Building an Out of This World Leadership Team

This week’s NIV Leadership Bible focus is on healthy alliances.  In my October 2 blog post (during the Federal Government shutdown), I spoke about building coalitions and “commons creating”.  For more about those, click here.

For a leader, healthy alliances are important for a variety of different circumstances…but it starts with your leadership team.  In their 2010 book Connecting Top Managers, Jim Taylor and Lisa Haneberg note that how leaders work together is as important as how well they lead their individual departments.

Taylor and Haneberg believe in the “5/95 Rule”, where 5% of your time—approximately 100 hours per year you spend together with your leadership team—impacts 95% of the success of several organizational systems.  If you can optimize that 5%, you will see positive returns in organization culture, employee engagement and retention, productivity and results, and organizational agility.

Click here to read more

3 Tips from the Bible for Stress Management

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  – Philippians 4:12 (NIV)

For Week 8, the NIV Leadership Bible focuses on stress management—an important skill for leaders and their teams alike.  In his 1997 book Shoulder to Shoulder, Dr. Rodney Cooper describes stress as “the way our body responds to perceived of actual danger.  Our blood pressure skyrockets and our muscle strength increases.  We’re ready to fight or fly.  Stress isn’t the cause but the effect.”

Got stress?  Well, let’s see what we can learn from a few different Biblical perspectives on stress.

Click here for 3 tips to manage your stress as a leader.