The Four A s of Leadership for Women

The Four A s of Leadership for Women ML109 LESSON 02 of 02 Elisabeth Selzer, Ph.D. Experience: President and CEO of The Mentorship Leadership Team Once we ve learned to appreciate how God has created us to be and how our experiences have shaped and molded us, and then once we have learned how to accentuate those things, we may think we ve got it made. We re going to sail off into the sunset, successful, savvy leaders. And yet, then come the obstacles. What can we do about that? That s our third A. We ve appreciated, we ve accentuated, now we need to alleviate obstacles. To alleviate means to lessen or relieve. Now what we lessen or relieve is very critical. We don t alleviate what God has given us in our unique gifts and talents and experiences. What we want to alleviate are the other things in our life that aren t contributing to us exploring these areas of our life. There are four specific areas I d like to discuss that seem to be of particular challenge for leaders today. These are busyness, fear, pride, and then I lump the rest into just other obstacles. The first thing to alleviate is busyness. In an article by Michael Zigarelli, three out of four Christian leaders indicated that busyness in their lives gets in the way of developing their relationship with God. Female leaders reported even more of a challenge in this area than their male counterparts. Busyness is lessening the ability of many of us to tap into the true power source, which is God. This doesn t make sense. This is why we have so many tired and burned out leaders. Let s examine what we have on our to-do list. That s the best indicator to understand where our busyness stems from. Do we want to be successful by the world s standards? Or do we want to please God? What does our to-do list really say about us? What does our calendar really say about us? I know the right answer is that we want to please God. But what are we really doing? I actually sat down and looked at my calendar and kind of circled the things that were related to serving God. And there certainly weren t as many as I thought. And all of a sudden, I have so much to do took on a different light. 1 of 6

And as we look at our calendar, let s try to understand what really is necessary and what things aren t. As I said, this exercise was very humbling for me. As I looked at it, I noticed things like stuff due to inefficiency, due to lack of planning. I mean, did I really need to go to the grocery store four times last week? Because I kept forgetting things. There were brainless hours. When I sat down just to watch a half-hour of a sitcom the other night, it ended up being a whole evening. I just became a potato. Well, what about the busyness that I allow other people to put into my life? I ve watched my kids. I have 14 activities, and the time I spend in the car equals half of my life. Now a perfect life balance is not what s in view here. I think that balance is actually a myth. I don t really think it can exist. You may have a balanced life for short periods of your time, but life comes at you hard. And I think striving for balance sometimes makes us have a distorted view of God. Instead, we need to remember He is an intentional, purposeful, and a participatory God. It is healthier, and it counteracts the brainless busyness that we may get caught up in. The next thing that we need to do to alleviate obstacles is to alleviate fear. There may be some fear apprehension about following our leadership dreams. When we feel that God has called us to do certain things, we might sit back and be afraid. I mean, what will people think of me if I give up this high-paying job to go and work in a music area in a small school? What will people think of me? They ll think I ve lost my mind. Or, what if I don t do it right? I mean, God, I know You think You ve planned this thing for me, but what if I don t do it right? Or, I like things the way they are. I mean, I m comfortable in my current job. I m bored. I never want to go to work. But I m comfortable and I don t like change. Or, I have guilt because I m pursuing what I m passionate about. But what if that means that my kids can t get their ipod and we can t go on vacation this year? Or, I m not good enough. I m not smart enough. I m not strong enough to pursue that dream You ve given me, God. Can you identify with any of these? Maybe you have your own fears that I haven t listed here. As Ralph Waldo Emerson quips, Fear always springs from ignorance. I agree. Being fearful of these things is really not understanding God. I mean God s approval really is all that matters. I know it s hard to say sometimes. And I know when people are staring at us with disapproving eyes, it s hard to say, Well, I m glad God approves of me. And yet that really is all that matters. God really does know what is best for us. We need to trust in that, and that will help alleviate fear. 2 of 6

Now thirdly, let s alleviate pride. John Weston, a Victorian writer and philosopher rightly points out: When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package. Pride in ourselves makes us small. Because self-pride stops with ourselves, it s so limiting. Pride in our God however is so freeing, because God is limitless. So our pride in our uniqueness, a vision for leadership, and our influence for others can be limitless too. Godly pride is more than just feeling good about ourselves. It s based on an accurate assessment of how God has created us and how He s working in our lives to make a difference. Now the fourth area I lumped altogether is just alleviating other setbacks. There are many obstacles such as church tradition, criticism, lack of funds, health problems. There are a lot of things that come up in our lives that will make us feel like we have to stop. But God is there with us, and He has created us to excel in the areas He has created us to excel in. God wants us to do what we re good at. John Ortberg reminds us of the bigger picture by saying, I strongly believe that the way we live is a con- sequence of our size of God. How we deal with setbacks really indicates how we see God and if we see Him as Someone big and powerful, or Someone who can t really help us and really isn t there and really isn t intentional. And really isn t purposeful. When I was about 14, my older sister had an opportunity to join a swim team that would give her a chance of a college scholarship, the problem was in order to go, we had to have a car. And we didn t have the funds. I mean we were scraping together things as it was. My Mom and I prayed about it, because we knew this was a dream that she had. It s so interesting. Not only did a very inexpensive and reliable car become available, but my Mom and I were asked to do alterations for a drycleaner that lasted just long enough for us to earn the exact purchase price of the car. My sister went on to get that swimming scholarship. She went through college and nursing school. And she is now a nurse working in neonatals in a large hospital, helping people everyday. Wow! Hindsight really helps me see that our God is so much bigger than I often give Him credit for. No obstacle is big enough to thwart a mission that God has ordained. We just need to keep that in mind. It ll help us alleviate the obstacles as they come up. We serve an intentional God. We serve a purposeful God and a participatory God. He has personally invested in us and walks with us as we work through the obstacles that come up in our lives. 3 of 6

