(gentle music) This is the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast. It's great to have you back for another episode of the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast. This is the December episode of 2020. If you're listening and it's still 2020, how does it feel to almost be through 2020? It's funny to me as I look back to January of this year. We had so many hopes of having the best year ever. So many goals, and we had to adjust, pivot, change, adapt like the rest of you. This has been, for me, the most challenging year of leadership. I'm guessing that you had to overcome more than you ever imagined. What I want to do in this episode is I want to look back at some of the most impactful moments from the podcast. We heard from you all the segments that impacted you the most, those that were most popular. So I want to do a 2020 in review and we'll go back and look at five different portions of podcasts that made a difference, and hopefully this will help prepare you as we move into a new year, to continue to make a difference. No matter what comes, whether they're problems or opportunities, we can make a difference in our leadership. For our first selection, we're going to go back and hear from episode 66, from January of 2020. It's all about problem solving like a boss. What we're going to do, first of all, is we're going to change how we see ourselves, and we're going to change how we see problems. Let's start with ourselves and acknowledge very likely that in your business or your nonprofit or whatever, you very likely have a title. What's your title? You might be the brand manager or the sales director, the missions pastor, the marketing manager. You might be the CEO, chief executive officer, you might be the CIO, the chief information officer. Maybe in my world, you're the SP, you're the senior pastor. You're the YP, you're the youth pastor. You're the NIWWLL, the new intern who won't last long. I don't know what your title is, but the big first thought, and we're going to look at six in the next two episodes. Number one, I want to encourage you to expand your title to include CPS. You're not just the CFO or the CIO. You're also the CPS. Since you're the leader, you're the CPS. What does that stand for? You are a chief problem solver. That's what you are. Expand your title to see your role as the CPS, the chief problem solver. In other words, solving problems isn't something that you dread, it's something that you do. It's who you are. The honest truth is that anyone can point out a problem. You see this all the time at meetings. Hey, I don't like this. Hey, this isn't working. Anyone can point out a problem, but a leader does something about it. You are a CPS. Now, let's just the truth. I don't know many leaders, including me, for example, for years and years, who would get really excited about being in a meeting and someone says, hey, we have a problem, In the past, whenever someone would say that for me, my blood pressure might rise, my heart rate would increase, I'd brace myself. What I want to do is encourage you to adjust your mindset. Instead of panicking when you hear there's a problem, change your mindset because problems are opportunities in disguise. I'm going to say it again. Problems are opportunities in disguise. This isn't just something to tweet, it's something to embrace. In fact, think about it. What is almost every business? Almost every business is a solution to a problem. What is your nonprofit? What is your ministry? In most cases, it is a solution to a problem. You're providing people with support. You're giving people answers. You're meeting needs. Essentially, you are solving problems. So we don't dread, deny or run away from problems as leaders, we solve them. We are chief problem solvers. So when you think about it in your organization, the value you bring is a reflection of the problems you solve. The value that you bring to your organization is a reflection of the problems that you solve. If, for example, my first job was at JC Penney's, the department store, and JC Penney's, just like all organizations, had lots of problems. The problem that I solved as my job is I was the clothes hanger problem solver. That was my job. That was the problem that I solved. To give you context, there were seven different types of clothes hangers, and whenever a customer would buy a piece of clothing, then the employee or the cashier would take a coat hanger and throw it in a box. Here was the problem. The coat hangers would get tangled. My job was to solve that problem. I would have to untangle the coat hangers and then put each one on one of appropriate seven different racks to put them in the right place so they could be reused at the right time. Now, the unfortunate issue you can probably figure out is this was a relatively easy problem to solve. You don't need a master's degree, you don't need a bachelor's degree, you don't even need a driver's license to qualify to solve this problem. Therefore, my compensation reflected the simplicity of the problem that I solved. The value of my coat hanger problem-solving skills was $2.65 an hour, because the value that I brought was a reflection of the problem