The Leadership Drop Podcast
This is a podcast for Pastors, leaders, and anyone who wants to grow to be all that God has called them to be.
The Leadership Drop Podcast
Steering with Vision: Leadership Insights from a Harley-Davidson Journey
Ever felt like your leadership journey could use a kickstart? Pull up a chair, grab your helmet, and let's ride together through the twists and turns of leading with purpose. I'm Pastor Jackie, and on my trusty Harley, I've discovered some incredible parallels between the open road and the art of steering organizations and teams. Life threw me a curveball once, nearly crashing into a church member's car, and it taught me a vital lesson: where your eyes go, your path follows. This episode isn't just a recount of my near misses; it's a deep exploration of vision and its undeniable grip on the direction we lead our lives, our families, and our endeavors.
Buckle up for a conversation that throttles through the balance of momentum and stability – two elements as vital to leadership as they are to riding. You'll learn why succession planning isn't just about handing over the keys; it's about legacy and preparation, akin to the careful transition of power between Old Testament kings. We'll reflect on self-leadership and the personal boundaries that safeguard our health and ensure we're not just caretakers of the present but architects of the future. This episode is a scenic route through the heart of leadership, with every mile offering a chance to grow, reflect, and keep our gaze fixed firmly on the horizon. Join me, and let's make this ride count.
Welcome to the Leadership Drop Podcast. In each episode, pastor Jackie, along with selected guests from time to time, aim to drop some leadership insights that are designed to help you thrive, whether you're leading a church, a business, a team, a family or simply yourself. So lean in, listen, laugh and learn as we drop some leadership truth, and watch out for that leadership mic drop moment. Let's go.
Speaker 2:Welcome to this month's edition of the Leadership Drop podcast. My name is Pastor Jackie and it's just a joy to be able to be with you, share some insights and thoughts about leadership in particular, and today we're talking about leadership lessons that I've learned on the backside of my Harley. Now, a lot of people don't know, but I'm a dangerous Harley Davidson motorcycle rider, and when I mean dangerous, it's just dangerous if you're riding along with me. But I, for several years now, have ridden a Harley. I have had a Road King, the most recent bike and this past summer, for my 10-year sabbatical here, I somehow talked my wife into getting on the back of a motorcycle and riding from here all the way to Bryce Canyon, all the way up to the Canadian border, back down through Colorado and then back home. Just so you know, I have some incredibly persuasive skills. Now, I'll never be able to convince her to do it again, but we did it and over the years of riding motorcycles I've learned some lessons. And these are actually some thoughts that I was thinking, because we were going for like 22 days on our motorcycle and I had a lot of road time just to think. And here's some thoughts as I was riding through northern Arizona, utah, idaho, montana, wyoming, colorado. These are some thoughts that I had about leadership that I wanted to share with you, lessons that I learned on the bike. The first lesson that I want to share with you if you're going to be a great leader, you're going to have to be a visionary. Vision really matters. Now.
Speaker 2:I learned this lesson very early in my motorcycle career. I was turning 40, and I had been going to the Harley-Davidson store at Arrowhead here in Peoria, arizona, and I was just fascinated. I had some friends that rode, and I was looking at them and the beautiful bikes and trying to figure out how, one day, I could afford one, and finally, I pulled the trigger and bought my very first motorcycle. It was a Sportster 1200, not something you'd ride across the country, but I would ride around town. The sad thing is, though, is that, at age 40, and I wasn't having a midlife crisis or anything God told me to do it all right. So, at the age of 40, I bought a motorcycle, but the sad thing about it was I'd never ridden a motorcycle. I had absolutely no clue of how to ride a motorcycle, but for some reason I bought one, but when I bought it, they had to trailer it to my house because I couldn't ride it home. And when they got it to my house, one of the things they told us early on in like the classes I began to take, is that the motorcycle many times will go the direction that you are looking. This is vision, okay, and as a matter of fact, I started riding the salesman. He was a great salesman. I need to get him on staff as an evangelist here at our church because he sold a motorcycle to a dude that didn't know how to ride a motorcycle. And his words of advice to me he said it's simple you just ride in ever-widening circles. He said you'll ride around your block, you'll ride around your community, you'll ride around your state and then you'll ride around the nation and you know what it's actually. What ended up is what happened is I started riding around the block. One of the first times I was riding around the block, there was a guy by the name of Jason that lived around the corner from us. He was a guy that came to our church the church I was pastoring up in Peoria, arizona at the time and he was driving down the road and I'm like, oh, there's Jason. And my eyes just kept looking at Jason and my bike kept going toward Jason's car and I almost hit him. He stopped and said, all right, pastor, and I'm like, yeah, but my eyes are going and the bike is going the direction of my eyes.
