As a leader have you ever felt as though you were spinning your wheels? Like you go in every day just hoping good things will happen for you and your teams. What about as a parent?
I have felt like that. In this episode we will talk about how a good shepherd leader has a vision for those that are entrusted to them and will GUIDE them towards the actions, attitudes, and behaviors that will help them thrive and to be at their best - to show them where the green pastures and still waters are in their life, and to lead them on the right path.
Dave Ramsey is famous for saying, "hope is not a strategy". Maybe we need to GUIDE those entrusted to us.
Let's spend some time together learning from from shepherd leaders who have guided those entrusted to them well and be inspired to be a leader people will follow for LIFE!
As a leader have you ever felt as though you were spinning your wheels? Like you go in every day just hoping good things will happen for you and your teams. What about as a parent?
I have felt like that. In this episode we will talk about how a good shepherd leader has a vision for those that are entrusted to them and will GUIDE them towards the actions, attitudes, and behaviors that will help them thrive and to be at their best - to show them where the green pastures and still waters are in their life, and to lead them on the right path.
Dave Ramsey is famous for saying, "hope is not a strategy". Maybe we need to GUIDE those entrusted to us.
Let's spend some time together learning from from shepherd leaders who have guided those entrusted to them well and be inspired to be a leader people will follow for LIFE!
Welcome to the Shepherd Leadership Podcast where we hope to encourage and equip leaders to help those entrusted to them thrive and to be a leader others will follow for life.
My name is Nick Westbrook & I’ve had people entrusted to my care professionally for over 20 years in careers from ministry, coaching football, & business development to now owning & leading a Chick-fil-A franchise with over 140 Team Members. Leading my business at Chick-fil-A is the most challenging, difficult, and rewarding thing I’ve ever done. The challenges can feel overwhelming, But the call lead and being given the responsibility to steward so many people’s lives and experiences is an honor that I’m proud to shoulder. I’ve had more leadership failures than success, but from my greatest leadership failures I’ve learned the true art of fulfilling my calling to lead.
Thank you for joining our conversation where we will unpack the calling of leading as a shepherd and talk with other Shepherd Leaders in Chick-fil-A & other industries about the impact they are making in their organizations. We post a new 30 minute episode on the first Friday of every month and sprinkle in some bonus content along the way.
We hope to make this time valuable for you & encourage you. This is the Shepherd Leadership Podcast.
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HELLO Shepherd Leaders and welcome back! I love these 30 minutes we get to spend together every month!
I want to start this month’s content out with a question. What do leaders do? If you have people entrusted to your care, what is expected of you that separates you from those that are depending on you to lead them? It’s a REALLY important questions because if we as leaders don’t know WHAT is expected of us, its really difficult to be successful in our role.
Last month we learned that a good Shepherd Leader really strives to KNOW those entrusted to them. Now that you know those entrusted to you, what’s next? Do we just hang out all of the time now that I know you better? I don’t think that is our role.
By definition a leader is taking someone or a group of someone’s to a particular destination. A leader is taking people somewhere and those they are leading are following along, either willingly or unwillingly, enthusiastically or begrudgingly, under the care of the leader.
If the leader doesn’t have a defined destination on where they are going, if the leader is just drifting along hoping for the best with great effort, those that are following them will end up drifting along as well, however many will have drifted off, unclear or uncertain of where they are headed.
Great leaders must have a VISION for where they are going and where they are headed. Great Shepherd Leaders must have a vision for the where they are headed that will ensure that those entrusted to them THRIVE. If the Shepherd Leader has a great vision for where the organization, the team, even the individual is headed, then the next principle of Shepherd Leadership is that a good Shepherd Leader will GUIDE those entrusted to them.
Our outline from King David in Psalm 23 outlines it perfectly.
“He makes me lie down in green pastures”
“He leads me beside still waters”
“He leads me in paths of righteousness”
That shepherd had to know where the green pastures were. You see it’s not like green pastures are an abundant resource. No no no no! You have to WORK to find the green pastures. Most terrain is rocky, lacks vegetation, hilly, difficult to get through, and makes the flock vulnerable to predators or injury. A good shepherd KNOWS where the green pastures and still waters are and will GUIDE their flock to them!
