6 Traits That Separate Great Leaders

Leaders Aren't Born — They're Built

In this episode of the Mantle Moments Podcast, Caleb and Chris Wallis sit down for a real, unscripted conversation about the 6 traits every leader needs to develop. From humility and effective communication to servant leadership — they pull from scripture, personal stories, coaching experiences, and the example of Jesus to unpack what it actually looks like to lead well in 2026. Whether you're leading a church, a team, a family, or just starting your journey, this one's for you.

Key Ideas Discussed This Episode:
• Humility — It's not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. Why the most prideful leaders are often the most insecure ones.
• Effective Communication — Why listening is the most underrated leadership skill, how to read a room, and the power of remembering someone's name.
• Accountability — How to find the right accountability partners, what it means to be "above reproach," and why even great leaders need a board that could remove them.
• Love — Why loving who you lead is non-negotiable, how to lead the high-performers who'd never ask for help, and why correction and love are the same thing.
• Consistency — The difference between being disciplined and being truly consistent, and why your heart posture matters more than your methods.
• Servant Leadership — Leaders go first and eat last. If serving is below you, leadership is beyond you.

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Leaders Aren't Born — They're Built

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Mantle Moments Podcast. We are back. We we failed last month. We did. We just didn't make it. No, it was it was a crazy march. We did not make it. But hey, if we can get this out at the last Thursday of April, we're three for four. 75%. C's get degrees, right? No. But uh, we apologize for the missed month last month, but we are back and we're excited to talk some some leadership with you today. Um, today's topic is going to be six traits every leadership possess.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Yeah, and what a topic that is because the reality of it is I don't think leaders are born. I believe that leaders are developed and we can learn how to be better leaders. We can learn how to develop a higher capacity for leadership. And so it's important, though, to have the traits and at least know who you're becoming. And one of the greatest examples of that is Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Yeah, Jesus was the best leader, truly was. So, what do you say to those people that are like, you know, some people just got it? Some people are just that natural born leader. You know, it's it's not something you can learn.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Well, I think that when people say that, what they're actually referring to is that people have some natural charisma, some natural likability. But just because you have charisma does not make you a leader. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

I've seen a lot of stereotypes in today's world of like there's that type A person and that type B person, that type A person is the the go-getter, is the one that is very self-motivated. And those are often the types of people that I feel like get labeled as as the leaders, whereas type B is a lot more spontaneous, but in reality, just different personalities.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Different personalities, but the same traits go into building a leader.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Yeah.

unknown 1:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

So that's what we're going to do today is we're going to talk about six traits that that we found in leadership to to be helpful to have. And these aren't limited to six. I mean, sure, there is a a lot more.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Yeah. Who knows how this conversation may go, but there's obviously a lot of traits as leaders, but these are just six that we kind of identified that are really important to us and things that maybe we've noticed and leaders that we look up to.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

So we'll go ahead and jump into the first trait that that we've talked about and we've noticed, and that's the trait of humility. Yeah. I mean, you said it Jesus was the best leader, and man, you talk about someone that operated in extreme humility. Jesus is that guy. I mean, I I love how right before his his crucifixion, right? Right before he's about to go sit on his throne, right? He's washing the disciples' feet. Right. It was a beautiful moment of humility. But what do you see in 2026? What does humility look like to you?

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Humility to me always has looked like you think of others first. It's not, you know, and it may sound cliche, but it's not thinking less of yourself. Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Yeah, that's a big misconception, I feel like. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Yeah. It's not like, you know, you beat yourself down. I mean, because after all, you are created in the image of God, each and every single one of us, right? Yeah. But it's thinking of yourself less. It's truly honoring others. The Bible says to prefer each other above yourself. And to me, as you watch Jesus and you see him move and maneuver throughout the New Testament, throughout the Gospels, and everybody that he interacted with, you see him thinking of them, right? Thinking of his father and his mission and why he's here. And in the end, thinking less or thinking about himself less.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Yeah, I think that when I was a kid and I was growing up, and I still struggle with it today, you know, I struggled with that issue of pride, maybe is the right word, but being really proud of myself, right? And thinking of myself first often. Right. And I remember you teaching me this lesson of humility, right? And that I need to practice it in my daily walk. And I remember really struggling with that because as you mentioned, you know, I think when you think of humility, people often think they got to put themselves down. Right. Right. It's kind of like their life's a list. And in order to be humble, you have to put yourself at the bottom of that list. Right. But you know, so as I was growing up and as I was trying to walk that, that was a big learning curve for me. I really struggled to figure out how tangibly do you walk in humility without, you know, putting yourself down on the list. And then all of a sudden, you're just really hard on yourself, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:27

