The Discipline Leadership Requires

Leadership Straight from Bill Hybels The Discipline Leadership Requires The best leaders are not just the ones who cast white hot visions. They are ones who cast those visions then who discipline the work flow, discipline rhythm, schedule, retreats, check-ins... It's discipline that moves that ball up the field so visions become reality. I was kidding with a group a couple of days ago. I asked, "How many of you do staff performance reviews?" Maybe a third of them went up. To prove the point I was trying to make, I said, "So you really believe in these things?" They replied, "Yes, you told us we should do them so we do." I said, "How often? In what month?" About half in the room did not know. I said, "Did you do it last year?" We did not get around to it last year. We are sure we are going to do it next year. That is not disciplined leadership. Disciplined leadership says here is our year, we have our off-site during this time. Then we move everything. We decide what we're going to do between now and mid-year. In May at Willow we do our staff engagement survey. We do our staff performance reviews. We have our second off-site in July, where we do the same thing we did here and get our new work flow. We do our staff performance review in January. When you set up the rhythm... the rhythm by which you stay a disciplined organization doing right things if you like or not, every time we come up to staff performance reviews our HR person will say to me, "Now next week you have to do many performance reviews." My reaction is exactly the same every time. I say, "You cannot...it's going to wreck my... I have to preach... it's a horrible idea." He says, "We are committed, we do it every June and January. The whole organization is going to do it. You have to do it." I say, "Thanks for wrecking my day, buddy." When I do them, I cannot imagine if I had put those off and if he would have 'caved in' and said we should skip them. You cannot skip these things. Our off-sites for our executive team and leadership team these are planned two years in advance. These are never missed. Everyone comes. No question. These are the things on the calendar. They are completely disciplined. They have to be. Or you will get near them and you will say, "We are going too fast and it's too busy." And you will not do the things you know you need to do.