The way a leader handles correction is important if the desire is to keep quality people on the team.  All of us occasionally need someone to help us become better at what we do.  That should be the end goal of correction.  All of us make mistakes.  Avoiding the corrective procedure keeps the organization from being all it can be. Good leaders use correction to improve people and the organization.

Here are 7 aspects of healthy correction:

Relationship
Corrective actions should start here.  It’s hard to correct people effectively if you don’t have a relationship with them.  Using authority without an established relationship may work in a bureaucratic organization, but not in a team environment.  Relationship building should begin before the need for correction.

Respect
Never condemn the person.  As soon as correction becomes more personal than practical, the one being corrected becomes defensive and the leader loses the value of the correction. Focus attention on the actions being corrected and not the person.  (Even if the correction involves a character issue, if you intend to retain the person, you will accomplish more if he or she knows they have your respect.)

Reprimand
Make sure the action being correction is clear and the person knows what they did wrong.  Don’t wait until the problem is too large to restore the person to the team.  Even though protecting the relationship is important, the person doesn’t need to leave still clueless that there is a problem.

Refocus
In addition to telling the person what he or she did wrong, help them learn from their mistakes.   Spend time discussing how the person can improve in the area of performance being corrected.

Restore
Make sure the person being corrected knows you still believe in their abilities and that you have faith they can do the job for which they are responsible.  Correction is never easy to accept, but the goal should be to improve things following the corrective period.  People will lose heart for their work if they do not think their work is still valued.

Reinforce
Correction can be a valuable time for the team member and organization if used appropriately.  It should be a learning time for the leader and the person being corrected.  Use this as a time to remind the team member of the culture, vision, goals and objectives of the organization, as necessary to improve the team member’s performance. The leader should consider how he or she can improve to help the team member improve.

Replace
Some people simply aren’t a fit for the team. The problem could be them or the team.  Making the call to replace a team member is hard, but sometimes necessary to continue the progress of the organization.   The sooner this call is made the better it will be for everyone.  (If it reaches this point, the leader should spend time evaluating what went wrong with the relationship…was it the person, the organization, or the leader?)

Leaders, do you avoid correction?  Are you using it for the good of the organization and the people on your team?

What would you add to my list?

Nate asked me an important question this weekend.  He asked, “When and how did you become disciplined in spiritual growth?”  That’s a great question.  I wish I could say I was most excellently disciplined, but I’m not…just disciplined.  I wonder though if some of you may be equal curious as to the answers to this question.

I first got serious about becoming a student of God’s Word and having daily time with Christ in my mid-twenties.  I wish it had happened earlier. I grew up in church, but it wasn’t until then that I really took my walk more serious than a Sunday routine.

As to how I disciplined myself, which may be the more important answer, that really has a two-part answer.

• I developed a passion for spiritual growth. The bottom line for most of us is that we are only going to do those things we want to do.  For me, thanks to the encouragement of a pastor at the time, I gained a sincere desire to know Christ more; serious enough that I was willing to discipline myself to do it.
• I found a system that worked for me. At first, I didn’t remember to tell Nate about this one, but it was an equally important part I believe in me becoming a self-learner.  Many people have a desire, but they never come up with the system that will accomplish the desire.  I found a system that fueled my passion, but also kept me disciplined enough to follow through each day.  I haven’t kept the same system I had then continually, but I know even today that without one I’m less likely to be disciplined in spiritual growth.  (I once wrote about that system HERE.)

There’s my answer to when and how I became disciplined in spiritual growth.  What’s your answer…or is this a question for which you still need to work on finding an answer?

I encourage you to start today!

I meet many people frustrated with their spiritual life. Often I find they are measuring the wrong things. They tend to measure their day-to-day activities, rather than their progress over time. My intent with this post is to encourage you to measure outputs, not inputs when evaluating your spiritual life.

If you measure only inputs of your spiritual growth…such as…

• How many times you read your Bible
• How many minutes a day you pray
• How many people you invite to church

You’ll often feel like a failure in your spiritual life.