And you're your worst critic. You are, but you don't have to put yourself down to build others up. That's the reality of it, right? If you live a life of building others up, you look at Jesus and his ministry and he calls people to where they're going, right? He knows where they're at, but he's constantly building people. That is one of the main areas of how you can stay humble, celebrating others like crazy, right? And in 2026, especially with social media and things like that, it's so easy to put yourself out there. Yeah. Right. To put your accomplishments out there. Look at what I have, what I've gained, what I've worked for. I think a much healthier uh leadership role is look at what they've done, look at what God's done through them. And as you're building other people up, you walk in that humility because you're honoring, you're preferring others.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

So I guess when it's, you know, we talked about not putting yourself down necessarily. So we want to walk in that confidence and who we were created to be. Is there a difference? Obviously, there is, but what is the difference between confidence and cockiness?

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Reliance. Who are you relying upon, right? Are you that's a good point? You and I are we relying upon our own strengths, you know, that that natural stuff that we talked about, like maybe some charisma, uh, work ethic, all of that, right? It's it's all important stuff, but is that where is that where our strength is coming from? Or is it coming from God? Are we filled with his Holy Spirit and walking in the fruit and the gifts of that spirit? So I think that's the difference.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

I think you know, I'm preaching about David tomorrow and his battle against Goliath. And I love how David he approached that moment, he approached that battle because you see David in that story and you're like, this dude's confident, right? Like he's got some swagger walking up to that front line. Yeah, he keeps he ain't scared one bit. He's confident he's gonna take this thing down. But when the time comes for him to battle with something, right? He says, I come to you not with sword or spear, but I come to you with the Lord Almighty. Yeah, and I think that's a great point that that relates to what you were just talking about of who are you relying on? Right. I remember when I was in college and I played at Ryo for a couple years, and I remember getting asked this question um by my coach at the time of Caleb, what's the difference between cockiness and confidence and humility? And I remember him asking me in front of the whole team, and I was like, I don't know, because I I didn't know because that that's a battle that I've struggled for for a lot of my life, is I've always had this charisma, like you mentioned, this confidence about me, but I really struggle drawing that line between the cockiness and the confidence. Right. And I do think that I've learned over time it is in that reliance. Who are you relying on? And where do you think that that your feigns in life are coming from?

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Yeah. So yeah, and actually, you know, being confident in who God's created you to be, what God's called you to do is a key to building others up because there is nothing worse as a leader than somebody who is constantly looking over their shoulder for who might be coming after them, right? So when you're confident in God, though, you are more than willing to build others up and to call them to higher places that God has for them.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Yeah, this is really good. I want to stay here for a minute because something we talk about often at Outreach and Worth is replace yourself, right? Replace yourself. And when I think about humility and the difference between confidence and cockiness, like to me, I think humility turns to pride when you think you can't be replaced or you shouldn't be replaced, right? But if you you continually have that mindset of I'm reliant on God and He is where all of these things come from. And at any given moment, he could easily use somebody else to do what he's using me to do. So yeah, it's great.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

I you know, as I think about it, I I think that if you really drill down, the most prideful leaders are probably your most insecure leaders.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Yeah. What do you think? Um some signs, maybe some red flags of a pride for an insecure leader, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

