Guest Post – Andrew Turnbull serves as Pastor to Families and Life Groups at White Rock Baptist Church in White Rock, British Columbia. He is a graduate of the Arrow Leadership Program – Emerging Stream.
Many of the practical tools from my journey in the Arrow Leadership Program have stuck with me. This diagnostic dashboard gauge was first developed by Arrow trainer Bobb Biehl and then my Arrow mentor Dr. Steve Brown tweaked it and shared it with me.
I’ve further developed this dashboard, but I can still visualize the moment when I first felt its impact. Steve and I were talking about my leadership when he sketched out three continuums on a piece of paper. Then, he asked me to mark my location on each continuum. I’m not sure where I came out then, but here is where I come out this week:
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Let me explain each continuum:
FOCUS OR FOG
Is your vision of where you are going in your leadership and why you are going there very clear? Or, is it quite fuzzy? Are you leading with focus or are you adrift in mental fog? Right now, I feel quite clear on where God is asking me to go and why, so I mark toward the far left.
FIDELITY OF FLIRTATION
Are you being faithful in using your time and energy towards your focus? Or, are you flirting with relatively unimportant distractions and detours that can really take a bite out of your effectiveness? Right now, I am feeling an inordinate desire to reformat my hard-drive (strange, I know). I could rationalize that this is vital, but possibly it’s just easier than doing more work on my current ministry project! So, I mark more to the right.
FIRE OR FATIGUE
You can be clear on vision and committed to doing what it takes to get there, but be sputtering for want of get-up-and-go. Are you fired up with energy and passion? Are you ready to go or are you out of shape and worn out? Before three weeks of family vacation this summer, I was dangerously to the right side. But after that rest and some more consistent exercise, I am thankful to mark further left.
Well intentioned leaders of good character can be taken out by foggy vision, flirtatious distraction, and unchecked fatigue. Giving five minutes a week to reviewing these dashboard gauges has helped me see where I can give thanks, what my trendline is over time and where I need to make adjustments to stay on course. I have found that it’s better to make small course corrections along the way than to find myself dangerously close to a reef with quite a lot of effort required to get back on course.
So where are you on the continuums right now? What steps could you take to move closer to the left?