Speaker 2:Here's an organizational leadership tip If you're the leader of an organization, your organization will go where the leader looks. It will go where the leader looks. The Bible says without vision people perish, and that we have to have visionary leadership. I know of some churches in our world today I don't want to say specifically where and who that have come into a lot of money and sometimes we think the cure to our problems as an organization, whether it be our business or whether it be our sports team, whether it be our classrooms, our schools or our churches or even our families we think, man, if we could just get a lot of money, then that would solve all the problems we have in our organization. But I can take you to some churches that have a lot of money that are struggling. Why? Because they have a lot of money but not a lot of vision. And where there is no vision, people, organizations, teams, families struggle, organizations, teams, families struggle. At some point.
Speaker 2:We as leaders have to take responsibility for the fact that we are not envisioning a brighter or preferred future, as we like to say. I heard Craig Crochelle say this years ago on one of his podcasts. He said I used to say that our church wouldn't, but now, after I've been here this many years, I have to say that I haven't led our church too. So often that is the case. We like to make excuses for the organizations we lead. Our business won't, our office won't, our school won't, our team won't. Our school won't, our team won't, our family won't, our church won't. And that may be true in the early days if you're new in leadership in those areas, but if you've been there a while, you're the leader and you haven't led them to. Because leadership matters, vision matters and your organization is going to go the direction that the leader looks.
Speaker 2:So the first lesson I've learned riding a motorcycle is vision matters. Here's the second lesson preparation also matters, like no other mode of transportation I know of, maybe the exception of an airplane. I'm not a pilot. I may buy an airplane one day. I won't know how to fly it, like I don't know how to ride a motorcycle, uh. But on a motorcycle. You have to prepare in advance for some stuff. Uh, even short trips. You got to get your helmet, get your gloves, you got to know what the temperature is outside, what kind of clothing you need to wear. The clothing that you would normally wear just to walk across the yard is not going to be enough of the clothing that you would wear riding down the road.
Speaker 2:And then you take a long trip, like we took this summer, and there was a lot of preparation. We had to look at where we were going to stay, how long it was going to take us to ride the bike from here to there. One day we rode from Idaho Springs or Idaho Falls, I should say, got up at six in the morning, rode all the way on the other side of Yellowstone and we got there at 8 that night. My wife was really happy that day. She loved that day. We got there at 8 at night. There was no air conditioning in the hotel room. It was just a disaster. But what I'm trying to say is preparation really does matter. You have to pack. You have to pack specifically. You have to look at stops along the way where there's going to be a washer and dryer to laundry your clothes, you've got to bring quarters for the laundry. There's just a lot of stuff. Probably one of the things that makes a long bike ride like that fun is that you're actually living out that bike ride months in advance of actually taking it. So here's the deal.
Speaker 2:In leadership, preparation matters also, many times we are getting what we're planning on. If we're not getting a lot, it's because we're not planning for a lot. One of my coaches says this, and I think it's so good and it's been so true for us is that when we dig ditches, god will send the rain. In other words, when we start believing God for great things and we start preparing for the rain, like, okay, god, we're going to get ready for what you're going to do and we're going to ask you to send the rain, god then sends the rain. I'm sitting in a studio today. That's really a great illustration of that.
Speaker 2:I've been at our church now for almost 11 years and we built this building that this studio is in. It's adjacent to our worship center, just across the hall and downstairs. But when we built this building, as we were building it, we were building in so much technology that we didn't have in our other room and one of our sound guys is here this morning. He was part of our church even in those days and he can probably remember used to be able to run all the tech with two hands and a toe in our sound booth in our older worship room, but I knew I was so fearful, ben, we're moving into this place and there's going to be lights, there's going to be video, there's going to be online streaming, there's going to be, obviously, the audio. It's going to be more complicated and I'm like God, how are we going to staff all of those volunteers that we used to be able to staff with one, and now it's probably a team of 10 or 15 on a Sunday? And we just begin to prepare and we begin to ask God to send the rain. And as we prepare for stuff, god will send the rain. So what are you preparing for? God will send the rain. So what are you preparing for? What kind of God-sized things are you planning on God doing in your school, on your sports team, in your family, at your business or in your church? A third lesson Well, this is a really important one from the back of a motorcycle the importance of balance and momentum.