If you are constantly thinking that you're the one that makes it happen, if you believe that you have to do everything and you can't trust anybody, you can't delegate anything, you're you're actually not leading at all. I think that if the conversations always go back to you and your experiences and what you've done and how you've overcome, I think that that is a big red flag just in your conversations with other people.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Yeah, I love that we're having this conversation and that it kind of segued this way because I do think it's important for the people to hear and for us to hear and me to hear in this moment uh about that point that you brought up about the reliance and and humility and the difference between humility and pride and confidence and cockiness because it's a fine line because we we often talk a lot about the dangers of pride, right? And and we know the enemy uses pride to bring people down and to disqualify people from the cause and all the crazy things that that we've seen. Well, it's biblical. Pride, pride goeth before the fall. So we talk about that, but we also see the enemy use time and time again inadequacy, right? When Gideon's called, inadequacy answered. Right. And I think that's that's where we we it's really important for us to talk about what we've discussed because yes, we want to avoid pride, but in that humility, we never want to put ourselves down either.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

No, I mean when the Lord came to Gideon, right? When the angel of the Lord came to Gideon, he referred to him as mighty warrior. Yep, right? Yep. Gideon didn't think that about himself. As a matter of fact, you know, he was he was hiding in a wine press threshing wheat.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

So he didn't think of himself as a mighty warrior. He thought of himself as least of these. But even somebody who thinks of themselves in that way, they're still thinking about themselves more than others, yeah, regardless of what thoughts are running through their mind. Those can be people who are just arrogant and you know, cocky and big headed, but it all can also be prideful people can also be those people that are constantly putting themselves down that yeah, constantly point to themselves as the reason that something can't be done.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Yeah, it's a good point. I I I love it, you know, because if the we all know what our God is capable of do. If you call yourself a Christian, we we know what we believe about our God, right? But when the enemy can't get you to change how you think about your God, he's going to try to change the way you think about yourself. Yeah, that's good, man. So really good point. We gotta move on. We spent a lot more time there than than I thought we would, but that's great. Great conversation. Good topic. Second trait, take it away.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Yeah, so for me, I think that the second trait that every good leader has is communication and not just any type of communication, but effective communication. Yeah, right. Because as leaders, you're tasked with man, sharing the mission, sharing the vision. This is what we dream about, right? Um, this is how we're going to do it. And so you engage in those conversations with people as a leader, and you're as you're building people up, as you're coaching people, you have to know how to say it.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Because it's not just what you say, it's it's how you say it. Yeah. Right. And that's good. The thing that people overlook about communication is they think that it's all about speaking, all about me talking.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

That's a great point. I mean, when you talked about communication, like as soon as you brought up that point, my mind started thinking of topical things to say about what we would say. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

So it's just, yeah, it's where the mind goes first. Yeah, and I think that a lot of humans are like that, right? I'm not saying that everybody, but I think that when people are engaged in conversations like we're having, rather than truly listening, we're constantly thinking about the next thing that we want to add to the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

And I just think that if you're going to be a leader, if you if you want to be an effective communicator, it's not always about what the most valuable thing that you can add to a conversation is listening to the conversation. It's not always speaking and talking. And I think that people fall into that trap of, you know, their voice has to be heard. And then people take a look and they think that, you know, well, the leader in the room is always the loudest voice in the room. I have learned over the years that often those with the loudest voice, the the most opinions, and and the list goes on and on, those actually aren't your leaders, those are the ones who are seriously lacking leadership skills and skills that they need to develop.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Yeah. I think that uh one of the biggest mistakes people make, and you kind of alluded to it when they're communicating in leadership, is they focus so much time on the content, but they don't focus near enough time on the people in the room or the people they're communicating with. Yeah. So it's like, you know, instead of constantly obsessing, and I'm talking more pastoral communication than maybe one-on-one, like you were. But you know, when people take the pulpit or or speakers take the pulpit, right? Something I see is you can tell they put a ton of time into the content. Right. But you look around and you're like, it ain't landing with nobody. Right. Right. Because they obviously didn't take time to research who was going to be in the room. Right. So it kind of goes hand in hand with thinking more about communication as the other people yourself and what you're speaking.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Yeah, like so public speaking piece of it. Yeah, which is a part of effective communication. I would say that every leader doesn't have to be a public speaker. Yeah. Right. Because we talk about different personalities, different giftings. But you know, in the pastoral context, I do think that, you know, public speaking preaching is a huge part of that. And you have to realize that when when you're preaching, when you're speaking, people are in the room. Yeah. Right. And you have to put thought into that, like you said. The other thing that goes into effective communication as a leader is you have to be able to read a room.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Right. You have to pick up on the signals, you have to learn body language, you have to get the overall feel of the room because as leaders, you realize that communication, as a communicator, you are the thermostat. You're the one changing the temperature of that room. But if you have no idea the temperature of the room, the the pulse of the people who are in the room, how are you going to communicate? Yeah. Right. So I think that being able to do that, having some high emotional IQ, realizing the feelings that are in the room, I th I think it's all important.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Yeah. So so let's go back to kind of your initial point and what you were talking about, more in that one-on-one communication with people. Right. You mentioned listening first. Are there any other tactical maybe tips or tricks that you can maybe give the listeners as they're having conversations one-on-one with people to practice good communication? I have a few, but figured I'd ask you first.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Yeah. First of all, I think that you need to realize that not every person you communicate, you may be communicating the same message, but the way you communicate that to individuals can be different depending on where they're at in life, right? Different personalities, you know, how much experience they have on the topic you're talking about. So learning to have different conversations with different people because not everybody's built the same.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Yeah. That's a good point. Um, the the thing that came to my mind was remember names and call back their names to them in the conversation.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

