for a moment and remind myself of what I was doing and why I was doing it. I needed to realign with my purpose so that I could renew and refresh my work. Periodically, you need to do the same thing. If you have been doing something for a while, it may be time for you to pause, step back, remind yourself of your purpose and focus, and make sure you are still in alignment.

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Podcast Season 3: Year In Review

Year 3 is ending, and year 4 is ready to begin, and I will be continuing the series called “Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life.” What’s in store for the next year is in God’s hands, but beyond that, what I would hope for is that God would bless this work and put it in front of more people who would benefit from what He has given me to share. So, if you have read the book, followed the website, or listened to the podcast, and have found any of those to be good for your leadership, would you tell at least three other people? With your help, I believe that God can use these resources to better equip leaders who will make an impact for His Kingdom.

Thank you for following and listening! On to the next year!

Here is the link to the podcast.

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Year 3 In Review

A little less than three years ago, I had embarked on a new (and scary) journey. For the needs of my family, I had stepped away from over 30 years of ministry in Christian education, with 24 of those years as a principal or superintendent/head of school. I wasn’t retiring, but my personal family circumstances necessitated making a change so that I could be at home every day. So, I stepped down from my position at the place where I had served for 8 years as the Head of School to start a new journey using my experience and abilities to serve God and develop people. And that led first to this venture at www.LeadershipEzra.com. I did not know what would come of this, but I was looking for a way to give my experience and wisdom to the Lord to be used for His purpose in reaching and developing other others.

At the same time, God was gracious in providing work to teach an online graduate course on leadership and an undergraduate online course on education, and to mentor doctoral students in their dissertation and research project work. What made all of this scary was that I was starting something completely new in my life, while still needing to provide for my family, with no idea of what the outcome would be. Along the way and in the process, I accumulated what I began to call “Joshua Stones,” those unique and specific events that were clear evidence of God at work, events that would stack up to become my personal memorial marker that served to remind me of God’s divine presence and leading in my steps. Ultimately, where God primarily directed and placed me was in working for two different universities, one (Gracelyn University) with a focus on education, and the other (Columbia International University) with a focus on organizational leadership.

My desire with the website, though, was that God would use Leadership Ezra in a much greater way to grow others in their leadership. The initial idea for this had come about out of a lot of prayer, and in that process, what the Lord had made clear to me was that I needed to connect faith, wisdom, and leadership in a way that would help other followers of Jesus grow in their leadership and make an impact. That original dream of an idea turned into three things: the self-publication of a book on Amazon (Leadership Ezra), the creation of the Leadership Ezra website, and the initiation of a corresponding podcast, streaming on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The overarching theme became “Faith. Wisdom. Leadership.: Connecting biblical truth with wisdom for leadership.” As an added bonus, I included a weekly feature on the website called “Quote Your Dad,” where I simply shared wisdom-filled quotes that I would often hear from my dad.

In the first year of both the website and the podcast, I shared leadership principles and ideas that I have learned, but primarily in standalone articles and podcast episodes. They were important ideas, but initially each was its own idea, not necessarily connected to others. As the year progressed, I started grouping ideas together to form series. By year two, I had shifted to communicating with series, and I shared three different series over the course of the year. The first was called “Who’s in Charge Here?” and it was a review of the ideas I covered in my book, Leadership Ezra. The second was called “The Five Be-Attitudes of Better Leadership,” and it was about five groups of attributes that are essential to good leadership. The third was called “The Character of Leadership,” and it was focused on identifying a character trait representative of a biblical character, and learning valuable lessons about leadership from it.

By the time year three got underway, I had moved into a year-long series called “Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life,” where I would share a typical, everyday experience or life event, and connect it to a leadership lesson. They were usually personal, every day experiences, but they would serve as analogies or illustrations of leadership lessons. As the year progressed, this settled into a rhythm that worked well, so, moving forward, I am going to continue with the same idea. I don’t know if I will return to any of the other original series or ideas, or initiate something new, but for now, I am enjoying sharing everyday stories that teach us something valuable.

As always, what’s in store for the next year is in God’s hands. Beyond that, what I would hope for is that God would bless this work and put it in front of more people who would benefit from what He has given me to share. So, if you have read the book, followed the website, or listened to the podcast, and have found any of those to be good for your leadership, would you tell at least three other people? With your help, I believe that God can use these resources to better equip leaders who will make an impact for His Kingdom.

Thank you for following and listening! On to the next year!

God Bless,

Jeff McMaster

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Podcast Season 3, Episode 46: Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life – It’s Ok to Laugh at Yourself

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it serves as a reminder that you need to be able to laugh at yourself.

Here is the link to the podcast.

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Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: It’s Ok to Laugh at Yourself

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it serves as a reminder that you need to be able to laugh at yourself.