that I solved. Now, think about this. According to Business Insider this year, JC Penney's plan to close 27 department stores. If, imagine, the current CEO could turn around those 27 stores from being troubled to being profitable, and imagine if he or she opened up maybe seven new JC Penney's stores. Then I would argue all day long he or she should be compensated a lot of money. Why, because they solved a really, really, really big problem. The value that you bring is a reflection of the problems that you solve. If you want to make a bigger difference, solve bigger problems. If you want to make more of a significant difference, solve more problems. What are you? You are the chief problem solver. Instead of running from problems, dreading them, ignoring them, we attack them because they are opportunities in disguise. You're not just a leader that adds value somewhere, you're a leader that solves significant problems, therefore you add significant value. What are you? Number one, you are the CPS, the chief problem solver. All right, for clip number two, we're going to hear from a good friend of mine, Pastor Mike Todd, from episode number 73, talking about how important it is that you put in the hard work even before it pays off. Pastor Mike, one of the most common questions we get, and I do get a lot of the questions, I see them come in, one of those common questions we get is something like this. I'm a younger leader and I don't know how to influence up, or I'm newer in the organization, I've got good ideas. I can't get my senior pastor to listen to me. I can't get the CEO to listen. I can't get my supervisor to listen to my ideas. What advice would you have to influence up that would be helpful to our leaders who have great ideas, but can't seem to get an audience? The one thing I'm going to tell you is for anybody who is in that spot, I know exactly how you feel. I was there for years. I remember literally making whole presentations, 30 slides long, and getting to the first slide and them telling me, nope, that's not going to work, and shutting down the whole meeting. So anybody who's feeling that right now, I want you to know that there is hope for you. I think there's a couple of things that come to mind for me, Pastor Craig. One of the things is that my generation, and many times, a lot of people, I don't want to even just say my generation, just a lot of people, they don't want to do the work until they know it's going to be used. I think that is one of the worst things that you can do, is hold back what you have, because you're not sure if it's going to be used. I think that a proactive spirit or a proactive thought process or a proactive attitude is really what I want to say, is something that is so important for a young leader to have. Okay, I'm going to go, I'm going to present this. They said no. Do not be discouraged, and this is the key that you have to understand. Don't take it personal. You don't know what that leader also is thinking about behind the scenes. They may have said no because of something else that they have on, not that your idea was bad, not that it was not useful, but maybe it was the wrong timing or maybe there was something else that was more pressing. So I tell people all the time, take the idea. If it gets shot down, if you don't feel like you're having influence, go back again. Be proactive. Do not wait to be asked, because a lot of people get the attitude, oh fine, they didn't do it next time. Well, I won't do anything else. If they want me, they'll come find me. That is the quickest way to lose value in your organization and really be useless. So one of the things that I encourage people is to be proactive, don't take it personally, and then, this is one that I love to tell people. I want you to always think that if it doesn't work here, it's making me better for there. If it doesn't work here, it's making me better for there. This is what I'm saying. Every time we do something, every time we make some creative content or prepare a presentation or prepare a talk or work on something, if it does not get used in that time, in that season, everything that you had to do to get prepared for that is still making you into the type of leader or the type of asset that will be useful in another season. A lot of people, when it comes time to shine, they are underdeveloped because they were waiting for somebody to give them the green light to be used or for their idea to be seen, and they stopped being proactive. I told somebody this the other day. I said, I get paid now, not for what I do now, but for all of the years that I worked and it didn't get used, all of that preparation has now come back into my life in my value. I just want people to know that helping, wherever your organization is, helping right where you are, even if it's not getting used, is still doing great things for your leadership, because it's teaching you how to handle conflict. It's teaching you how to deal with pride. It's teaching you how to deal with, well, maybe was I not clear enough, or did I not say it the right way or could I have maybe missed something, or am I working on something that's not a priority of the organization right now? You're