I got to get a lot better at this. Um, I'm really bad with names right now. But I would I really want to be that leader that, hey man, what's your name? My name's Dave. Right. And then in that conversation, I'm able to refer to him as Dave. And I do think just that little bit of intentionality makes a difference. Um, I think you've actually told me in the past there was a study of some sort that when you you call a waitress or a waiter by their name, they give you better service.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Well, and I do, I I believe that because we all want to be known, right? We we want to be known by God, we want to be known by other people, and and learning names is a big part of that. And you said, man, I need to get better at it. Well, guess what? So do I. Right. And the reality of it is as leaders, a lot of times we're meeting so many new people, right? That it can be tough to remember that name. And we have to get to the point where we realize, hey, it's okay to ask a second time. Hey, I know we've met. I'm sorry. Uh, could you help me remember your name again? Because we're meeting a large volume of people. Absolutely. Uh, but some tricks is you call the name back, right? If you can relate that person's name to that space where you're meeting at, or it's even it's something different in your mind, it may help jog a memory.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Another tip I heard, it's not original, but um, I stole it from Ryan Leake. It was a great point. I don't know if you know Ryan. I do, but um I actually got to hear him in San Diego at the banking conference I was at. Oh, that's cool. Um, and one of the things he said there that really stuck with me was ask people how they are, but ask twice.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

So, hey, how are you? Good. How are you really?

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Cause you know, it's just in that rapport that we've created as a culture. Right. How you doing? Good. How you doing? Good. How you doing? Good. How about you?

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Good, right.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

How are you? Good. Yeah. How are you really? Doing okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

That's great. That asking the second time, and you can even ask in a different way. One of the things that I do is say if I ask somebody how they're doing, they say good. I was like, man, that's awesome. What's been good about it?

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Right. It just engages in conversation a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Yeah, that's awesome. Good point.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