If you measure the outputs of your spiritual growth…such as…

• Are you becoming more patient?
• Are you learning to love people that are hard to love?
• Do you desire to be more like Christ today than you once desired?

You can discern if you are really growing spiritually.

It is much harder to put numbers on intangibles, but deep down you will usually know the answer.  When I try to measure the inputs of my faith, I grow disappointed, because it seems I can never do enough. When I measure the outputs, the results of my faith, I can truly determine if I am growing to be more like Christ. (Thankfully, I can see huge progress over the course of my life.)

Discipline helps develop spiritual fruit, and I believe in practicing private disciplines that help grow your faith (inputs), but the discipline is not the goal, the fruit is the goal (outputs). Jesus didn’t say His followers would be known by the number of disciplines they can keep. Jesus said we would be known by our fruit.

What would you add to the list…what input do you tend to measure to judge if you are growing spiritually? More importantly, how are you doing over the course of time?

In our recent series “Hunger” at Grace Community Church, I shared a system I have used for spiritual growth that has helped me mature. I had numerous people ask me the following week to describe the details of my “system”. It really isn’t anything scientific or deeply thought out, but has helped me greatly.

Using a simple school folder with dividers and notebook paper in each section, and a calendar that fits in a 3 ring binder I have the following sections:

1. Things that I’m reading in the Bible and what I am learning from it.
2. Books that I’m reading and things I’m learning from them.
3. Prayer requests for people I know well. Since I know many things to pray for them, so they all get their own page. I often spend a month on one page for one person before moving to the next page.
4. Prayer requests from various people as they share them or I observe them.
5. A calendar of prayer requests, mostly the ones in number 3 and 4, but it helps me to write them on the calendar each day as I pray for them.
6. Verses that I’m trying to memorize.
7. My personal journal of thoughts I have; written out to God.

To clarify, I do not use this system every day. In fact, I do not use it but every few years for a few months at a time, but when I really want to discipline myself for spiritual growth, this is the system I use.

More than anything, I encourage you to have a discipline for your spiritual growth. Your system doesn’t have to be this intense, but, from my experience, without discipline, you are less likely to mature.  For more thoughts on that, listen to my message on the subject HERE or watch the message HERE.

What is your system?

For more thoughts on devotions, click HERE.

To spank or not to spank…that’s probably one of the most frequent debates I have heard about parenting, but something seldom talked about from those who teach on parenting.  I suppose I should not be surprised when I am addressed with this question often since I frequently teach on issues such as parenting, marriage and the family.  Recently when I spoke on 5 Words to Shape Your Parenting, I received several questions again about this subject.  Yesterday I began this subject of discipline. Read that post HERE.

Here are a few of my thoughts about the issue:

• This is a personal issue and one I do not feel comfortable solving for parents.  A parent can and will only enforce consistently those discipline strategies he or she agrees with personally.
• This is an important question, but not at all the most important question about parenting.  The bigger issue is having an overall plan for parenting.  I know too many parents trying to solve this question, but they have never fully thought through a strategy for where they are leading their children and how they are going to get them there.
• The goal of parenting is far more important than the methods used in parenting.  In our parenting we tried many different methods; some worked and some didn’t.  The key was that we were intentionally thinking through the goal and working towards realizing that goal in our boy’s lives.
• Each child is different.  We saw more positives in corporal punishment with one of our children than the other.
• You should never spank, or do any discipline, in anger.
• The child should never be able to question your love after the moment of discipline has passed.
• I did spank, but I hated every moment of it.  At a certain age it was the best method for one of our boys to discipline him through a strong-willed period. The cliché “this hurts me more than you” was really true for me.
• The Bible verse that is often questioned is Proverbs 13:24, which says, “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.”  I believe this verse can easily be interpreted as referring to spanking, based on the way the Bible uses the imagery of the rod and staff of a shepherd.  The shepherd’s methods to train the sheep were always for the sheep’s best interest, but would not have always been considered gentle discipline.  The verse is a principle, however, and I think it refers more to the principle of effective parenting than it gives us a mandate to spank.
• The mother and the father should agree on the form of discipline.  If they do not, they should perhaps get help to come to a sense of agreement.  Mothers and fathers should recognize that each plays a unique role in the process and one handles discipline differently than the other.  I was much sterner on my boys that Cheryl was and she was much more of a nurturer than I was, but both were necessary.