becoming better, you're getting sharpened at that moment. Many of my best leadership tools were formed in seasons that I wasn't in when I needed them. They were formed in other seasons. So I would just encourage every leader that you can lead up, but you're gonna, again, have to be consistent. You're gonna have to keep going back even when they say no, and you're going to have to be one of those people who is always prepared in season and out of season to bring energy, excitement, and joy to whatever is going on in the room. I think that's one of the things that has really helped me in my maturation in leadership. That's brilliant. In fact, I would suggest that there's some leaders, you just press stop, rewind, go listen to that again, because that really is powerful, helpful, practical, applicable. One of the things you said that I like, is you said don't take it personally, and then you started projecting what may be going on, like the leader may have something else on her mind, or he may be distracted, or they may see things you don't see. What that says is that you're assuming honor to that leader. That matters so much because that will help earn you the right to be heard in the future, because if you're just sitting there going, my leader's stupid and they don't know how good I am, they're going to be able to feel that. That's the wrong thing. Everybody listening, that's wrong. Yeah, so your posture in assuming there might be more to the story is absolutely incredible because the truth is there might be more to the story. There might be five reasons that you don't know why that wasn't the right time, isn't the right season, isn't the right idea, and if you don't respect and honor your leaders, it doesn't matter how brilliant you are, they're going to smell it, sense it, and they're not going to listen to you. So thank you for that advice. That's worth the whole podcast right there. All right, are you ready for another one? This is clip number three. It's taken from episode number 72 in April of this year, when so many of us were trying to figure out how to lead during our first global pandemic in our lifetime, and so many of us are still learning how to lead in this season, so let's go back and talk about how do we lead through hard times? Where are you gonna face the biggest battles? You're gonna face the biggest battle in your mind. In fact, most of life's biggest battles are fought in your mind. I always say that your life is moving in the direction of your strongest thoughts. Where are your current thoughts taking you? So many people that I'm talking to right now, they are in total wig out, panic, freak out mode. The economy is going to be in the tanks, the unemployment is going to skyrocket, my business is going to die, blah, blah, blah, blah. Is there going to be blood in the streets? Yes. Is this an incredibly global, incredible global challenge? Yes, but at the same time wise leaders make wise decisions. Not only are there significant challenges, but we're also going to see significant opportunities. Fight to keep your mind in, not reacting to what's going on, but being proactive, anticipating what's coming as much as you can, but not projecting too far out into the future, just making the decisions today that are necessary today. Make sure your thoughts are moving in the same and right direction. Now, to be really transparent, when I was in a strict 14 day quarantine, I found myself battling moments of depression and anxiety and shortness of breath. What I had to do is train my mind back on truth, renew my mind with truth, and tell myself again and again, this will pass. What I want you to understand, that if you're listening to this in 2023, you're going to be saying, oh, I remember that. Life will be different, but we're not going to be quarantined forever. This will pass. Take control of your thoughts. You cannot control everything, but you can control your attitude. Make the wise decisions, control your attitude. We're going to think long term, but we're not making long-term decisions. We're deciding in the moment. Then lead, lead, lead, lead, lead. Don't let your circumstances in some room talk you out of doing what you can do. You can lead from anywhere. For example, for two weeks, I was completely quarantined, had no ability to see anybody face to face, and so I led our church out of the bedroom. Every piece of communication was with a phone held up and I led from the bedroom. I did two conferences from my bedroom. I was the keynote speaker at an event supposed to be in California. We put one camera up. We had camera operators from outside my house, just hitting start, stop, broadcast live. I also spoke to a bunch of CEOs from my bedroom. I led the whole church there. Don't let your circumstances talk you out of your ability to lead. You can lead from anywhere. A great leader can lead from their bedroom if they're quarantined. You can lead from home. You can lead from anywhere, just make it work. You're going to have a lot of excuses as to why you can't do certain things. Remember, you can make excuses or you can make progress. You cannot make both. Make it work wherever you are. Is this going to test you? Yes. Is this going to