How to Lead and Still Have a Life | H. Dale Burke

H. Dale Burke. How To Lead and Still Have a Life: The 8 Principles of Less Is More Leadership. Harvest House, 2006. 240 pp.

Leaders everywhere—in corporations and churches of all sizes—are feeling the rush. When I ask them to describe their life, they tend to use three words: “I am busy, buried, and behind.” I’ve heard this so much that I now call this sense of being overloaded “the B-Zone.” Not only do we say, “I am busy,” or “I am buried,” but also . . . .

“I feel broke. I never have enough money to do what I want to do. I feel blocked. My fellow leaders or my circumstances won’t cooperate with me. I feel bugged. The same problems keep coming up again and again. I feel bummed. At times it’s downright depressing.”

If you have felt those emotions too, I have good news for you. After 25 years of leading three different ministries, ranging in size from 28 members to over 6,000 members, though I’ve been in that B-Zone, I’m still having fun! Leadership and life are indeed a challenge, but you can lead, pursuing your dreams with gusto, and still have a life.

What Every Leader Needs to Know

To lead bigger, one must lead smarter. Effecting change, chasing new dreams, seeking to grow healthy families, building bigger fortunes, or advancing faith-based ventures all require smart leadership. Moving anything toward excellence in today’s world of mediocrity is challenge enough. When I add the desire to lead and live well—with real joy in every dimension of my life resume—the task can seem overwhelming. Everything in our culture seems to work against winning both at work and in life. Yet I’m here to say that it can be done. How can I be so confident? Because of Christ’s example and the Father’s care.

Leaders today face a far greater challenge than their counterparts a few decades ago. Whether you are trying to lead a church or a corporation, it is a different world and a tougher time in which to be a leader. Every leader knows this, but few know what to do about it. It’s time for a new plan for rafting the river. Twenty-first century leaders must bid farewell to the good old days on the lake and now must lead through the rapids.

Ten Facts of Life for 21st-Century Leaders

1. The Rules Have Changed

Peter Drucker was right when he said we’re living through a time of transition. Our society now thinks by a different paradigm and accepts a radically different set of assumptions about themselves, their lives, morality, and especially spirituality. To ignore these changes and lead as if we were still in the first half of the twentieth century is a deadly mistake. It is indeed like trying to navigate the rapids in a row-boat made for the lake. These changes are so many they could fill a book.

2. Life Is Faster

The pace at which life is being lived today is brutal. It’s hard to keep up, and when we choose to run with the masses, we only end up killing ourselves. Too often we keep living at such a harried pace that our busyness ends up having a negative effect on everything we do as leaders.

3. Change Is Accelerating

Rapid changes are taking place in both the marketplace as well as in ministry. What worked yesterday used to have a lifespan of “X” number of years. Whatever that “X” factor was yesterday, it has become a lot shorter today. That’s just the reality of the world in which we live, and it puts more pressure on leaders to stay on top of their game.

4. Expectations Are Higher

People have higher expectations than ever before—in both the business world and in churches. This includes everything: what they expect from the church nursery, what they desire from the worship services, how the youth ministry addresses the tumultuous world of their teens. Expectations are up for every church that wants to be in business, let alone really flourish.

5. The Culture Is In Moral Decay

Moral decay not only affects church leaders, its impact is felt by leaders in every segment of society—especially the business world. The rules have been rewritten and the number one rule is there are no rules. Except this one: Don’t get caught. This affects every leader because at the heart of every church, business, or team is people. Every time a member of your church or company goes through a divorce, struggles with a child on drugs, has an affair, contracts a disease, becomes clinically depressed, or simply decides now is okay to lie, you as the leader catch the fallout.

6. Servant-Leadership Is Stretching

When we try to both servant- and growth-oriented we find ourselves stretched. This dual focus requires the leader to balance the caring for the present with the pursuing of the future.

7. You Are A Limited Resource

You only have a certain amount of time, energy, giftedness, resources, and money. You’ve got only so much to give, and when it’s gone, it’s gone.

8. Leadership Is A Draining Experience

Not only are you a limited resource, but the demands of leadership can leave you exhausted.

9. More Is Not The Answer

We convince ourselves as leaders that the day we can grow a little more, hire one more person, then our life will become more sane. Not so. I have never known growth to take away my sense of being overly busy and behind. Growth will, in fact, bring a new and more demanding set of problems.

10. There Is Hope

Now why do I believer there is hope? Because I believe God desires for us to have healthy and growing ventures, whether in the ministry or the marketplace. The question is, how can we make that happen? That’s what the next eight chapters are all about. I believe there is an approach to leadership that can multiply your leadership potential and, at the same time, protect your quality of life. Most of us have tried the more approach. Maybe it’s time to try less . . . less of everyone’s demands on your life, and more of God’s grand design for leadership and life.

Excerpted from How to Lead & Still Have a Life by H. Dale Burke. Copyright © 2006. Used by permission of Harvest House Publishers. Excerpt may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of Harvest House Publishers.

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