Put Your Oxygen Mask on First

Are you spiritually healthy?  Are you 100% spiritually healthy or 50%?  You cannot expect those around you to be spiritually healthy if you are not healthy yourself. On an airplane you are told that if there is an emergency and oxygen is needed you should put your oxygen on first.  Why?  Because if you are not breathing you cannot help anyone else.  If you are not breathing well spiritually you will not be able to help others to breathe spiritually either.  

As a leader you should strive to be 100% spiritually healthy so that you can lead your team and church toward spiritual health.  Paul’s challenge was to follow him as he followed Christ.

A great step towards spiritual health is taking a hard look into the mirror of the Word of God.  Do you value spiritual health?  How much do you value it?  If you truly value it then there will be evidence in your life of that value.  If you value prayer, you do not just talk about prayer, you pray.  If you value sharing the gospel, you do not just talk about how to share it but you share it regularly.  This requires honest evaluation of where you are spiritually, relationally, and structurally in your ministry and at your church.  

A big part of this journey begins when you are willing to honestly assess what type of leader you are:

Are you a leader worth following?  

Are you a leader that others enjoy and wants to follow more than they feel like they have to follow?  

In The 110x Leader by authors Jeremie Kubicek and Steve Cockram, they utilize “The Support-Challenge Matrix” to help us become healthier leaders. The four quadrants help us determine which disposition we lead from: Liberate, Dominate, Protect, or Abdicate.  The authors state that, “The art of leadership, then, is the appropriate calibration of support and challenge at a specific moment, in a specific context for a specific person.”  Where would your team place you on the matrix and what kind of leader do they see you as? 

All too often in leadership, we begin to challenge before we ever consider how we will support those we challenge and train them in what we have challenged them to do.  A great question to ask those you lead is, “What can I do to help you be successful?” 

Jeremie and Steve say, “To become a person worth following, it is vital that you first establish support with those you lead before you challenge them.” Great leaders always begin with support.  Support is equal to equipping and training them properly.  It is not enough to only challenge people what to do without explaining how to do it and showing them.

One method of leadership development is referred to as M.A.W.L.: Model leadership through demonstration, assist your leaders by helping them model it for others, withdraw by watching the one you trained demonstrate leadership, then leave it to the those you have poured your support into as they launch out on their own while you focus on helping others.  

Your job as a leader is to help them reach their highest potential by discipling, training, and providing those you lead with the resources necessary to accomplish what you have challenged them to accomplish.  

The journey involves discovering, developing and deploying those you lead.

Once your support level is where it needs to be, you can now begin challenging them to accomplish what they never believed was possible. Listen to what Jesus said to His followers in John 14:12: “The one who believes in me will do the works that I do. And he will do even greater works than these.” 

Jesus discovered, developed and deployed His disciples. 

The book of Acts records the church’s exponential growth. A leader worth following is one who desires followers to accomplish even greater works than he or she accomplished, so support and challenge them to even greater influence and impact. 

To determine your leadership style, ask the following:

1) Would the word liberate describe how you lead? This leader gives high support and high challenge, and creates a culture of empowerment and opportunity. Jeremie and Steve state, “To liberate means to fight for the highest possible good for those you lead.”  

2) Can I be described better by the word dominating because I give high challenge but low support? If so, you are good at expecting a lot but lacking in providing resources needed for your team to succeed. Sometimes we are setting people up for failure by building a culture of fear and manipulation.

3) In your leadership, do you give high support but very low challenge? You never want to offend, and you cannot stand the idea of anyone ever being upset with you so you protect instead of challenge, and if you’re not careful, you will build a culture of entitlement and mistrust. Instead of challenging team members that you have supported, you will simply go around them and ask someone else to accomplish the goal.  

4) The last quadrant is low support and low challenge and is referred to as those who abdicate leadership. This creates a culture of apathy and low expectations, then you succumb to the status quo, and the team just goes through the motions.

Remember, before you can support others you must first support yourself.  In other words, put your oxygen mask on first and then help those around you with theirs!