stress you? Yes. Is it going to push you? Yes. Are you going to survive? Yes, and I promise you you'll be wiser and you'll be stronger on the other side. Years ago, when I was starting out, I was listing to a mentor who said, whenever you lead, you can expect to face probably a pretty significant crisis at least once a decade. At the time when I was in my early 20s, I didn't know what that means. You're going to face a pretty significant crisis once a decade or so. Well, I'm 30 years into leadership now, and I'll tell you about the major crises that I have led through. I led through the Murrah bombing. I lived in Oklahoma City, and I was a staff member at a church that was across the street from the Murrah building, which was destroyed by an act of domestic terrorism. Across the street was our church, which was totally and completely destroyed. We lost tons of people that we knew. We were unable to meet in that church, and our whole world was turned upside down. I helped lead through that crisis. 9/11 hit, I was up in an airplane when the other airplanes went down. When I landed, our world was different. I, like many of you, helped lead through the 9/11 crisis. The housing crash of '08 and '09, tons and tons of organizations went under, they had to lay off. I, like many of you, helped lead through the '08, '09 crash. Guess what? Just like you, I will be one of the leaders who lead through COVID-19 in 2020. There will be a time, years to come, we'll look back and say, oh, that was difficult, and we'll tell stories, and we'll recognize we helped lead through that. I'm 52 years of age. I'm guessing that I'll have two or three more major crises in my lifetime under my leadership that I, like you, will help lead through, because that's what leaders do. I want to encourage you. We don't motivate through hard times, we lead through hard times. Have confidence. Even if you're at home, even if there's all sorts of headwinds, leaders lead and everyone wins when the leader gets better. For clip number four, we're looping back to one of the most popular episodes in all of 2020. It was an interview that I did with Jerry Hurley, who works here at Life.Church. He's a member of our directional leadership team. This is from episode number 67 on building a strong culture. Great products are created by great people. Great cultures are created by great people. That's right. The right systems are created by the best people. So we really are passionate about finding and developing people. Let's start with the finding part. Jerry's trained teams of people to interview. How many people are equipped to interview? Oh, there's probably a couple of hundred now that are actually equipped and trained to actually interview. Yeah, so of our team, probably one in four ish or more, are prepared to interview. When you are training them, what are you teaching the interviewers to look for to identify the best? The first thing that we look for is competency. But actually that is probably the first, let's figure out the overall process, the first 10% is about competency because one, it's the easiest thing for me to understand. Does the person actually have the competency to do the role? And it's one of the less likely reasons somebody is actually not going to be successful. Very few people actually lose their job because they're not competent, but it is important that they have competency. So the first thing we would do is focus on competency. Then the other 90% of the process is built around do they fit in our organization? Are their values aligned with our values? We have two key sets of values, our core values, and internally, when we're talking about the hiring process, we use a term, aligning values. The concept there is if the things that you're passionate about, just inherently, and the things that the organization is passionate about, if those things are aligned, then we can have somebody on our team, and we're going to be able to walk a long time together before those paths diverge, just because our passions are the same. The things that make you mad, make us mad. The things that make you cheer, make us cheer. Then the next set of values are a lot of people refer to as permission to play values. We call them sustaining attributes, things like being able to work hard, being flexible, being resilient. Some of those are some of our values. We call them sustaining attributes. The whole thing about that is for somebody to sustain over the long haul on our team, these need to be true of them. Just like to plan a professional soccer team. There are certain skillsets you have to have. To play on our team, there's certain attributes that need to be true of you if you're actually going to make it here in the long haul, because the truth of the matter is, is Life.Church is an amazing place to work, but it is not an easy place to work. I need a special group of people, so we spend a lot of our time helping our team understand how do we understand the values that we're looking for, and then how do we understand how do I see them in you and ask the right questions and put you through the right process to where then I can actually have a pretty good idea that those are true of you? And if