what I know about you as a leader is you care about your mission and the people you lead but what if I told you it's possible to care too much your care can actually become counterproductive the title of today's episode is the cost of not letting go hey it's great to have you back for another episode of the Craig Rell leadership podcast our mission is to help you become a leader that people love to follow and we're going to work really really really hard to bring you content each month that helps you grow in your leadership if you're new to our community I want to tell you about the leader guide this is something that you need to get we've got a detailed summary we've got additional questions and information all sorts of tools and resources to help you grow with your team go to life. church leadership podcast just ask for the leader guide we'll send it with the release of each episode also if this content is helpful to you hit Subs subscribe right now wherever you consume the content if you haven't rated or reviewed the material that would be helpful as well and I want to say a big thank you to those of you who are um inviting others to be a part on social media if you post and tag me we may repost you those of you on YouTube tell us where you're watching from and if you have any type of question about leadership I'd love to hear from you in fact I might do an episode or two specifically addressing your questions if you have a question you can email it to leadership life. church or if you're on YouTube you can ask a question in the comment section and I look forward to uh hearing your questions and answering those in an episode soon now let's dive into new content today today we're going to talk about some counterintuitive leadership ideas if you're relatively new to leading you likely Embrace some common leadership misconceptions I'll give you three these are three beliefs that I used to have and three common misconceptions I see in newer leaders number one we tend to think that to grow bigger you must do more number two to lead better you must get closer number three to lead bigger you have to know more to grow bigger you must do more to lead better you must get closer to lead bigger you have to know more remember these are common misconceptions and the reason that these things are easy to believe is because there is some truth in them for example uh early on to grow bigger you do have to work harder you do have to do more than other people to go farther to impact more you need to be handson you need to care about your mission to lead bigger you do need to know a lot about a lot of different things but what seemingly necessary early will inevitably limit your leadership later let me let me say it again whatever you think you really have to do early on if you don't change the way you think it will limit your leadership later which seemingly necessary early will inevitably limit your leadership later I'll try to explain it this way in Jiu-Jitsu if you don't know what Jiu-Jitsu is if you're watching MMA whenever the fighters drop to the ground and start rolling around each other that's Jiu-Jitsu um in Jiu-Jitsu there's a saying whoever controls the distance controls the fight whoever controls the distance controls the fight for example an inexperienced Fighter um might be preparing to defend himself or herself and they may stand one or two uh feet away from the opponent the problem is if you're a couple of feet away from the opponent you are within Striking Distance your attacker can strike you with a fist an elbow a knee a foot a headbutt or whatever so an experienced fighter is going to do what he or she is going to manage the distance there are two places that are safer than in the Striking Zone one is get farther away you're out of the Striking range or two you actually get really really close you get close enough to wrap up the opponent it's counterintuitive you don't tend to think that being close is safe but if you can get really really close you can eliminate their strength in in a blow uh when you're in an offensive position you always try to close the distance if you're attacking you want to be close but but when you're defending you want to create space or distance no matter what you want to control the distance this is similar in leadership there is a time that you want to be really really close and there's a time that you want to strategically create some distance there are times you want to be handson and in leadership there are times you strategically want to and need to be hands off I say it this way you want to be sometimes strategically present other times and often times and this is counterintuitive you actually want to be strategically absent now when you are strategically absent this doesn't mean you don't care about the outcome you always do care but you're not controlling the outcome and this is very very important uh if your organization cannot be effective without you your organization is limited by you if they can't be effective without your presence then you are the greatest limiting factor to progress let me tell you right now you are the ceiling so let's talk about our title uh what is the cost of not letting go when you care too much when you're over contr controlling you actually create three massive problems what are they let's talk about them when you don't let go number one you will limit the growth if your developing leaders number two you will limit the tenure of your strongest leaders number three you will limit the the impact of your organizational Mission what's going to happen you're going to limit the growth of your developing leaders the tenure of your strongest leaders and the impact of your organizational Mission so let's break these down one by one because they are ridiculously important number one if you are too controlling you will limit the growth of your developing leaders I'm going to talk about something we've talked about a million times before and we're going to talk about it a million times again H if you are too controlling you will never raise strong leaders why because you can have control or you can have growth but you can't have both at some point the good news is you're going to realize I can't do it all anymore and so you're going to decide okay I'm gonna I'm finally going to delegate something how and what you delegate matters more than you can ever imagine and here's what tends to happen um in most scenarios most leaders are simply going to delegate tasks they're essentially going to say hey Junior beginner leader do exactly what I tell you to do and quite honestly sometimes you have to start there but you do not want to stay there you don't want to be overbearing and always