Speaker 2:Motorcycles are a curious beast. They only have two wheels and you have to have a lot of balance and then you also have to use the throttle through the turn to create momentum so that it stays upright. Let me give you a not so great illustration of the importance of balance and momentum when it comes to a motorcycle. My son's father-in-law builds motorcycles for a living I will not say the name of the company as to protect his story but he builds some very expensive, $100,000 motorcycles and sells them all over the country Hugely successful. But back in the early days of him starting out his business, I was his pastor and he was down at Daytona at Bike Week and at Daytona at Bike Week on a bike that he built, the throttle got stuck. At bike week, on a bike that he built, the throttle got stuck. He had to lay it over in the middle of a busy Daytona bike week street and he has all the scabs and bruises to prove it. He was one big road rash when he got back to our home state. But here's the really sad thing our home state, but here's the really sad thing. The bike righted itself because when the bike has momentum, it wants to ride on two wheels. It righted itself and went down to the end of the street and ran over another person and that person lost one of their legs.
Speaker 2:Balance and momentum hugely important on a bike. If you stay balanced and you keep momentum, things will go well. You can have balance. But if you lack momentum, you're going to fall over. You can have momentum and lack balance and you're going to fall over. You can have momentum and lack balance and you're going to have a major wreck. So those two goes hand in hand. So how does it relate to you as a leader? You need balance and momentum in your life. You need to make sure that you have healthy margins in your life. That's balance. But you need to also make sure you're running at a healthy pace. That's momentum.
Speaker 2:I like to say in leadership, we need to be always stacking wins and moving forward. Every time I have a little win, it doesn't have to be a big one. If I can stack that on top of another one, and another one, and another one, well, that creates momentum. And then I would also say that, when it comes to balance and momentum in your personal and professional lives, that you need to have healthy habits and healthy hobbies, that you devote a healthy amount of time toward, and both of those ends of that sentence are very, very important. You need to have healthy habits and healthy hobbies. I think you need to have some healthy distractions that when you get away from work, you can just shut it down. You can say I'm going to do this on Friday or I'm going to do this on Saturday. Whatever your day off may be For me Saturday, whatever your day off may be For me, it may have been riding a motorcycle. I'm now really involved in upland quail hunting and have a bird dog, and so on Fridays we're out walking the desert and I can just turn off everything else and look for stuff to kill, mainly little birds that people call pets. But the point is that you need to have healthy habits, but you also need to make sure you spend a healthy amount of time with those habits. You can spend too much time with habits and hobbies and you end up sacrificing family time or work time. So there needs to be balance, but there also needs to be momentum. We'll talk more about momentum in a later podcast.
Speaker 2:Here's a fourth thing I learned on the back of a bike you need to do hard stuff. There are some times in your life that you just need to say, man, this is going to stretch me and this is going to be harder than what I normally something I would normally do For us a cross-country motorcycle ride. We went with some seasoned riders, good friends from Oklahoma that I served as their pastor 30 years ago, and they meant no problem. But it was a hard thing for us to keep up and it was hard to think about riding that many miles to going all the way from here to the Canadian border and back. That was hard. Hard to get our head around. Hard to get our other end of our body around. That was hard. Hard to get our head around. Hard to get our other end of our body around. It was hard. But sometimes in life you just need to do some hard stuff. You challenge yourself. Maybe that's going back to school, maybe it's getting your master's degree, maybe that's learning a different trade that you're not familiar with. To stretch you, a different trade that you're not familiar with, to stretch you. Leaders should be lifelong learners and you should be doing the hard work of learning. No-transcript do the hard stuff.
Speaker 2:Here's the sixth thing lessons from the back of a bike. Enjoy the journey. That's particularly true on a motorcycle. I have to tell you that when I'm in a car, I'm not always thinking about the road around me. The beauty of riding on a motorcycle is you experience all of the environment around you, all of the smells and the scenes, and you're not in a hurry. We stopped along the way many more times than we would, enjoyed every little breakfast place that we came across back, hole-in-the-wall places and little bitty small towns in the middle of nowhere, and we just enjoyed soaking in the culture of those places. Motorcycle riding is about enjoying the journey, and here's what I would say about leadership. Healthy leadership is about creating that discipline that you are enjoying the journey. Yes, we need to do more. Yes, we need to change things. Yes, we need to create more positive momentum, whatever the case may be in time in your leadership journey that you have right now and whatever's next. It may be bigger, but it will probably not necessarily be better. It'll just be different. And so enjoy, take time to what's the old saying, take time to smell the roses, or whatever. Enjoy the journey.