that's the case, then somebody has a good shot of being on our team. I'm guessing there are some people who say, oh, okay, sustaining attributes. That's a new term to me. I haven't thought about that before. So when we're interviewing, according to how you're coaching is the first 10%, if you don't have the competency, we're not even gonna look at you. But that's relatively easy to determine. It's easier, yes. It's easier. And from there, we're gonna look at heart, we're gonna look at your values. Do you have what it takes? If you're talking to someone that says, oh my gosh, I've never even thought about the sustaining attributes of what makes people successful, how would you coach them to determine those so that they could hire toward them? Yeah, I would look at it like imagine your organization as a team. What are the things that need to be, does a person need to be able to have stamina, like I talk about soccer, right? Do they need to be able to handle the ball? Of course they do. Here's how we did it. What we did is, and actually this was born out of a time when we weren't actually being as successful as we wanted to be in our retention rate with people we brought on the team, and we realized that more than we were comfortable with were not being successful. What we did is we studied our very best team. We studied the people on our team that were thriving and we said, what do they have in common? And we came up with the list. Oh man, work ethic. Someone has to be able to work hard. Man, resilience, because this is not an easy place to work. Sense of humor was on the list. Things like integrity, humility, teachability. Flexibility is another one because we're a high change organization. What we did is we looked at our very best and the people that were thriving and said, what do they have in common that some other people don't? Then we built our list from there. If I was encouraging somebody to look for it, I would say look at the people in your organization that are doing it the best. What do they have in common, and look for more of that. See, here's what's crazy. I wonder how many years ago that was? I'm going to guess 15. Oh, it was about 2001, 2002. Longer than that, and I remember you coming in and sitting down, and we kind of together said not based on position, but just based on effectiveness, who are our best players? We kind of agreed on however many it was. Then we went through and they all had those same attributes. What's interesting is almost to the exact attribute, they are the same today as they were 18, 19, 20 years ago. That's really helped shape who we are. We're not just looking for the most talented people. We're also looking for the heart values, that we believe in the same thing, but we're also looking for the behavioral values or those attributes that help sustain us. That's really shaped us. Another thing I want to highlight that you said, just so everybody's really clear. There were years where we would not have been the best place to work. There were years where our turnover was high. We were making a lot of mistakes. We had toxicity in the culture. There was mistrust. What do you do when you're there right now? Let's say there's a culture that there's not a lot of trust. How does someone build that? Well, first of all, I think trust is kind of a complicated issue, and I'm going to oversimplify it, and I'm going to intentionally do that, but I believe trust is a choice. I believe I can choose to trust somebody or I can choose not to. In fact, we have a saying at Life.Church that most people would say trust is earned. At Life.Church, we say trust is given, mistrust is earned. I think that that's an important distinction. It's not whether I trust you with my money or can I give you 10 bucks and you're going to spend it? Of course, most people are going to be trustworthy in that way, but it's do I trust you when I don't fully understand what you are saying, or you send me an email and maybe it's got some blanks in it that I've got to fill in. How do I fill in the blanks? Am I assuming the best or am I assuming the worst? Do I just believe that you have my best interest at heart? We spend a lot of time in one, helping people on our team understand that we trust them, which can be hard for some people to believe, actually, especially if they come from another environment. Coming from a dysfunctional culture. They assume mistrust. They think that there's some hidden agenda, and we said there's not. So we exhibit and we trust people to lead from day one. Then we expect them to trust us as well. What's at stake is speed. If I have to wait to build trust with everybody that I want to influence or I want to ask to do something for me, then by the time I build all of that trust, the opportunities will have long since passed us by. So it's imperative, and that's part of our inside out. We talk a lot about what does trust look like? What does it mean? What happens if someone violates your trust? Is it over then? We'd say, no, you have to go back to that person and reconcile, and then again, re-trust. The golden rule is do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If I asked you, Craig, do you want me to trust you? You would say, of course. Everybody wants to be trusted, so we should extend trust. It's a big part of our culture. It's a big part of things we talk about. Here's a funny question. Do you and I ever disagree? About 45 minutes ago. Literally about 45 minutes ago, the sparks kind of flew. Absolutely, 100%. Is that true? 100%, yeah. I was upset with you and you were upset with me. There might still be some ashes smoldering somewhere. Probably somewhere. I want everybody to hear this. We're not exaggerating. Literally it was relatively heated, and here we are having a podcast 45 minutes later. That's because there's trust. A hundred percent. 