breathing over their shoulder making sure they do it exactly the way that you want them to do if you do that you're going to be limiting them and the potential in your organization and I've said it billion times before you're going to hear it again when you delegate tasks you create follow followers when you tell them to do specifically what you want them to do how you want them to do it when you want them to do it you are creating people who know how to follow orders when you delegate tasks you create followers but when you delegate Authority you create leaders what is the difference a task is do this in the specific way giving them Authority is here's the project I trust you to figure out how here's the outcome that we desire you go and design a system to to get the designated outcome that's delegating Authority and there is a big difference between delegating Authority and delegating task the biggest different is the outcome in what delegating Authority does to the leader who's learning how to create something that brings about the desired outcome so what do we know about developing leaders in your organization or people around you whenever you trust a developing leader they feel honored and they really want to please you and here's what's interesting um if you're giving them a project while you can only devote a portion of your energy to that project they can devote the majority of their energy to the project and they may struggle at first they often do I I promise you but with coaching and with time they will get better and one day that leader could become great possibly and probably even better than you and here's what's so much fun when they start to focus on something they specialize they get really good an assignment a task a project an area of focus they will often eventually do what you used to do exceedingly better than you did because they they they they become experts they specialize and this is when everyone starts winning what happens they feel valued because they're making a difference they they grow they know that you trust them they're getting better they're making a contribution to the organization and what happens to you your time is freed up you you have a rising leader with you and your whole whole organization gets better now some going to say but okay Craig what if I develop them and they get better and they leave that's a fair question and they might like you may help them get better like hey I got what I need here and they go get a promotion somewhere else that's a fair question but a better question is this most people ask what if I develop them and they leave a better question is this what if you don't help them get better and they stay this is on you one of your biggest assignments calling missions as a leader is to help develop the people around you and you cannot develop them if you do not trust them your need to control it creates three problems number one we talked about it you limit the growth of your developing leaders the second thing is you'll limit the tenure of your strongest leaders if you are overcontrolled plain and simple if you don't let your best leaders lead your best leaders will eventually leave let me say it again this is so important please hear me if you don't Empower them if you don't trust them if you don't let your best leaders lead your best leaders will eventually leave we see it all the time uh truth is anytime I work with any kind of organization and maybe I'm talking to a very talented senior leader a CEO a lead Pastor or whatever I'm always looking at the next two l I want to see the leaders below the point leader I want to see the the next leader down and anytime the next two layers are weaker what I always know every single time is that senior leader is to controlling every single time without exception on our team I am indescribably thankful uh for the leaders the next several layers of leaders and I'm also thankful we have almost no turnover at the top of our organization in fact the three leaders that I serve with Jerry Bobby and we call them the DT the directional leadership team these leaders have been with me for 26 of the 28 years of our church I'm extraordinarily thankful people ask how do you keep your team together and I need to tell you there are lots of factors too many to talk about here but at the top of the list is that I have to trust them Empower them and let them lead they lead they create they have ideas they get to implement their ideas they get credit for their ideas uh they get uh promoted and they get celebrated their opinion matters why because they have real valuable influence H some people ask me sometimes like what is the secret um to Life Church continuing to grow and reach more people 28 years into it I'll tell you right now it is not me it is not me it's not my gifts it's not my leadership it is the power of God through a team of world class leaders and the trust has to go deep into the organization not just to a layer below or two below it has to go deep into the organization to trusting and empowering the people on the front lines you can tell how strong a team is by How deep the trust goes and I'll tell you this right now you can never be big if you don't trust deep you have to start at the top and Trust deeper and deeper and Empower more and it's not easy and it takes time and it doesn't always go perfectly but you have to do it you will never get there overnight but you have to get there you have to make progress if you as a leader are not doing less today fewer things today focusing in on the more important things today than you were a year ago you are the limiting factor in your organization you are limiting the other leaders around you and not letting them get better and you're decreasing the likelihood that they're going to stay with you you're going to say okay I believe you and I want to do this but what if I don't trust my leaders maybe not just trust their character but what if you don't trust their abilities well if you don't trust your leaders either you have not developed them or you have the wrong leaders either way the problem is yours to solve let me say this again if you do not trust your leaders is on you either you haven't developed them you haven't helped them grow to the point where their leadership potential is effective or you have the wrong people around you and either way this problem is yours to solve it's on you um as Leaders our unwillingness to let go it creates three massive problems what what happens number one is we limit the growth of our developing leaders the second thing is we limit the tenure of our strongest leaders the third thing is if you are too controlling number three is you will limit the impact