Video Transcript: Final Thoughts on the Transformational Leader

So let's look at some final thoughts on the transformational leader. We have  gone through a journey in this course, we understand that our role in  transformation is working in sync with God's agenda, and we talked about  correcting some understandings of some key concepts, like discipleship and  servanthood and the image of God, the power of knowing who you are in Christ.  And then we looked at leadership. We looked at the Jesuit principles and  competencies that relate to leadership that transforms. I want to end with talking about something else related to leadership, and that has to do with leading at  the speed of joy about a month before I may resurrect this with you. About a  month before the summer day camp, Johnell called me into his office and said, I  have a problem. He said, I don't know what to do. He said, I don't know what to  do because everything is being done. Everything is organized. The youth are  excited. There's they, they're they're on target with having their curriculums  ready to ready to go. They're all excited about about leading. And he says, I  don't know what to do. Well, he was leading at the speed of joy. Oops, sorry.  Here we go. He said, I don't know what to do. And here's what he said, to switch up newsletter. I'm hitting the wrong button. Sorry. There it is. One of the most  beautiful things about transformational discipleship is watching as the teens  begin to see themselves as leaders as they impact those younger than them,  our emerging leaders are already beginning to realize the impact their lives can  have, even as teenagers. Recently, I wrote this, actually, I wrote this about a  year ago, and I said that recently, a friend shared a book rare leadership, four  uncommon habits for increasing trust, joy and engagement in the people you  lead. And they write that through developing key habits, leaders can strengthen  emotional intelligence and leadership capacity, both in themselves and in the  people they lead. Now this is a book The friend who gave me this book. He is a  he is a nurse. He works in hospice anyway. He's been around he's been around  doctors, and this book is written by doctors, and so it was not an easy read for  me, but I think I got the gist of it. But they talk about the function of the brain that the left side the author shares optimized for management, efficiency,  accomplishing tasks, planning and strategizing tap this side of the brain,  because the right side, however, is optimized for leadership. So leadership they  define as the ability to motivate people to engage in something that matters.  Leadership, therefore is relational. It's about growing in yourself and others.  Relational skill, emotional intelligence, ability to focus care for others,  conscience and values. These capacities come from the right side of the brain.  This may be why many leaders who pour great effort into developing youth  leaders miss the mark. Assigning tasks and expecting compliance with a good  attitude is important, but that's not the same as motivating youth to think for  themselves and express their thoughts or influence others. Leadership moves  beyond the completing of tasks to the enriching of lives and effective leadership  effective leadership development begins with right brain thinking. Oops, went 

back again. Here we go. But this is what was even more fascinating, the left  brain follows the right brain if. The left brain is wired to follow the right brain. So  what does that mean? If we focus on leadership and get the relational thinking  right for ourselves and our ministry, then management will follow you. Have  leadership and management. So they say, focus on building management  systems. Says the author and leadership is left to chance. Focus on building  leadership systems, and you will always improve management. This is  automatic. I mean, it sounds a little bit like that phrase, form should follow  function. If you know what the function is, then you will find the forms that will  allow the function to take place. And the end result is joy. While grow it, while  growth in the emerging leaders has been exciting. Johnell and Hannah's growth  as leaders has impressed me more. This is coming from a letter that I wrote.  They seem happy, joyful in their work. And then I expressed this to Johnell and  Hannah and Johnell paused and thought for a moment. Then he just blurted out, I'm not managing kids anymore. He went on to describe ministry as hard yet  rewarding, challenging yet addressing the right problems, ones befitting a  ministry fully engaged in animating youth leadership capacity. So when you  engage in a transformational discipleship approach to ministry development.  There to youth development. There are some real benefits, and one of them is  you become excited about ministry, excited about change lives. You experience  a measure of joy. I'm not saying that it's not hard, but you are dealing with the  right problems because you're focused on the right things. And so four habits of  rare leaders. First, they say you act like yourself. What would the person God  made me, made me to be do? What would Jesus do? What would the people of  God, functioning at their best do? And then they say, learn to be your best self.  Rare leaders have a consistency of character anchored in a positive core  identity that lets people know that whatever emotions I may face, I still know  how to act like myself. Here's another, return to joy. You say joy is the ultimate  jet fuel, purest and most potent source of motivation that unleashes tremendous  potential in you and your team, since perhaps the biggest factor in producing  sustainable motivation is the leader's ability to return to joy from a variety of  negative emotions. Leaders who can do that take an experience upsetting  emotions, yet possess the skills to recover quickly and help their people recover  as well. Are rarely overwhelmed by the situations they face. And then another is  Endure hardship well. learn to suffer well, we're going to suffer. Our Master  suffered. How do we learn to stay relational and continue to act like ourselves,  like the person God made us to be during suffering? The rare leader says, If  anyone is going to suffer, can it be me? I'm good at it. I know how to do it, I can  model it to the team, and this rare leader can walk with team members in their  suffering. So we might say that this leadership travels at the speed of joy. Joy  levels are important in at least three ways, the fast track in the brain is motivated to learn through joy. People with emotional intelligence and relational skills 

always create joy around them. Leadership skills do not transfer from one  person to another in the abscence of joy, leadership that neglects Joy rapidly  becomes management instead of leadership. This last point is important. Are  you if your ministry is focused on the right things. Again, no one goes into youth  ministry wanting to just deal with problems. They don't walk in the youth ministry because they know that they're going to fail. They have hope. They have a  desire to make a change in young people's lives. And the whole point behind the point behind transformational discipleship, is that God has given us some some  some ground rules and some ways that we can work with people. He's given us  an understanding of who people are, how he's created them to be, and also his  desire to see young lives changed, and because of that, as we focus on that, the problems will still be there, but they will be overshadowed by the joy of seeing  God at work in young people's lives. So these are my final thoughts on  transformational on the transformational leader. And again, I trust that you will  eagerly pursue, if not already, you will pursue becoming a transformational  leader, influencing the young people that you serve.