100%. Yes. All right, for our last clip, let's jump back to episode number 76, if you want to hear the whole teaching. This is one of the most important topics in leadership. The title of this section was Becoming a Leader People Love to Follow. How do we become a leader that people love to follow? Now, if you'll notice, I didn't say, how do we become a leader that everyone loves? Did you catch that? I said, become a leader that everyone loves to follow, because there's a big difference between a leader who is popular and one who is respected. Just making sure you're with me, right? There's a big, big difference. In fact, as a leader, you may be popular if you are respected, but you will never be respected if you're only trying to be popular. We have to understand this. For those of you that earlier, raised your hands and said, I've been under a leader that I love, that I admire, that I trust, that I'm honored to serve and to follow. What I can promise you is if you were under a leader like that, you felt three things. You may have never verbalized it. You may have never written it down, but if you were really, really honest, you would have to admit you felt three things. What are the three feelings that you will always experience when you're under great and trusted leadership? The first thing you feel is you always feel valued. What do you know? You know there is someone that cares about me on this team. You feel valued. The second thing you feel is you feel inspired. You know that you're able to make a difference. You enjoy what you're doing. You know you're using the gifts that you have to make a contribution to something that's larger and something that matters. You feel valued, you feel inspired and you feel empowered. You know there is someone that trusts you, that believes in you. You know that you can influence what's going on around you, and because of that, you can make a difference. You feel valued, you feel inspired, and you feel empowered. If those three qualities are so important for us to have in a leader that we love and respect, the question is how do we, as leaders, create an environment where our team members feel valued, feel inspired and feel empowered? What are the qualities that we need to impart these incredibly valuable and essential ingredients into our teams? Let me give you at least three things to talk about. The first quality is this. Number one, we need a heart to care. We need a heart to care. I hope that you'll understand. You will never be a leader that others love to follow if you aren't a leader that loves people. Let me say it again. You will never be a leader that others love to follow if you aren't a leader that truly loves people. I like what Maya Angelou said. She said this. She said, "I've learned that people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Right? What do we need? We need a heart to care. I can summarize this in four words. Leaders, these four words need to be an essential part of everything that we do as leaders. Four incredibly important words. What are those words? Those words are I notice. Be like this, I notice. I notice, and you matter. I notice, and you matter. Every location, could you say, I notice. I notice. Could you say you matter? You matter. Could you look at the person next to you and say, I notice that you look really sharp today? (audience laughing) Could you look at the person who was your second choice and say, you matter too. (audience laughing) Everybody say, I notice. I notice. Say you matter. You matter. I notice, you matter. I notice what you do, and what you do matters to me. I notice the effort you put in and the efforts you put in matters to our organization. Think about it. I don't know if you know this or not, but good employees don't leave organizations. Good employees leave bad managers. Good employees don't leave organizations. They leave bad supervisors when they don't feel like their supervisors notice or what they do matters. The number one reason why people leave companies is because they do not feel valued. That's why, as a leader, I have a rule in appreciating people. My rule goes like this. What I want to do is I want to appreciate more than I think that I should. Appreciate more, way more, than I think I should, then double it. Once you've done what feels uncomfortable, once you've done what feels like too much, once you really feel like you're out there showing value to your team members, then you double it and increase the appreciation that you show. I cannot overstate how important this is, leaders. We have to embrace