I feel like this month has been all about laughter and joy. A couple of episodes ago, the focus was about laughing in the circumstances, then there was a reminder of the importance of celebrating milestones on a journey, and now this illustration is in the same vein of joy. It happened when my older brother and his wife came to visit. They had been missionaries in Brazil for about 30 years, and recently had moved back to the United States to work as representatives of their mission agency. Because they had been living in another country, my grandchildren had never met them in person.

They were excited when the day came for their arrival. When the knock on the door came, I opened it, and they stepped inside. My granddaughter was there, waiting to meet them. When she saw my brother, she put her hands on her cheeks, and started jumping up and down and laughing and exclaimed, “Where is your hair?!” She knew he was my brother, and she expected him to look like me, so it completely surprised her when a bald man came in the door.

What I appreciated was that he laughed along with her, and then bent over so that she could touch the top of his head. She did, and she laughed some more, and even after they left, when she saw his picture, she would say that he forgot his hair, laugh, and call him the funny man. It was important that my brother was able to laugh at himself in this situation, and show that to my grandchildren. He modeled for them what it means to not take yourself too seriously, to not take offense too easily, and to laugh at yourself, even at your own expense. Those were important lessons for my grandchildren to learn.

And those are important lessons for you in your leadership. If you take yourself too seriously, other people will not. If you take offense too easily, you will get easily offended frequently. If you cannot choose to laugh at yourself, you will instead become bitter and angry. It is better for our emotional, mental, and social health to be able to laugh at ourselves, and in the laughter, bring joy to others. This truth is emphasized in Proverbs 17:22, which tells us, “A merry heart does good, like medicine.”

That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from my granddaughter laughing at the bald head of my brother. You are different than others and you will make mistakes, and people will sometimes laugh at you because of those things. My dad was a pastor, and I can remember as child after the sermon laughing at mistakes he made while speaking when he would mix up words, and hearing him join in the laughter. It is important that you are able to laugh at yourself in those moments as well. Don’t take yourself too seriously, don’t get offended too easily, and choose to express joy.

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Podcast Season 3, Episode 42: Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life – Ready to Take Charge

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it serves as a reminder that you need to be prepared for the moments when you need to take charge.

Here is the link to the podcast.

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Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: Ready to Take Charge

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it serves as a reminder that you need to be prepared for the moments when you need to take charge.

On a beautiful Sunday morning, we were walking into church. As we were making our way down the sidewalk and approaching the stairs to the entrance, my 3-year-old granddaughter suddenly and forcefully told my grandson where he needed to step, took my daughter’s Bible and told me to carry it, took my daughter’s hand, and said, “Now we’re ready, let’s go!” I watched this happen and jokingly commented, “Well, somebody has to take charge!”

This reminded me of an experience I had when I was in high school. It was between my junior and senior year, and I was attending a week at a summer camp in a different state and didn’t know a single other person there. I am by nature an introvert, and I struggled with confidence at that time in my life, so I was doing my best to stay in the background. As the week began, the campers were divided into two teams for a week of activities and competitions. My team gathered to prepare for the first activity, and there seemed to be only confusion. Did I mention that I was also very competitive? I wanted to win, but all I could see was disorder, so finally, I stood up, got everybody’s attention, and started directing a plan. At the end of the week, my team had won, and the staff selected me as the camper of the week. If they only knew how much of a reluctant leader I was! But when the need was pressing and no one was leading, I took charge.

Often it seems like leaders are dominant personalities, who naturally seem to take charge. Those dominant leaders need to be sure to consider and involve others when they take charge. Less frequently, there are leaders who seem to be more reserved and introverted, which is my tendency, but that doesn’t negate or remove the necessity of taking charge when it is needed. Regardless of the type of leader you are, there is a Bible verse that has been significant in my life that underscores the prerequisite to taking charge. Ezra 7:10 says, “For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the Law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel.” Before you can be ready to take charge, you first have to prepare your heart, which involves two things:

  1. Cultivate the right person inside, by developing your character and integrity. Even more importantly, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, learn to know God personally and intimately and align your inner person to Him.
  2. Exhibit the right person outside, by conducting yourself with external behavior that reflects the internal character you have been developing. Live outwardly in a way that matches who you are internally.

That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from watching my granddaughter take charge of the situation as we were walking into church. No matter what kind of leader you are, you need to be prepared and ready to take charge when it is needed. That begins by developing your character on the inside, and then by living and acting with integrity on the outside. Without ignoring other leadership and organizational skills that are required to lead well in a circumstance that requires it, if you have done those things, you will be ready. It may be easy for you or it may be hard for you, but either way, you have been personally prepared and you are ready to take charge.

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