For me the end goal of my discipline was clearly spelled out in the Bible: Proverbs 29:17 says, “Discipline your son, and he will give you peace; he will bring delight to your soul.”  What parent would not want to see the principle of that verse come true in their life some day?   Good parenting should do what works best to accomplish the goal of parenting.

What are your thoughts on this issue?

Recently I spoke at Grace Community Church and posted about 5 words to shape your parenting.   Since then I have been asked several times for more specifics about parenting.  There was a special interest in the subject of spanking; whether it was appropriate or not and whether I believe in it or not.  While I believe discipline is a personal topic for parents to decide where they land, I do believe there are some principles that are helpful for all parents to follow.  I am probably less inclined in this area to talk about what I did and more inclined to talk about the principles I believe are even more helpful.

I have written my basic overall plan for parenting in an earlier post.  You can read it HERE.  Since I believe the most important thing is that you have a plan for your parenting and where you are taking your children, here are 10 principles I believe can help the discipline part of your plan.

1. Goal set first.  Proverbs 29:17 says, “Discipline your son, and he will give you peace; he will bring delight to your soul.”  You should understand the reason behind discipline.  You are taking your children somewhere they need to go.
2. You should never discipline in anger. You will say things you do not mean and do things you should not do. Discipline done is anger is rarely productive and usually harmful long-term.
3. At the time of need for discipline, remember this 3-step process: Stop/Think/Proceed.  The older your child gets the longer you can and may need to take with each step.
4. Be consistent in your discipline plan.  It will mean nothing to the child otherwise.
5. Pre-think principles, but do not try to pre-plan specifics.  You should have some   value-centered, character-based goals you want discipline to promote in your child.  You should avoid declaring what you will do when your child does something specific.  Don’t ever say, for example, my child will never wear his hair long.  You may regret those words someday.
6. Differentiate discipline for each child. To spank or not to spank should not be as big a deal as what works best for the child. (For more on this see tomorrow’s post.)
7. Do not make threats with which you are unwilling to follow through.  Your children will catch on to that real quick.
8. Use age appropriate and action appropriate discipline.  As a child matures the discipline should mature with them.  At the same time, do not overkill a minor incident or ignore a major occurrence.
9. Always discipline the child for results.  Discipline in its concept is not necessarily pleasant, but it reaps a reward if done right.  Hebrews 12:11 says, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”
10. Discipline should never teach a child he or she is unloved. Actually, if done right, it should reinforce the love a parent has for the child.  (Hebrews 12:7-10)

If you have something to add about discipline or any specific questions, feel free to comment or send me an email.

It could be the fact that we are soon to be “empty-nesters”, but I have been thinking a lot about parenting lately.  (Actually our college-aged son still lives at home, but we rarely see him with the differences in our schedules.)  I know my days of having a controlled, direct influence over my boys is almost over.  I have little leverage with them now. I still pay their insurance and will continue to help them with expenses while they work their way through college, but they could probably make it on their own at this point should they choose to try.  I’m not advocating they do (and it wouldn’t be very wise on their part…just in case they read this), but the point is that my parenting role has changed.

My thoughts go to those parents who are still in the deep molding stage.  When children are young they are so impressionable.  (I wrote a blog with similar content last week.) The time to capitalize on a parent’s influence over their children is before children get to a point where they can and will make decisions on their own, completely free of the parent’s influence.  Obviously a parent loses some control when a child begins to drive or leaves home, but it really begins about the time a child reaches middle school or junior high, and even as early as the late elementary school years.