The third trait I want to talk about today is accountability.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Yeah. Right. I I think I have really learned the the importance of this in my leadership as Yon of a journey, it's been for me. Yeah. It's just, it's so crucial to have an accountability partner, an accountability group as a leader. Yeah. You know, that person that you got to trust, right? That person that you can call at 3 a.m. in a crisis and you know they're going to pick up the phone. Right. Uh I'd curious your thoughts on accountability and the importance of it as a leader.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Yeah, I think it's huge. I think that uh for me myself, I have people that I hold myself accountable to. Um one, you know, Pastor Rob and Pastor Jason Simpkins from North Bend Church. Um, I've spoken with Pastor Jason for years and years just to hold myself accountable. And also as a leader, I believe that the Bible talks about holding yourself above reproach. Right. So these are people that you're bouncing ideas off of. You're you're even bouncing maybe theological messages and ideas. Hey, what do you think about this? Obviously, in any type of leadership, you know, maybe especially in the church leadership, uh, hold yourself accountable financially. Make sure that you're not the only one in the room that knows where the finances are going. In fact, I would encourage leaders not to be in charge of the finances. Now, if you are, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, just for me and my leadership to hold myself more accountable and above reproach. We have measures in place and people in place that take care of the finances.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Yeah. I guess that I have people that I go to in those accountability moments. Like I go to you and I go to my friend Caden, you know, in those moments. Um, but it's not really ever been like structured as like this is my accountability group. Do you think it's important to like go to that person that that maybe holds you accountable and be like, you're my accountability accountability person? And like set that like title because that kind of feels weird. And there might be some people like out there that's like, How do I approach somebody and ask them to be my accountability partner? Right. And you know, there's just I think when you think of accountability, I'm really glad you pointed out some some of those theological questions and financial questions, because I think when you think of accountability, your mind goes to like the sin and the shame and that part of accountability. Right. And you know, when you ask somebody to be an accountability partner for you, it's often tied with that negative connotation of shame and and some of the sin issues we we may struggle with and temptations we may struggle with. So I guess like how do you uh approach somebody, do you, or is it just kind of like a hidden language that we're close now? So you know you're my accountability. Like any tips for that? Because that's something that I'm sure a lot of the younger folks specifically probably struggle with.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Yeah, first of all, not not everybody can be an accountability partner in the pure sense of the word, right? Uh, my role is people who love God, love the church, and love me. That's what I'm looking for. That's the criteria when I talk about uh being accountable to somebody, somebody finding somebody that I'm able to open up to. Um, when things aren't going great, you spoke about when you speak about accountability. Accountability, it sometimes can be rooted in shame and oh I've messed up, hold me accountable to this. But sometimes accountability is helping you make a decision between good and great. Yeah. Right. Between good and God, uh, between calling and what's comfortable. So it's not always sinful, right? But you know, you're whoever you're holding yourself accountable to, you have to be able to trust them.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

That that's just the reality of where you're at with anything.

unknown 22:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

So one thing that I was thinking about is loving who you lead. Yeah. Right. Um, and you you hear people in leadership, they joke about it all the time. You you've heard people that are pastoring. How pastoring would be the greatest job in the world if it wasn't for the people, or you hear people saying, Well, I love the church, but I hate the people. Leaders cannot do that. Leaders, as leaders, we love who we lead. And it would be ridiculous for you and I to sit here and have this conversation and say that, well, everybody's easy to lead. Because the reality of it is, is there are some people that are very hard to lead.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

That was going to be my instant question is how do we lead and how do we display, you know, the same love to someone that we really struggle to lead at times, yeah, and that make it difficult at times, and make sure that it's you know not biased in the way we present our love. Right. So, what does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Yeah, I think that when you talk about love, right, you once again look at the greatest leader of all times, you look at Jesus, you look at how he loved, he loved the disciples, right? There was no question about that. Even when Thomas doubted, Jesus loved him, right? Even when Judas betrayed, when Judas betrayed, Jesus loved him. When when Peter would go off the rails. Yeah, Peter was my best example. He would definitely have been hard to lead. Yeah, he he would love him. And then you have, you know, the disciple John, or as John referred to himself, the one who Jesus loved. Yeah, you you see Jesus loving all of these different personalities. And I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful for the example that we have in the disciples, in the people that Jesus did life with, did ministry with. You see all of these different personalities coming out, and yet you see Jesus loving them. Yeah. Um, because that's what leaders do. And you realize that as a leader, you and I, we have blind spots too. We have these nuances, these idiosyncrasies that probably drive people crazy as well. But because they're blind spots, we legitimately don't see them, right? We need to realize that even though people may have characteristics that might drive us crazy or they're hard to lead, we can still love them. And loving a person doesn't mean that you never bring correction as a leader, right? A loving leader is a correcting leader, but it's how you go about those conversations that that really matter. Once again, it's it's how you communicate, how you coach people. Um, but if you're not correcting people, then you're not leading people and you're definitely not loving people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

