Originally Posted July 15, 2010. Reposted August 23, 2011

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A friend of mine at Life Way, Rick Howerton, reviewed my Triple-Threat Leadership eBook on his blog and he sent me a few questions.  I wrote out my answers and sent them back last night, but one of his questions really stood out to me.  Today, I thought I’d share it, and my answer, with you.

Rick: There has been so much written on leadership, what sets your work,  Triple-Threat Leadership, apart from other leadership ideologies?

Alan: The trend in leadership books/talks today is for experts to say, “Don’t focus on your weaknesses, just leverage your strengths.”  While I agree with this in principle, in practice it’s not always realistic.  I believe there are three skills that all leaders, regardless of their job title, organization size, or experience must have: (1) casting vision, (2) executing strategy, and (3) fostering relationships.  Leaders who learn do do all three will always succeed.  All leaders are going to be better at one or two of these skills, but their leadership will be incomplete unless they learn to do the other one or two they do less-well.   Triple-Threat Leadership is not about focusing on your weaknesses, and it’s not about doing all things well.  It’s about doing THREE things well.  Leaders who learn these three things succeed: they become “Triple-Threat Leaders”.

Click here to get your copy of Triple-Threat Leadership.

Originally posted June 30, 2010. Reposted August 2, 2011.

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Sadly, in the down-turned economy, organizations are cutting out one of their most important budget items:  training.  It’s natural to start cutting things from the budget when the economy is bad, but training should never be cut.  I mean NEVER.  In fact, in a struggling financial environment, training should be increased.  McDonald’s proves this point perfectly.

I have three young boys, so we eat plenty of McDonald’s.  My normal McDonald’s experience involves walking into a semi-clean restaurant full of grumpy-looking employees who obviously wish they were elsewhere.   I walk across a restaurant with my feet sticking to the floor, look up at the menu and ponder my order.  Then the cashier stares blankly at me and mumbles, “Can I help you?”

I think to myself, “Can?  Can?  How hard is it to train your employees to speak proper English?  It’s ‘MAY I help you?’ Ugh!”  Pushing my inner dialog aside, I place my order and ask the employee to hold the onions.

The cashier looks at me with wide eyes, not saying a word.

“Please hold the onions,” I say again.

The staring continues.

With more than a little frustration in my voice I say, “No Onions!”

“Que?” Is the response I hear from behind the counter.

Thankfully, I’ve found a McDonald’s that provides quite a different experience.  The McDonald’s on east main street in Yukon, Oklahoma is very different.  The employees are polite, alert, helpful, and they speak English.  The floors are clean, as are the Bathrooms.  It’s a fair drive for me to go to that McDonald’s, but I’ve decided that the drive is worth it.

What makes this McDonald’s so much better than the others in my area?  Training.  The owner of this particular franchise cares enough to spend money on training his employees.  They are trained in leadership, customer service, and how to create positive environments.  As a result, they seem to enjoy their jobs and they provide a great customer experience.  The best thing of all, for the owner, is that the money spent on training translates to more money in the cash registers!

Whether you’re in business or ministry, don’t cut training!!  The end result of cutting training is cutting financial dividends, effectiveness and growth. Cutting training is like cutting off a perfectly healthy leg.

Today’s post was inspired by this article.

Last week I was reviewing some notes I’d taken back in 2001 at a church planter training event.  I didn’t note the name of the person speaking, but something this person said really stood out to me so I wrote it down:

There are only three ways to lead the church:

1. Risk Taker
2. Care Taker
3. Under Taker

• Risk takers put their faith in God and say, “Whatever it takes.”
• Care takers put their faith in opinions and say, “Whatever the people want.”
• Under takers talk about their faith in the past and reminisce saying, “Whatever went wrong?”

Seeing those points I’d noted so long ago really got me thinking. Every church has a preference for Risk Takers, Care Takers or Under Takers.  I’ve worked in vocational ministry since 1990 and I’ve served on staff in all three of these environments.

Today I’m inspired to tell you a parable about a church who lived under all three kinds of leadership:

There was once a church that was planted to reach people who did not know Jesus. They started the church under leaders who were Risk Takers. Reaching the lost was the highest goal and taking risks to reach that end was praiseworthy and exciting. The church grew and God was doing great things among the people.

15 years later, taking risks became harder. After all, the church had much more to risk. They had more people, buildings, money and materials than they had when they started 15 years prior. Now it seemed that risking money, facilities, things and people was somehow “irresponsible.” Eventually they shifted into Care Taker mode. Maintaining the status quo and satisfying the people became the most important goals.

20 years later the church was a beautiful picture of what had once been. The buildings were reminders of the great things God had done there. The members got together regularly to celebrate all their church had done. It was always such fun to reminisce about the history of the church. They loved recalling the days when hundreds of children roamed the halls, when the baptistery was used every week,  when people were coming to Christ every time the pastor spoke.

But those times had passed and the halls became considerably less busy. The kid’s rooms had mostly been converted into “adult educational space” and the average age of the parishioners had gone up considerably. Without being conscious of it, the church had slipped into Under Taker mode.  To keep the people happy, changes had all but disappeared. The church had frozen in time, but the members hadn’t. They continued to age…and eventually die…one…by…one. Where weddings were once a regular occurrence, now funerals dominated the scene.

The common denominator in ALL growing churches is this:  Leadership that is not afraid to believe God for the impossible! Those leaders consistently take risks believing that God will take care of the results.  The only way for a church to continually avoid Care Taker and Under Taker mode is to always change and always take risks for the sake of reaching the lost. Leaders must remember that anything else puts the church into a slow, steady decline and eventual death. Take risks. Stretch your faith. Without such things, the consequences are catastrophic.

So those now who live by faith are blessed along with Abraham, who lived by faith— this is no new doctrine! And that means that anyone who tries to live by his own effort, independent of God, is doomed to failure.

~Gal 3:9-10 (MSG)