Speaker 2:I took a little time, a little moment this morning. We're recording this podcast on a Wednesday here at our church for the last 10 years, we've had a Wednesday morning prayer meeting at 6 am and we gather to pray. That's all we do. We just gather to pray. I was walking over. I had an elder meeting after this and so I was walking over back to my office, had a few minutes before the elder meeting began and I just started looking around and I just started just appreciating the place that God had put me in. It was a beautiful morning. I began to reminisce about how much things had changed and just took a small stroll. It was going to be a busy day, but took a little small stroll and allowed myself to enjoy the journey, and I encourage you to do that. I encourage you to do that as parents. If you have young children, man, I can tell you they're going to grow up quickly. Enjoy the journey. Enjoy those moments in time where they may be stressing you out. You're like man, I'm so tired of them getting up in the middle of the night or whatever. Those things happen. I understand, but enjoy these moments because they won't last forever.
Speaker 2:Here's a seventh lesson from the back of a bike. You ready Number seven be focused, man, when you're riding a motorcycle. You got to be like a middle linebacker in the NFL. You got to keep your head on a swivel or somebody's going to hit you, and so you have to stay focused. You can't just daydream, you can't put it on cruise control. I mean, you can put your bike on cruise control, but you can't put your mind on cruise control. You've got to stay focused. It's usually not the motorcycle that is the problem, it's the person hitting the motorcycle with their car that is the problem. We were almost in a wreck several years ago up toward kingman and it's like right in front of us and right the intersection, right before we came across, two cars collided. I'm like man, if we'd gotten there, you know, 10 seconds earlier, that could have been us. So you have to stay focused in your life, in your organization.
Speaker 2:Stay focused first of all. I would encourage you right now. What it is that your organization that you lead, what's the main thing that you do? What is the main thing? And stay focused on that. Keep that in the crosshairs. There will always be competing visions in your organization and I think the primary job of any leader in any organization is to defend the vision against smaller competing visions. Make sure you stay focused on the main thing here. Our main thing is that we exist to make Jesus known. And when people start competing with that, with other things, and they're like they want to do this but it doesn't really make Jesus know, we're like, well, we really don't do that, because that's not what we do. Stay focused.
Speaker 2:And then number eight take care of your marriage. You say what does that have to do with being on the back of a bike? Well, if your wife's with you, it has everything to do with it, but it also has everything to do with no matter what you're doing in leadership. Take care of your marriage. If you're married, take care of your marriage. Because here's the deal, guys If you lose your marriage, you'll lose your ministry. And if you lose your ministry, you've lost a lot, but it's not as bad as losing your marriage. So, whatever you're doing today, whatever's going on in your world today, make sure to spend some time investing in your marriage. I tell everybody I've said this in marriage and parenting sermons a million times over the years but if you do a great job raising your kids, one day they're going to leave. If you do a great job being a spouse to your husband or your wife. They'll never leave you, and so stay focused on your marriage.
Speaker 2:Here's the last leadership lesson from the back of a bike. Are you ready? Here it is Sell the bike, sell the bike. I'm doing this podcast a week and a half after actually selling my bike. I am no longer a dangerous motorcycle dude, but at some point you have to have a succession plan.
Speaker 2:When I say sell the bike, I'm not saying everybody, go to their garage if you have a motorcycle and go sell your bike. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that nothing in leadership lasts forever and that there will sometime be a point in which you will need to replace yourself. There will sometimes be a point where you need to put a healthy succession plan in. I think every good organization has a healthy succession plan for its leaders. If you go back and study the Old Testament kings the bosses of the Old Testament, first and second kings you'll find that some of them had good succession plans, some of them didn't, and when they didn't and there was chaos between the last king and the next king, it was never good for the nation, and so sell the bike.
Speaker 2:Think about what are you going to do when you're no longer in the role that you're currently in, who's going to lead that and how can you make that person's life better by the things you are doing today? So I hope this has been helpful Lessons from the back of a bike about leadership and I hope that you'll spend some time asking yourself how well am I currently leading? Am I a visionary? Do I have a vision for our organization? Am I balanced and do we have momentum All of these things, and I pray that you'll have the best month, the best year of your life, leading whatever organization you lead. And remember, the most difficult organization or individual you will ever lead is yourself. So take care of yourself and be a healthy leader with proper margins. Thanks, have a great day.