A trend I see today that scares me is the power parents are giving to children too early in their life to make decisions on their own.  Parents are allowing preschoolers and elementary-aged children to dictate for the parents what they will or will not do.  Discipline seems less prevalent and freedom to choose seems more mainstream. Everything seems to be about pleasing the child and making sure he or she has everything they want, rather than the focus being on disciplining the child in attempt to build the child’s character and sense of responsibility.  Please understand, I am not advocating we don’t allow our children to have fun, but I am advocating that the parent assume control of their child early so they can instill in them, while they have influence, the proper ways to interact with the world.

Sadly I get asked for advice on dealing with children usually when it is past the point of doing much about the situation.  Trying to keep a high school student from making bad decisions is much harder than it would have been when the child was six years old.  I often wish the parents had asked for advice when the child was younger.

If you still have young children at home, allow these two verses to speak for themselves:

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 29:15: The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.

Proverbs 29:17: Discipline your son, and he will give you peace; he will bring delight to your soul.

Any questions?

For more parenting suggestions check out the PARENTING category of this blog.

In my parenting I have never forgotten the story of one of my closest friend’s experience with his son.  He swore his son would never wear an earring.  When his son turned 15 years old he requested to wear one.  My friend refused, holding onto his long-held position.  Over the course of a few weeks though, my friend noticed the once close relationship he had with his son slipping away from him.  They didn’t talk as much.  The son didn’t come to him as much for advice.  Something had changed.  My friend realized that it was his refusal of the earring that had caused the interruption in the relationship with his son.   He went back to his son, apologized, and the relationship got back on track.  (Interestingly, the son didn’t wear the earring for very long.)   

I am in similar days with my son Nate.  No, he hasn’t asked for an earring, but it is his senior year in high school.  He is fiercely independent, far more so than our oldest son.  Most likely he will attend college far away and very soon be leaving home.  I’m trying to learn the balance as his father between providing him the discipline and instruction I’m supposed to give as a father and the freedom and independence he needs, as he becomes a young man. 

The line between extending freedom and controlling the actions of your child is unclear at times.  I know many parents who have crossed that line too far either way, either controlling so much that the child rebels or giving so much freedom that the child runs wild.  Frankly, I’m still learning.  Recently I posted on my need for others to invest in me.  This is one area in which I continue to need wisdom.   

I know the right answer to give to parents.  It’s to never cross the line so much that you lose the devotion of your child’s heart.  Sometimes you may have to break their will, but you never want to lose access to influence over their heart.  I just don’t always know how to use that answer when I have to apply it to everyday life. 

What advice do you have?  Do you struggle in this area of parenting?  

One of the ways I continue to learn and stay fresh in my leadership role is by reading.  Years ago I developed a discipline of reading at least one chapter of a book everyday, in addition to the Bible reading I do.  At this rate, I finish an average of two books per month.  This rate keeps books from consuming all my time, but helps me stay current.  By the end of January, I had met my goal for the first month, and I can fully recommend the two books I finished last month. 

Unleashing the Power of Rubber Bands, by Nancy Ortberg is probably one of the easiest to read and yet most helpful leadership books I have ever read.  I write key points and the corresponding page numbers on the blank pages of my books for easy reference if I need them.  A good book will fill the front cover blank pages.  I found myself looking for more blank pages with this book.  Nancy is free flowing with one-liners that have huge impact.  I would highly recommend leaders or those desiring to be leaders read this book. 

it, How Churches and Leaders Can Get it and Keep it, by Craig Groeschel is a must read for pastors who want to see their churches get and keep it.  I won’t spoil the book for you telling you all that it is, but needless to say when you have it you know it.  Craig has the true heart of a pastor. He writes with humor, candor and humility.  Chapter 7 on innovation rocked my world with inspiration. Chapters 11 and 12 humbled me and gave me new encouragement to live bolder in my faith and draw closer to the heart of God.    

Feel free to click on the link on my home page to take you straight to Amazon.com and purchase these books for your library.  

What books would you suggest I add to my reading list this year?