Why still waters? Why not rushing waters? You see a sheep needs to have still water to drink from because their wool is so thick and heavy that if it gets saturated with water the sheep would become overwhelmed by the weight of their own wool on their back and be swept away and drown.
Shepherd Leaders have a clear vision for where these green pastures and still waters are for their organizations and their teams and they clearly communicate that vision often in creative and compelling ways to GUIDE their flock to the place they can thrive together.
What does this look like practically? You have to have a clear, compelling, and concise vision for where you are going and where you are taking those entrusted to you. At Chick-fil-A, our vision is to be the world’s most caring company. Plain and simple. Not the world’s greatest fried chicken chain or the world’s fastest drive thru. We want to do fried chicken and drive thru’s with excellence but really we use those avenues to be the world’s most caring company. Many people wouldn’t necessarily want to join up with the vision of being the worlds best fried chicken chain, or the world’s best drive thru. But all kinds of the right people want to join in to be a part of the world’s most caring company.
A shepherd leader shows those entrusted to them what a green pasture looks like and how still waters are good for them, and creates enthusiasm for making the journey there together.
One of my favorite examples of a phenomenal Shepherd Leader guiding those entrusted to them is Alan Mulally and the historic and iconic turnaround he shepherded at Ford Motor company from 2006 to 2014. Detailed in the book, American Icon, when Mulally left Boeing to take the helm at Ford, the automaker was projecting to lose a record $12.7 BILLION in one year. That is BILLION with a B!!! This iconic 103 year old automaker was about to be bankrupt. The company named for the man that began automobile transportation as we know it was on the verge of being extinct.
When Mulally took over, Ford was all over the place in terms of direction. They had no clear vision for what they were trying to do or what they were trying to offer as an automaker. Departments were in silos, not working together or communicating with one another. Remakes and recalls were abhorrent, turnover of talented engineers and managers was out of control, and customers were going elsewhere to purchase vehicles.
Mulally guided Ford to what he called One Ford Plan, getting everyone and every division from North America to Asia-Pacific on one plan together to get Ford moving back in the right direction to produce reliable and affordable vehicles to customers, while profitably growing the company to benefit stakeholders and shareholders. He executed the plan through his One Team strategy. Every week he met with his global leaders in every market in a meeting called the Business Plan Review, or BPR. They were indignant about this meeting. No one was allowed to miss it. In the meeting they displayed the vision, goals, plans, and progress of each global division and talked through how each was progressing towards the goal and vision. They had never done this before. They were able to get alignment together and gain momentum through some of the most difficult economic years in American history since the great depression. Ford did not accept a federal bailout like many other automakers at the time and emerged as the world’s leading automaker coming out of the great recession.
I was so inspired by one recent Chick-fil-A Operator that I recently visited. Nathan Buchannan in Stuart, Florida is such a great Shepherd Leader and he is exceptional at guiding his team to their desired future. He does it by running his business on principles that drive every policy, procedure, and process that they employ. Very simply the 3 principles he runs his business on come from another great Shepherd Leader, John Wooden – the legendary Hall of Fame basketball coach at UCLA and his book Pyramid of Success. The three principles are INDUSTRIUSNESS – CARE – ENTHUSIASM. These 3 principles are expectations for his team and they guide how they make decisions. Elements of these principles guide growth conversations with team members and leaders. Industriousness is an interesting word that isn’t used all of the time so I asked him to explain how they implement that principle in their conversations. Very simply he asks his leader and team members, “is what I’m doing helping us move closer toward our goals? Am I working to improve? Am I working to be better today than yesterday, if just by 1%?” Those are 3 great questions that will guide any team member to being at their best and thriving.
The guiding work of the Shepherd Leader is to show people where they can go. Remember that the aim of every leader should be to serve & care for those entrusted to them in such a way that their people thrive and are at their best. For any of us to be at our very best, we must be guided towards what is possible. We do not drift towards being at our best, we drift towards our worst. To be at our best we must be guided, we must have a clear picture of what is out there for us to strive for.
This is the shepherding work of the father and the mother. All of us with children know that our sons & daughters do not drift towards being their best. Absolutely not. They drift towards their worst! They need the guiding hand of a father and mother to show them the life that is possible through obedience, discipline, creativity, manners, honor, intelligence, perseverance, kindness, fun, & encouragement. None of us learned those things on our own. We were guided, we were shepherded over years and years of struggle to now realize the fruit of those efforts.
