Leadership & Mentoring Session Notes

Chan Abraham

Leaders have the biggest responsibility in impacting employees
Inappropriate behaviour by a leader will lead to inappropriate behaviour in employees
Churches tend to look at themselves for their leadership model when they should look to the outside world which continually changes/updates its leadership model so that it works.

Questions posed: What tips can you give to help a leader maintain a fresh vision and the energy for leadership?

You cannot wear your heart on your sleeve. Don’t be one of the ‘girls or boys’ otherwise you can’t make a big management impact.
It’s not about ‘fresh vision’ – it’s all to do with vision.
To maintain freshness, you have to know and be clear on what the vision is. Many leaders come unstuck, because they are not clear what their vision is to begin with
What does God want you to do? God will then use what you have to do it.
Your vision (typically singular) will already be in your heart
‘Activities’ can be a distraction which saps your energy away from your vision.
Need to have spiritual resources you can rely on – resources that only comes from God.
Find ways to dig that spiritual well deeper – for living water that only comes from God.

Questions not answered:

Many of the key characteristics of a good leader come "more naturally" to a whole-life Christian than to many others. How can Christians most effectively mobilise this power in the workplace?
How do you encourage a top team to get a vision for this style of leadership?
What success stories are out there of business leaders who have been instrumental in building a spiritual movement on the edge of their workplace (i.e. an expanding movement of spiritual influence)?
What success stories are out there of business leaders who have been instrumental in building a spiritual movement within the very structures of their workplace?
What is the single biggest obstacle that prevents a Christian businessman from making his business his Christian ministry [the integration of one's talk with the walk and the church on Sunday with the church on Monday] Many people see their work life as "separate" from the true life - how can we help them see that it will be better for them (and for their performance, and their organisation) of they can bring their purpose in life, and their organisation's purpose, more closely togetherNow move onto the second person in the group – and so on.
Dealing with difficult people
Implementing change
Staying positive when challenged by colleagues.
How can one avoid giving an impression of favouritism when seeking to spend time mentoring a young person?
Is it fruitful to continue mentoring someone who treats the mentoring with indifference?
What experience does anyone have of spiritual mentoring (by which I mean life mentoring) in the workplace without specialist (e.g. coaching) skills?
Encouraging participation of the whole fellowship. We have over 50 members on our list. Meetings are typically attended by 10 - 20. Very few will volunteer to lead activities.
Outreach activities. Do you have any suggestions? We have run Alpha courses in the past, but we have had poor responses lately.