this. In fact, I notice the value of this in our organization. We are a church that has locations at 30 different places in 10 different states. We have what's known as a central organization, which may be 300 or so incredible employees who their sole goal is to serve what happens at the different church locations. They work very hard, very long hours. So on Friday afternoon is kind of a flex time. If they're done with their work, we know they've worked a long time, they're free to go pick up their kids early, have a good time, or whatever. Friday is my only day off, but it's not unusual for me to find myself running by the office late in the day Friday to pick something up or to ask a question or something. So I'd come in there at 4:45, 5:00, and notice that there were still some team members that were working when they could have gone home much earlier. So I started just going around and saying, hey. I'd give them a knuckle bump. Hey, thanks for putting in a hard week. What you do matters. Then I started calling it a gold star. You know, just gold star. Then I started going, every now and then, once every three or four months. Hey, gold star Friday. What was so shocking is I got thank you notes from the spouses of the team members for a knuckle bump. (audience laughing) It dawned on me just how important this was one time when I had knuckle bumped 25, 30 people, was walking out to my car, was driving away, looked in the rear view mirror, and there was a girl chasing me going like this. So I stopped, rolled down the window. She came up and she said, Pastor Craig, I promise, I promise I was in the bathroom, but I was there. Can I have my gold star? (audience laughing) So I asked her, did you wash your hands? (audience laughing) When she assured me that she had, I proudly gave her her gold star. Then I realized after people were posting on social media, Pastor Craig gave me a gold star. So we need do more. So I just told my office, could you find me something, something little, something, something, something. They found a little yellow head, a little squishy thing that has feet on it. No even arms, no arms. (audience laughing) They created a little tag that just says gold star. Now, maybe two or three times a year, I just go around and do something. In fact, we've got a video to show you what it looks like. We call this gold star Friday. It's gold star Friday. Thanks Vanessa, crushing it all week long. John, how you doing? I like you, my man. Awesome. Congratulations. You can work, but you can't hide. (women screaming) There it is, there it is. The quiet room. Gold star Friday. The quiet room, yeah. The quiet room. Gold star Friday. Thank you for bringing your best. Gold star Friday. It's the quiet room. It's the quiet room. Gold star, gold star, gold star, woo! Where's your stack? There's my stack. We'll do it. Woo hoo! Gold star. It's not hard. You're happy to be here, with a smile on your face. (women cheering) Now I'm locked out (laughs). (audience clapping) What do we need? We need a heart to care. I notice that you're working really hard. I notice you put in extra effort. I notice that you're bringing your best. What you do matters. Appreciate more than you think you should and then double it. Say it, show it, ride it, celebrate it. Never rob your team member of the blessing of knowing that you notice and you care. It's the difference between me-centered leadership and you-centered leadership. I tell our team all the time we are you-centered leaders. What if I said to you today, hey, I'm Craig Groeschel. I'm so glad that you came here to hear me speak. I've got a talk on my heart. It's really important to me. I hope you like me and what I do. That's me-centered leadership. Instead, what I want to do is say, hey, I'm so glad that you came here. I believe that you are here for a purpose. You have gifts. You have influence. You have, you matter. I want you to understand what is inside of you because when you get better, you can ... That's you-centered leadership. I notice, you matter. We are never me-centered leaders. We have a heart to care about the people. If we do not have a heart to care, they will never respect and follow us. I like to say it this way, and you know this is true. Some leaders, when you're around them, when you're talking to them, some leaders will make you think that they are important. The best leaders, though, will help you see that you are important. As leaders, what do we need? We need to have a heart to care. Hey, I hope you enjoyed the 2020 in review. I'm looking forward to more content with you in 2021. January the seventh, there'll be a new episode drop, and that happens to be the five-year anniversary of the Leadership Podcast, as well as the 25 year anniversary of our church. We have important and fun stuff planned for you in January. Can't wait to attack another year with you growing in our leadership, because we know everyone wins when the leader gets better. Thanks for being a part of our community. Take the pressure off yourself. We all feel so much pressure as a leader, but just be yourself. Be real because people would rather follow a leader who's always real than one who's always right. (upbeat music)
