Last week, I shared how we at WhiteRock think about influence. Today, let’s dive into what are important points for a leader to be healthy and capable of delivering and receiving healthy influence.
Recently, my brilliant wife and I were talking about the three main channels that the brain receives and distributes activity. These three channels of activity are feeling, doing, and thinking.
Feelings can be categorized as anger, fear, pain, joy, passion, love, shame, and guilt. Doing is action, and thinking is consideration of an action or feeling. What my wife and I believe is that God comes to us on the feeling channel. This is where, if we sit with a calm and voiceless period, He will provide us with a message via a feeling. I believe this because I have experienced this in my life many times. To be healthy, one can act on this message. I also believe that thinking is where we can become unhealthy. The statement “don’t over-think it” can be proven true many times when we over-think a scenario. This can be overcome by a proper planning process.
Leaders can gain a lot from this type of psychological method of understanding our brain’s channels and, with a healthy dose of daily prayer, quiet time, and reflection, gain a comfortable “pitch” to our lifestyle and leadership style.
Craig Groeschel, one of my favorite podcasters, shares in his podcast about leadership the six types of leadership styles. Craig identifies these as the following:
Unpredictable Leader
Unpredictable leaders produce hesitant followers; this leader has no consistency. Craig shares that about the value of consistency – great leaders consistently do what average people do occasionally.
Domineering Leader
Domineering leaders produce compliant followers but not committed followers. What we really want is for our team to have the mindset of an owner. They should be asking lots of questions.
Secretive Leader
Secretive leaders produce guarded followers; we communicate that we don’t trust them. Craig shares that we must communicate, re-communicate, and over-communicate our vision and direction to our teams.
Passive Leader
Passive leaders produce disengaged followers. Rather than ignoring a problem or having tough conversations with your teammates, DO SOMETHING! When the leader doesn’t address the problem, the real problem is not the problem, but the leader is the problem. Reject Passivity!
Healthy Leader
Healthy leaders produce faithful followers. This leader extends trust but never demands the truth. The healthier you are, the better you are as a leader. They seek persistence but never demand a push to perfection or continuous improvement.
Empowering Leader
Empowering leaders produce great leaders. This leader is a healthy leader but is all about the people in the organization. Give responsibility away. Get full ownership by giving it away. You don’t get competent staff; you build them. We have to say no to a lot of things, but we have to say yes to the right things. Pushes the ability to say yes deep into the organization. How to do it? Lead yourself first. What disciplines are lacking in your life? Lead others. Then, you lead leaders! Then, you lead teams of leaders leading teams of leaders. Don’t do things I can do but do things I cannot do. Be yourself because people follow people who are always real.
People will work for a paycheck, but they’ll give their life to a vision and mission they believe in. As a leader, it’s your job to cast a vision that compels your entire team to lean in. I highly recommend Craig’s methodology and the psychological methodology of being aware of your feelings, actions, and thinking.
What type of leader are you?