Bible study or discipleship leaders must guide those entrusted to them to look beyond the passage, the book, or the topic they are studying to reveal in their hearts what kind of life change needs to take place to continue to grow in their sanctification.
Chick-fil-A shift leaders must guide their Team Members in actions, attitudes, and behaviors that help make the organization run with great efficiency and support the culture of the organization they all love to work in. They must show them the practices and principles that make their jobs easier, and connect the dots to why they are performing these tasks this way and just how important their role is in the big scheme of the operation. This is the fun part of leading other that really brings out the coach in each one of us. We get to show people a way of doing their role, task, position, that makes them feel like WINNERs and CHAMPIONS. No one likes to lose! No one! If we can make them winners in their roles, they will THRIVE! They will want to grow, they will be more connected with our organizations, teams, and family. If we just leave them to fend for themselves, to sink or swim where “only the strong survive” they feel abandoned, disconnected, like they don’t belong, and neglected.
Very few people want to be barked out, told what to do, dictated to, or commanded. People do, however, want to be guided. People want to be shown what is possible.
Proverbs 11:14 says “Where there is no guidance, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.”
I see so many times in quotes, messages, books, and blogs the downplaying of managing. It’s like managing is somehow beneath leaders and that managing is a bad thing. Listen all leaders have to manage. Managing is a part of leadership. A leader must manage, they must ensure that those entrusted to them do the things necessary for the team, the organization, the family, even the individual to thrive. Managing is a part of leading. However, managers only tell people what to do and make sure that they do it. That is management. Telling people what to do and making sure that they do it. I manage my daughters, I manage things about my own leaders. But if I find myself always managing them, and they never get to the point where they are managing themselves, I have to ask myself if I ever LED THEM, if I ever GUIDED THEM. The difference in a shepherd leader and someone who only manages people is that the shepherd leader GUIDES those entrusted to them by connecting the dots of what they are doing and why they are doing it, why it is important, and why they are important, and why what we are trying to accomplish together is important.
I think back to one of my first Shepherd Leaders, Bobby Brooks. Bobby was a unique shepherd leader in my life. Bobby was my junior varsity football & baseball coach, and he was my youth pastor. Bobby and I spent a lot of time together. Bobby was the reason I wanted to pursue a coaching career early on, because he made such a significant impact in my life and I wanted to be able to do that for other young men.
So we were at football practice one day my freshman year. It was one of those hot and muggy days in southwest Georgia where you could cut the air with a butter knife it was so thick with heat and humidity. There were bugs all around the football field and no one on the team was feeling it that day. I remember pulling up on some sprints around the end of practice and sort of jogging in. I had plenty more in the tank to give, I just wasn’t feeling it that day. After practice, after getting all the footballs up in the bags and carrying them up the hill to the locker room, “Coach Brooks”, came up beside me. He said, “Nick you could be a great player. More than that you can help make a lot of other people great players. They look up to you.” I said “thanks coach”. Then he said. “Paul instructs us in Colosians that, “whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all of your heart, as working for the Lord and not for men” If you pull up when you don’t feel like being out here, what does that say about you?” he went on, “you have a gift for leading people, people follow you. if you give less than your best, that’s what you are encouraging. I don’t think that’s who you are, and I don’t think that’s what you want other people to be. Think about it”. Then he patted me on the back and went into the locker room.
I have never forgotten that. I have thought about that very moment so many times in my life that I cannot count them. In at home workouts, running a 5k with my daughter, waking up early to do my quiet time, how I prepare for meetings, how I walk into my restaurant, when I prepare and give a speech, when I’m in charge of leading the hospitality team at church, when I wrote my MBA dissertation. All because a Shepherd Leader in my life took time to guide me and “lead me in paths of righteousness”. Bobby , Coach Brooks, passed away a year ago tragically in a car accident. I thought again of what he said to me going into that locker room. I have followed him for life, if even from a distance.
A good shepherd leader will guide those entrusted to them in a way that will SHOW where they can GO.
The next time we get together we will discuss the 3rd principle of Shepherd Leadership which is to PROTECT those entrusted to us.
Encouraging you to KNOW, GUIDE, PROTECT, & PROVIDE for those entrusted to you so that they will thrive and that you will be a leader that people will follow for LIFE.
Until next time, shepherd well my friends.