As a leader do you find meetings to be an interruption in your day, or as an opportunity to exercise your leadership?<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n In a recent <\/span>coaching session with a group of pastors near Victoria, BC, Bill Hybels said, \u201cYou\u2019d be amazed how much of my leadership I do in meetings.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Well, this week I found myself in a leadership laboratory, where I put Hybels\u2019 principle to the test.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n It fell on me to chair our church\u2019s semi-annual members meeting. As <\/span>chairman of the meeting it wasn\u2019t my place to overtly direct the congregation one way or the other. In our context the chair\u2019s job is to facilitate the members\u2019 decision-making process.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Having watched masterful leaders handle this job with excellence, there were 3 \u201cLeading through Meetings\u201d principles I attempted to exercise:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n 1. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>Setting a congenial tone of openness. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The leader must establish from the outset that this is a safe place to contribute opinions and ideas. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n 2. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>Keeping the main thing the main thing. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The leader must communicate the critical items to be accomplished and ensure that \u201clesser\u201d items do not hijack the proceedings.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n 3. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>Getting the ball over the goal line.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n A leader\u2019s intuition must tell him when to wrap up discussion and to move to a decision; too soon and it can appear manipulative; too late and the discussion runs the danger of losing focus and momentum.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n In the end, the meeting was a success, great decisions were reached on key items, and there was a positive sense of accomplishment among the members.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Bottom line? I think Hybels is right. Meetings should not be viewed as obstacles in our way, but as critical opportunities to exercise our leadership. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n How do you leverage your leadership in meetings?<\/span><\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As a leader do you find meetings to be an interruption in your day, or as an opportunity to exercise your leadership? In a recent coaching session with a group of pastors near Victoria, BC, Bill Hybels said, \u201cYou\u2019d be amazed how much of my leadership I do in meetings.\u201d Well, this week I found…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,86,478,7],"tags":[221,218,217,220,38,222,216,219],"class_list":["post-297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action","category-community","category-development","category-featured","category-leadership","tag-accomplishment","tag-chairman","tag-coaching-session","tag-leaders-intuition","tag-leading","tag-leverage-your-leadership","tag-meetings","tag-tone-of-openness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2406,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions\/2406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}