Martha and I have been going through this excellent team-building training/leadership training over the last year from GiANTWorldwide. It has truly been revolutionary in how we interact with one another and how we interact with our team – all of whom are outsourced. There are so many qualities a good leader should have, but upon self-evaluation, the one I need to work on the most is the “Provisional/Plan/Promise” conversation. It turns out that the words I use could be undermining my leadership at iWork4Him.

If you are a dreamer like me, who is also an entrepreneur, you probably come up with original ideas all the time to keep yourself busy. I read a ton of books for the podcast and run across fresh ideas all the time, so I feel like I am continually filtering out my many ideas to only share the cream of the crop. However, when I dream out loud, sometimes I am inadvertently communicating that I plan to carry these dreams into realities. All I was doing was dreaming, but because I didn’t tell everyone that I was dreaming, they thought I was espousing a new direction or directive. So, Martha has learned to ask me. Is that provisional (dream), a plan (something we potentially will consider), or a promise (truly a direction we will take.)

So, what about you. Do you offer clarifying statements when you share a new idea? Do you let people know whether you are dreaming, planning, or promising an outcome?

You don’t need to go to a building that houses the church on Sunday in order to be a pastor, you just need to love people above yourself and lead them to Jesus through caring for their needs.

The general market news media has one thing right, and its only marginally right at that. Corporate America has become a bastion of creating wealth and ignoring of people. As Jesus followers we know this is wrong.