BELAY is so happy to share our blog with one of our great friends, Shawn Lovejoy. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
Momentum. When we’ve got it, we’ll do anything to hang on it to. When we’ve lost it, we would do almost anything to get it back! So how does an organization keep from losing its momentum? If it has happened, how do we get it back? Here are three reasons an organization loses momentum.
The Vision Becomes Unclear.
Vision Drift Happens. Slowly and quietly an organization forgets WHY they are doing WHAT they are doing. This vision can also be hijacked by a person or group of people that have other agendas and ambitions for the organization. Great leaders are Mean About The Vision. I wrote an entire book on this subject!
Energy and Enthusiasm Decreases.
When we forget WHY we do WHAT we do, we will eventually lose our passion. Most of WHAT we do is not all that sexy: meetings, spreadsheets, emails, services, and events. WHY we do these makes all the difference. We must constantly remind those who serve with us why we are here and cheer them on! Momentum can make us look better than we are and even cause complacency. Passion and Urgency must rule the day to gain and maintain momentum. We must speak with passion and conviction. People need to hear it in our voice and see it in our eyes. We can’t manufacture it. It must come from the inside out.
The Leaders Stop Learning & Stop Growing.
Success is the number one danger to future success. Complacency is the number one gravitational pull. What is the number one mistake successful leaders make? Isolation. We stop learning from others. Everyone is learning from us, but who are we learning from? We begin to lack perspective. Every learning, growing leader I know leads a learning, growing organization. Every stagnated leader I know leads a stagnated organization. When we stop learning, we stop growing. When we stop growing, everyone and everything around us stops growing. Please don't allow that to happen to you and the organization you lead. This is just one reason I'm so passionate about coaching.
Coaching holds us accountable to being a learning, growing leader!
Shawn Lovejoy is Founder & CEO of CourageToLead.com. He leads a team of coaches whose passion is coaching leaders through what keeps them up at night. He loves helping ministries & organizations accomplish all their potential and gain or sustain momentum! Shawn has led a successful real estate business, a megachurch, and now a fast growing coaching organization. He has been married for 25 years to his best friend Tricia and they have three half grown kids: Hannah, Madison, & Paul. They all live in Birmingham, AL.