of your organizational Mission you will do it you will be the limiting factor why because you can't do it all you can't know it all you can't be an expert in every single area you can't you will stop the growth so if you don't let go you'll become the greatest limiting Force to your future impact give you a little story um I've told this before but it it was it was a gamechanging moment two and a half years into the church Jerry Hurley was attending and if you're watching on I'll show you some photos of Jerry he was a district manager for Target he helped oversee 11 stores I was in my late 20s and I invited Jerry to come on staff and after a lot of praying um his family made one of the most ridiculous sacrifices I've ever seen and joined us and he came to me soon um into his leadership and he said hey we need to buy a copier and I think the copier was $700 and I said we are not going to buy a copier and I told Jerry very confidently we will never ever own a copier that's how dumb I was I like dumber than dumb we'll never own a copier there's Kinkos you can drive to Kinkos and he just kind of looked at me and he was older than I was exceedingly more seasoned in leadership than I was and he said hey um we need to buy a copier and he said if you'll trust me on this and let me do what I know how to do then you can do what you do best and together we can impact this city and maybe much more and that conversation was um like lifechanging for me that's what I did I trust him and he did what he knew how to do and he trusted me and I did what I knew how to do and together we impacted our city and a lot more um at the time I was the best at recognizing talent and calling in people until Jerry Hurley came on and he was as good then or better and now he is exceedingly better than I am he has helped create a worldclass leadership development culture and if I didn't let him do it he wouldn't stay if I didn't trust him he wouldn't have helped me me get better if I didn't trust and Empower him he wouldn't have gotten better and everyone wins when the leader gets better you have to trust you have to trust remember trust is the currency of organizational progress without trust there is no lasting progress I am thankful that um my top leaders will tell you if you ask them that we trust each other implicitly um I know what it means to be Hands-On and I was way way more handson uh early on because it was more important and strategic then but I know when to give them distance I know when to give them space I know when to give them freedom and let me just be real clear I am still the senior pastor you say I am the boss I answer to God um for the direction of our church but even at that it is exceedingly rare that I ever make what I would call a solo top down decision I mean it's almost never do comeing and say this is the way it's going to be why because I don't have to in fact if you ask my top leaders they would tell you it's probably one time maybe every three to five years like literally one time maybe in the last I'd say five years where I'd come in and say kind of like thus sayith the Lord like this is what we're doing and you may say Okay Craig like why don't you lead stronger more often and the reason is because I am not the most important I'm not the smartest I'm not the best I'm just a good player on a great team and that's the way it works I'm effective at what I do and I'm doing my job my calling with people who are ridiculously effective at what they do and you're going to ask me were they always great and the answer is like no they actually weren't uh when Jerry came on all I knew was business and I had to teach him the Pastoral side of business but all I knew was pastoring he had to teach me the business side of pastoring and together we got better it took years of developing our top leaders and trusting them and trying and and failing and getting better and rebuilding trust when things go wrong and now together years later we're doing something that is god-honoring and incredibly special and that is what I want for you and that's why I'm going to work harder than you could imagine to bring you content that helps you get grow in your leadership that is what I want for you but more importantly I believe that's what God wants for you and as you um likely know unless it's your first time I'm I am a pastor I'm a follower of Christ and for the purpose of this podcast I'm not preaching sermons I am teaching leadership and I know that our audience is Broad we've got people from all different Faith backgrounds some with a lot of faith some with like no faith I'm just honored that you're here and so I don't want this to be preachy but I I just want to say and acknowledge because I am a follower of Jesus to me it's pretty dang cool that at the end of his ministry Jesus gave his disciples an assignment he said go into all the world preach the gospel make disciples baptizing them um in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and it was really special to me that Jesus was clear about what he wanted his followers to do but he didn't tell them how to do it he he was clear about the what but he trusted them or he trusted us with the how if this is true empowerment I love this I mean if you look at Jesus from a with through a leadership lens what did he do he taught his disciples the kingdom values he told them to be great you actually serve others and then he modeled it he said there is no greater love than a man lays down his life for his friends and that's what he did Jesus demonstrated his love when he gave his life on a cross and he invites us to do the same thing this is so special to me like God God trust trust me God trusts you and it's not just to lead your church or lead your business or lead your nonprofit but he trusts you to lead the people that he loves and one of the greatest acts of love is to trust them to empower them to believe in them to help them get better because we know that everyone wins when the leader gets better I want to say a sincere thank you to being a part of our community would you invite others um to be a part share on social media it means the world to me and um in the next episode on the first Thursday of next month we're going to do part two of this and I'm going to share some um emotional and personal thoughts that I hope will connect with you and help you get better guess what happened today you did get a little bit better uh you're stretching yourself you're growing you're investing in yourself why because you're a great leader you're a great leader and de development getting better every single day I thank God for you I believe in you you're getting better and we know everyone wins and the leader get [Music]