Leadership Lessons

To motivate a team to do great things, the leader must see the big picture. Three questions every leader should ask to bring the vision into focus....

What separates a high performance team from the rest? Dr. Mercer shares seven marks of a winning team, from recruiting quality members to building a strong bench....

A remarkable thing happened at the 1968 Olympics. While competing in the marathon in Mexico City, John Stephen Akhwari of Tanzania suffered cramps due to the high altitude of the city. At the nineteen-kilometer point, during the forty-two-kilometer race, Akhwari fell after being hit by some other runners while jockeying for position, cutting and dislocating his knee and severely wounding his shoul...

Life is about relationships. If your relationships are good, life is good. If your relationships are bad, nothing else can substitute. Many come home to a distant marriage, where every word must be weighed. Parents arrive home to hear their teenager run upstairs to avoid conversation. Others are worried because they are at odds with someone at work. Jesus says the whole law can be summed up around...

I have discovered there are three types of people in every church—customers, owners, and investors. Your members will be motivated based on the group to which they belong.Customers – When we think about customers, we first think about a consumer who never wants to contribute. However, a customer is simply a person who comes to church for what is in it for them and their family. When searching for ...

In 1 Corinthians 15:14, Paul says“…and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.” The word preaching is an interesting choice of words. Paul and the other writers of the New Testament could have used several other words to define their communication of the gospel, but they chose the word preaching which comes from a word meaning to herald. In New Testament...

The moment you received Christ into your heart, you were born again. At that moment, God loved you as much as He ever will love you. Because His love is perfect, His love for you will never be any more or any less than at that instant you gave your life to Him. Yet, at times it is difficult to trust His love.Some time ago, a lady came into my office, brokenhearted over marriage issues. In spite of...

You want to move forward with courageous faith. When you have the strength and spiritual balance you need, you begin to have the courage to do something. The problem arises when we don’t do what we need to do—right now! Whether it’s beginning a new ministry or business, serving others, or simply spending time with God, chances are, if you procrastinate, you will never do it. In my book, Overcoming...

It’s been said that everything rises and falls on leadership. Leaders often say this when the organization is going well—seldom said when it’s struggling. I know that we have a tendency to make excuses for shortcomings or failures in leadership. We want to blame others, the economy, or the culture. Still others, however, feel a load of guilt, a sense of failure, when their organization is struggli...

We live in a society that is essentially non-confrontational. Their motto appears to be “Live and let live—your beliefs are true for you, and my beliefs are true for me.” In application, opposite or conflicting beliefs cannot be all true, and as a result, the claim is that there is no absolute truth. Consequently, having no firm beliefs leads to little or no conviction in the heart.Conviction prod...