I have been sharing lately a new vision that I have been able to experience over the last several weeks and months. This experience is from my time with the Belmont University Orientation Council, where I had the unique chance to walk through life with 3 other friends on the council, and over the course of the process, I was able to learn a whole lot about how to love on people, and how to lead others. This new idea and understanding of leadership has caused me to have a new vision for what leaders look like. 

I believe that this vision will possibly begin to change the way that we look at ourselves, as well as the way we lead other people… I would like to share that vision with you. 

 

 

STRATEGIC ACCESS

This one for some reason is probably the most straight-forward and basic principle in the world of leadership, but critical to becoming a great leader, rather than a good leader. For me, I think that I was under the impression that in order to be a good leader you had to know a lot of information about a program and be connected with all of its inter-workings. Though this is true, I began to realize this summer that this quality is only for a good leader and not a great leader. 

 

A great leader will take that knowledge and put themselves in a strategic location of access. What do I mean by this… Let me explain with an example. Every other morning this summer was check-in. For us, as we did this 10 times over the course of the summer, was a very painless process where students were checked-in in a very orderly fashion with flow and direction. A masterpiece by our two girls on our team [Allison and Stephanie... they're just amazing!] 

With 25 leaders in the room and around the building smiling and answering questions, we could have been off worrying about other things, such as the next program, or how to make the system even better. We could have even taken a nap… but we didn’t.  We realized very early on that if we were able to position ourselves in strategic positions of access, we would in turn maximize the room to make sure no one felt left out or confused.  

We had one morning a spot in the front of our lobby of our student center without a single White or Red polo [that means the orientation council, or a Summer staffer]. This provided for some students who walked into the room to become overwhelmed by all that was going on in the room, and allow a bit of panic to wash over their faces. I saw it in this one girl. So, I walked right up to her and said, “Hey, I’m Luke… what’s your name?” she responded through a slight smile, “Hey, I’m Abby.” This started a simple yet incredibly important conversation that allowed Abby to feel as if she was the most important person in the room.

 

What our group was able to do in that moment, was take a really big and chaotic room, and turn it into a very organized, personalized place of relational growth. You see… when we begin to really adopt the idea that relationships are the most important thing in the world, and merge it with our ability to be in the right place in the room, we begin to see catastrophic change in the way people interact. We saw confused, overwhelmed, stressed students and parents become very much at ease with the situation, and truly happy to be at Belmont! 

 

Positioning yourself in a place where people have access to you allows you to be a place of answers. Answers help relieve anxiety, and begin to create peace. Who doesn’t want an event to run peacefully? 

 

Here’s the takeaway: Put yourself in a place of Strategic Access. A place where people can visibly see you, as someone who has influence, and use that influence to make a difference for all the other people in the room. That is true humility. It would have been so easy to tell our leaders where to be and how to answer questions, but instead we were doing exactly what we asked our leaders to do! WE LIVED THE VISION. 

 

 

In the end… you guessed it… people were overwhelmingly praising us about how “at home” they felt in this place. How upon arriving on campus they immediately were ready for Augusts’ move in day! How they were actually at peace about their son or daughter to be living here for the next for years!  What an awesome thing to walk away with… all for sacrificing a little bit of “Leader” time and placing yourself in the trenches. 

 

Be Strategically Accessible. 

 

 

 

Luke

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The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling, 
   a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him, 
   nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over, 
   a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away. 
   We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried— 
   our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself, 
   that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him, 
   that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole. 
   And by His stripes, we are healed!

- Isaiah 53:2-5 (The Message)

 

 

a word of encouragement for all of us who need healing today!

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I want to share what I have been able to experience over the last several weeks as I have been a part of the Orientation Council here at Belmont University. I shared last time that I have had the opportunity to grab a hold of a whole new understanding of leadership, and furthermore, a whole new vision for my life. I believe that over the last year, but more specifically the last few weeks, I have had the privilege of walking through life in an authentic community of 25 other people. This vision has started to change my life, and the way I interact with others, but most importantly, it has changed the way I believe we, as people, should lead.