So far we ve learned how to appreciate and how we ve been created and how our experiences have continued to mold and develop us. Next, we learned how to accentuate our uniqueness and use them for God s purposes in this world. Third, we ve learned how to alleviate obstacles so that we can move forward. And now we want to look at activating our uniqueness. How do we propel ourselves forward? Go to the places in leadership that God dreams for us? We do this by activating values and priorities, support systems, passion, and God s vision for our lives. To activate means to make active or to set in motion. A helpful first step to activate is to activate by using priorities that are in line with our Creator. Making sure that our values and priorities are in line with those who made us, only makes sense. Otherwise, it s like talking to a soccer coach, and he tells you which direction your goal is. And you go and kick one for the other team. It just doesn t make sense. There are no shortcuts here. There s not a quick way to do this. It requires spending time with God. This is the only way that we can learn to align our values and priorities with those of God. It s not quick. It s not like you can do this overnight. But you can do it. A piano concerto is not written in a day, and you don t lose 50 pounds in a week. These things take time. But they re worth the time spent. A helpful second step is to activate support. Support is key to maintaining momentum on the dream that God has put in our hearts. It s difficult to pursue the dream when we believe that others are telling us we can t do it. Or that little voice inside us says you re not good enough. So because of this, putting support systems in place are very, very important. Now these support systems can take the form of people. Or they can take the form of other structures. Human support can be enlisted through maybe an accountability partner relationship where somebody keeps track of what you re doing and supports you in your endeavors. Another option maybe is an infinity group. If there s more than one of you that are going toward a similar dream, you can feed off each other and support each other that way. Support in the form of other structures could be just setting up a specific plan with specific goals, so that you can check them off and make sure that you re on track in pursuing your dream. Whatever we do, finding support as we pursue the dream God has given us is just smart. Just think about it as if you were in a sailboat and you were trying to go across a lake. It s a lot easier getting taken along with the support of a sailboat than if you tried to swim on your own steam. I think the sailboat will get you there 4 of 6

much faster. Another helpful step is to activate passion. What makes you cry? What makes you laugh? What do you dream about? As Margaret Feinberg says, What makes you fly inside? I love that image of passion. Passion is the fuel that keeps us going towards our dream. John epitomizes passion to me. He s a man that lives in India, and he was working at a small Bible college down there when the tsunami hit. He heard about all of these children that had lost their parents and were living homeless, being victims of disease and sometimes worse. These children touched him to the core, and so he decided to take the van that the Bible college owned and he went and started taking children and bringing them back to his place. Now he didn t have any place to put them. So he started clearing out storage closets and things just to find a place for them to sleep. But he was so determined to make a difference in those children s lives. The amazing thing is today these children are growing like crazy because so many of them never had had three meals a day. They are also becoming educated because most of the children in fishing villages were never allowed to go to school. And they re learning about the love of Christ instead of the condemning views of their native Hindu faith, where they were blamed for their plight as a result of the tsunami. John is a true story, and his passion is evidenced in the fact that he is still in India and he has yet to see his 11-month-old son. There is no substitute for the power that is given to us through our passions. In fact, it is difficult to lead without it. A person with passion can do what 10 interested people can t do. A person with passion can work through obstacles. They can fall down, they can dust themselves off, and they can keep going because their passion keeps them fueled. Finally, and most importantly, we want to activate God s vision for our lives. Vision is forward thinking. It paints a picture that inspires. Proverbs 29:18 says where there is no vision, the people perish. Vision is powerful and compelling. A leadership vision given to us by our Creator is absolutely unstoppable. My friend Deb was given the vision to reach other countries when she was very young. That vision stayed in her heart for many, many years. She became a mathematics major and then actually ended up be- coming a psychologist. She had a nice calm spirit about her, which made her very effective in both of these endeavors. After teaching for a few years, she met a woman named Connie who just happened to be the mission s pastor for a very large church. Long 5 of 6

story short Deb found herself on a mission trip to Afghanistan. She is making a huge difference in the lives of women there. And it s very interesting because Deb would not have been allowed into the country except for a few things. First of all, she had her doctorate. Without her doctorate, the Afghan government really wasn t really interested in hearing anything she had to say. The fact that she is a woman allows her to speak to the women there. Because of the issues there with the way that the Muslims work with women, it required a woman to work with the women over there. And finally, her calm spirit that she always had that made her the great mathematician and the great counselor has led her to be very, very successful in an environment where being too outgoing and too wild would really have put her life at risk. She is making a difference over there in this huge humanitarian effort that was started with a dream and a vision that God gave her. When we join God in His minis- try, following the vision He has for our lives, there s a joy that truly passes all understanding. It doesn t mean that there aren t going to be difficult times and things we wish we didn t have to go through. But it is the only thing that really matters. And it s the only thing that really gives us true internal joy as we join God in what He is doing. Psalm 39:4 says: Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth. You will remind me that the days are numbered and that my life is fleeting away. We do not have time to sit back and wait. We do not want to waste these precious days. We are unique. We are created to do great things. By appreciating these things, accentuating these things, alleviating what might stand in the way, and activating the power source behind it God s vision for our lives we can participate in what God is doing in this world. Even though the Army coined the slogan in the first place, Be all that you can be, my encouragement to you is Be all that God has created you to be. Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 6 of 6