I I liked your point there because you know, we're both in the coaching space as well. And I really do believe it's true that you cannot coach every player the same.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

You can't.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

You you have to adapt based on the personalities. And I think in church leadership or, you know, even corporate leadership, whatever leadership you may find yourself in, it's really important to know your people and to know how they respond to different things. When I was in college, you know, the the way I would respond and give my best was very different than a teammate I had, right? For me, you know, I didn't need babied, but I did need spoken life into like I needed that confidence you know instilled in me that they had in me. Right. Right. I had a teammate that the way they would give their best is to call them out and to get up in their face and to challenge them and and challenge their their manhood. And you know, like I had a teammate that would respond really well to that, right, and give his best after that. But that ain't me. That's no. When you get up in my face, you're just gonna make me mad. You're not gonna, you're not gonna help me improve or perform better. So um I guess that's a really important note to make too is important to know your people and to learn the the personality traits you mentioned.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

And and let's think about that. If you don't know the people you're leading, how can you love them? Right. Jesus spent time with the people that he was leading, right? He he wasn't in some back room somewhere, right? He wasn't unapproachable, right? He would allow people to come to him. And as leaders, we have to realize that that there is there are moments, right, where we can't lead everybody effectively, which is a reason also that you're replicating yourself, you're replacing yourself. It should be part of your organizational in our sense, in our context, our church culture, right? That we're teaching team, we're teaching, we're raising up other leaders, right? That so because we want people to be loved well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

Yeah, it's a really good point.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

What so I think that that's something tangible that we can do. Because that was my next question is what are some tangible things we can do to learn more about those people or to the show appreciation and love to those people? And I think that we kind of alluded to one right there, and that's set time to meet with them to learn more about them, to know who they are. And that can be that can be hard for for us busy people, right? But maybe make it a goal, you know, once every two weeks or once a month, have that one-on-one coffee, have that one-on-one lunch. Um, another idea I had was thank you cards. Right. You know, it's it's cheap, it's you know, not glamorous, it's not a gift that you receive and you're like, wow, this is super nice. It's it's a like a Louis bag bag, you know, you're not you're not gonna feel that way when you get a thank you card. Um, but I do think that just a thank you card with a personalized note can go a long way with your teams and help display some of that love and appreciation, especially for the the people that it may feel difficult for you to do that for. Right. You know, because when you we've talked about it before, when you show gratitude for something, it's hard for you to take advantage or take for granted that person and something. So yeah, I think that's just another little tangible thing you can do. Do you have any more that you can help the audience with today?

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Yeah, I think that showing up for big moments, I I think that's huge. I think that walking through hard moments shows people that you love them. Um most people they they struggle with walking with people through hard moments, not because they don't want to be there, but because they're afraid of messing it up. Yeah. But there is such a ministry of presence, just being there for people, being there with people. Um, you know, and that's something that I need to work on as a leader. But thankfully, I have my wife. Yeah. Um, your mom is the greatest leader that I know that I know on planet earth of showing up for big moments, yeah, of walking with people through hard times. And she has taught me so much. Um, she takes that little as she takes moments and gives it a little extra. Yeah. That just that little extra special where people know that they're cared for. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

I think that that's a that's a big one too. We talked about how to kind of love those hard to love people at times. But this kind of popped in my head. I didn't plan on talking about it, but I do think it's important for leaders to talk about. I want to focus on that that group of people that we may lead that are high performers, that do really well. And in those moments where they're struggling, they will never seek you out, they will never try to burden you, and then all of a sudden they start to become isolated and they're battling with that alone. Yeah. How can we, you know, do better as leaders to make sure that we don't take for granted that high performing leader? Yeah. And when we start to see maybe those warning signs of them struggling with something, how can we do a better job of showing love and appreciation to those people, those people that won't want to burden you with what it is, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Well, you you assure them that first of all, they're not a burden, that this is relationship and this is love. Yeah. Right. Love isn't always easy, but it shouldn't be a burden necessarily. And if it is, it should be a light burden, right? Um, I would think that regular check-ins, because a lot of times as leaders, what we notice is when they're really on the downhill slide, right? I think that regular check-in of, hey, how are you? asking that follow-up question that you learned now. How are you really? I think that early recognition is important and refusing to let people isolate. Hey, no, I love you. I'm here for you. I realize that you might need some space, but know that I'm coming. I'm coming to have, you know, let's have a conversation, let's go have a cup of coffee. And you can do both. You can be present and recognize the need for space, but isolation is one of the biggest tools that Satan uses. Absolutely. Right. To separate people. And there are a lot of good leaders right now that are not performing as leaders because they've allowed themselves to be isolated.