 

I know that many people who read this are most likely in a leadership position in some way, shape, or form… but if not, I trust that we all will experience leadership somewhere, somehow. For some, it may be on a project at school…. or at work… but a lot of us will get a chance to lead in our family, in our friends and around our communities. I think this new vision will have an impact on the way you are able to lead. I want to share that vision with you.

 

 

TEAM-MINDED

Our schedule this summer was pretty tight, and I mean pretty tight. we were usually up by 5:30, in order to be in the office by 6:15-6:30 every day, and would be lucky if we were in bed before 10:30 on some nights. Between these hours, we were filled with breakouts, sessions, speaking on stages, holding the doors, saying hello to distressed parents while pointing them in the right direction, as well as cramming in a few meals.  For us, Time was always on the go. Time was precious. Time was in no way on our side, and as we learned quickly into the process… Time flew by us!

 

With so little time, a lot of people would say that in order to achieve excellence and fulfill the hope of creating an incredible orientation program, that we are always focused on the next event so that it is as smooth as the current event. This is where I step in to say that the new “vision” is a little bit different than the status quo. 

 

You see… for our team [the 4 OC members, our intern, and our advisor] we had a choice to make, every minute of the day……   Choose to invest in our team, or take care of our time.  In moments when time is not readily available to us, we always had to choose whether to invest and take time to care for them… or take the time available to make sure that everything was in order for the next event. I will share with you that our choice, 99.9% of the time was our team. I can’t say 100% because I simply can’t gaurentee that we always made that choice, but everytime the choice was given, we chose our team.

Your team is the most important people in your organization, because if you didn’t have a team, most likely you wouldn’t have an organization. Your team members are the people who actually carry out your mission and vision. They are the hands and feet normally and people in leadership roles know that the team is the people who normally do most of the work, but rarely get enough credit. 

 

That is exactly why in every situation, we took the opportunity to be present with our team. We knew that if we invested in our team, they would feel more connected, more involved, and more appreciated for the role that they played. I will not lie… it was a tough thing to do a lot of the time. We knew we had a very qualified and competent group of leaders with us this summer, but we still knew that the program would have more of an impact on our leaders if we chose to be present and available for our leaders, rather than their “boss.”

 

You see, no one want a boss really. The connotation with that word has too much negativity attached with it. A boss assigns tasks, stays a bit distant in his/her office a lot of time. A boss is focused on efficiency and not maximizing the potential of their employees. A boss is often times focused on the end task of making good reviews, or increasing the profits. What people prefer is a friend. A friend cares for you for who you are and not what you do. They do not wish for you to perform, but rather to be genuine in all interactions with others. A friend loves first, and worries about tasks second. A friend wants you to be successful wherever you are, rather than focusing on numbers and increasing revenues.  We chose friend. 

 

In the end, we may have missed some small details in a program that could have allowed it to run a bit smoother… flow a bit more evenly and in the end, we may have had a few more “I strongly Agree’s” in our ending survey to all parents and students. But we were incredibly pleased with our results. Our team, spent over 3 hours saying their final goodbyes. The words that were shared among all our leaders were so uplifting that after 3 or 4 hours of tears, we were exhausted of crying. Our comments and thoughts for one another were authentic. They meant something to each other, and we really didnt need one or two more “Strongly Agree’s.”

We had the highest approval ratings in the programs history. Not because we were better leaders than the other, I assure you that is not the case.  And it wasnt because our events were perfect either, because again, they were not. I really believe that it was directly related to the fact that our team had the opportunity to care and love on new students because they felt very cared and loved by from each of us. WE invest in our team. THEY invest in the students. That was our plan… and it worked. 

 

In the end… we understood that our team was the most important part of our organization. 

 

Our team mattered.

YOUR team matters.

 

Become Team-Minded. 

 

 

 

Luke

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