Don’t Fall Into The Growth Trap

Tweet

In order to grow and develop others, you need to first develop yourself.

As a husband and father, if I want to lead my family towards Christ I need to have a relationship with Him first. If I expect my boys to follow Christ, they need to see their daddy pursuing Christ. My children need to experience me praying, reading scripture, treating my wife with love and respect. They watch me as I show grace to others, how consistent I am with discipline, and how generous I am.

The same goes for me as a leader in my organization. I cannot lead and develop my team well or in the right direction, if I am not growing myself. I am doing my organization an injustice. If I’m not reading material on how to be a better leader and just flying by the seat of my pants, eventually those I lead will leave. An opportunity to positively influence them-wasted.

There are traps leaders fall into during growth. The first two traps will be the focus of this post.

Trap  no. 1 “Growth is automatically going to happen for me.”

We assume that growth happens naturally the longer we are in charge. This way of thinking does not cause changes in society. Yes, naturally our bodies grow, but in order for our bodies to be healthy we have to eat food that is nutritious and stimulates growth. If you are not feeding your mind with nutritious food (books, podcast, seminars, webinars, etc.) you will eventually stop growing. Not growing yourself will also prevent those you lead from doing the same.

The same goes for my family. I want my children saturated by God’s word. I want them to hear of God’s goodness from me. If I do not fill my children’s minds with songs filled with the hope of the Gospel, but instead fill their minds with songs that promote self-interest and hate towards others I would be teaching them hopelessness. I want them to know of the unlimited access they have with God through the faith in and power of Christ. They can only know that through growth in knowledge of Him through scripture and dedicated time with Him in prayer.

Trap no. 2 “I’m not sure how to grow.”

Find a mentor. Let them know that you aren’t sure how to grow, but you want to. Reading books on growth also helps. Like I mentioned earlier, books, podcast, seminars, webinars are all ways that you can get mentored, without have a physical person on a regular basis meeting with you. However, I recommend you find someone. Find a pastor, a friend, or someone who you think is doing something really well and ask them to mentor you. A mentor would love to take time to help you learn and grow. I have had a mentor for about a year now, and I have experienced tremendous growth in leading my family and organization well.

Later this week I’ll talk about more traps that we fall into as leaders and how to get out in Stop Making Excuses & Just Do It.

Tell me what you think by leaving a comment.