SPEAKER_02 31:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

And if you're a leader who loves, you do your best to let people know you are not alone in this. I refuse to let you go through this alone.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Yeah. Great point. The next trait, the fifth trait I want to talk about today is consistency. The best leaders are consistent. The version you see at home is the version you see at the pulpit, is the version you see in the board meeting. Yeah. They're consistent in everything they do. You know, we've heard time and time again that's probably your number one compliment you get in your leadership is that you're consistent. Right. Right. So I really want to pick your brain on this. I would like to consider myself consistent. Uh, it's still something I gotta grow in, though. I think for me, my habits are consistent, right? My rhythms are consistent. I'm a routine guy, right? Right. But I think where I gotta grow is, you know, showing up for people the same, regardless of how my personal week's going or whatever's going on. And and sometimes, you know, I can put on that that face on the pulpit or at youth group on on Sunday nights. But if I'm being honest, it's it's a fake face at the time, right? It's not, it's not always consistent and in my maybe my um my approach and my genuineness, not from the sense of like, I want to see kids saved. Like, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be manipulative up there or anything like that. So not ingenuine in that sense, but just when I'm talking to people, it not being just this is what I'm supposed to do, this is what I want to do, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

So yeah. So I think that's important. Um, actually, one of our good friends, Coach French, he would always talk about the two use. Yeah. Right. And I think that the key to true consistency as a leader is not allowing there to be two use. Yeah. That no matter where you're at, where your platform's at, whether you're in front of a large audience or you're one-on-one with a person, there's not two Chris Wallace's, right? God has created me as a holistic person, right? Um, in in every area. And I think that when people speak about consistency, they're talking about being a disciplined person. Yeah. Right. You talked about your rhythms that you are so strong and you are so gifted at. I'm a rhythm person as well. But what I'm learning is that being disciplined doesn't automatically make you consistent. Yeah, it's a really good point. Right. I think for us, at least I'm going to speak for me, being consistent means looking and becoming like Jesus. Yeah. Right. Not trying to become the best version of myself. I'm not trying to become what other people expect me to become. I'm not trying to become what other leaders necessarily have shown leadership to be. I'm trying to become like Jesus. And once again, it's how we started the whole podcast. The most incredible example of leadership that you will ever find is Jesus. And that's anywhere, right? Can you show me a time in the scripture where Jesus wasn't consistent?

SPEAKER_02 35:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

Well, no, I can't. Yeah, because consistency was a key part of his leadership. You knew what you were getting with Jesus. He brought his whole self to the conversations, right? So I think that when you talk about consistency, you've got to develop trust. Consistency doesn't happen over a month, it happens over years, right? And you hope that you not only continue to be consistent, but you continue to grow in that consistency in other parts of your life.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Yeah, I think that it's really kind of changing the way I view discipline versus consistency, you know, the way you said that. So I appreciate that. But you know, when we're talking about Jesus and the way he approached things and did things, like he wasn't always consistent in the way he did things. Like his methods were different. Methods were different, but posture was always the same. Um, and I think that's for me is where I need to grow. Like when I go into youth ministry every night, I am the same version that you saw the week before. Like I can be consistent in my way I do things and what I do. Yeah, that's actually a strength of yours. Thank you. Um, but my posture is where my consistency needs to grow, not necessarily my posture this way. Your heart, my heart posture.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that every leader should be self-aware enough to know that that heart posture can constantly be improving. Yeah. And it constantly needs to be checked. King David, fabulous leader in the Bible, right? But he was always saying, Lord, search my heart. Search my heart and know me. He wanted to make sure that heart posture was correct. Yeah. Yeah. So number six, slash trait. Yeah, last one. One thing that I think is servant, right? Yeah. We should, as a leader, you should have a servant's heart. And I like saying this is that leaders go first, but eat last. Right. And for me, what that means is as a leader, I'm going to go first in the hard things. I I want to, I want to go first in those steps of faith, right? In the way that I lead, that I'm asking other people to come alongside me. I I want to go first. I want to, I want to serve people. You mentioned Jesus washing the disciples' feet. What a beautiful act of humility and a lesson for all of us that we should never be so prideful or haughty that we're not going to do these things for the people that we're leading. If you're not serving, you're not leading. Yeah. It's impossible. And then the leaders eat last. Let the other people enjoy the fruit, right? Um be the first to celebrate others. That's a leader. You don't have to, and you shouldn't just be talking about how great you are. Yeah. Right. Um, I want to serve people well. And for me, that means I'll do the hard things first, and I'm going to let other people go first when it talks to and it talks about enjoying the fruit, stuff like that. If serving is below you, then leadership is beyond you. Yeah. You just can't do it without serving.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

Yeah. I think, and then once you get to that level of where there's so many people to serve, maybe if you if the church grows or the team grows, a corporation grows, whatever it may be, it can be really hard to serve everybody, right? So that's where just replicating yourself and developing teams that will serve alongside you is crucial.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

That's what this podcast is all about. It's manual moments, right? And sometimes the best way that you can serve the room is raising up other leaders to serve the room. Let's talk a little bit about developing other servant leaders, right? How do you do that? Yeah. So at North, where I where I pastor, we do North Leadership Academy. We're actually just doing our first kind of semester of it. And so far it's been fantastic. We're getting ready to enter into week four of it. And we just go through that and we talk about, we remind people of the mission. We talk about the vision. We talk about sounds of the house. And and we do that on a regular basis. You'll hear me mention the mission and vision and the core values of North regularly from the pulpit because all of those things leak. Yeah. Right. They don't just stay filled up naturally. Those things leak until you repeat them. So that's one thing that that we're doing there is because leaders that we're responsible for setting the culture of the house, right? And it's not culture, it doesn't happen by accident, it happens by design. So that's what North Leadership Academy is about.

SPEAKER_02 40:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

And what I really love, and I think it's important for leaders to know as you're trying to develop teams, is what I love about the Leadership Academy that we do is it offers opportunity for reflection. You know, we have a workbook that has some guiding prompts and some guiding questions where people can answer how it applies to them. Right. And, you know, I think we can, as leaders, sometimes preach our culture a lot and preach our vision and people can get on board with that. But if you never offer time for reflection, those leaders aren't going to be able to necessarily apply it to their lives as well as they could if they had that time. Right. So I think that's just something important to note is as you're developing teams, make sure you offer some time of reflection and self-awareness as well.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Absolutely. And when you're talking about that, you have to realize that disagreement does not equal division.

SPEAKER_02 40:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Right. Disagreement sometimes happens in those moments of reflection, right? And what those are opportunities for more conversations to happen.

SPEAKER_02 40:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

It's good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 41:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

Six traits that make you a great leader. I think they're all important. And I really hope that this episode added value to people's lives.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

And again, there's plenty more we've probably missed. Those were just six that we wanted to talk about today.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

Yeah. You know, actually, it might be good if people would kind of drop what they think in the comments, those moments of reflection. Drop that in the comments. Who knows? Maybe it'll be a later episode for us.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

Yeah, absolutely. We could use all the help we can get. That's for sure. Thank you everybody for listening to the Mantle Moments podcast. We really appreciate your support. Just a reminder: the best way you can support the show to allow us to continue to provide value to you is to leave a review and a five-star review and a comment and some feedback based on what you like about the show. So please do that. We would greatly appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Yeah, and we just want you to know how much we appreciate you taking the time to be with us. We realize that time is one of your most valuable assets to meaningful world to us that you spend a little bit of time with us. We're excited about what God's doing through Mantle Moments Podcast. If you'll do us a favor, just let some friends know about it.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

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