The Art of Leadership Network. You try to take a vacation and the whole thing falls apart when you're not there or you're on the beach and you've got your phone in your hand and you're calling people and texting people every few minutes because they don't even know how to do things when you're away. So that's level one of an organization. Nothing runs without you. When you're not there, it falls apart. Welcome to the Keri Newhof Leadership Podcast. This episode, we're going to talk about five ways to scale your personal leadership capacity. Man, if you've ever felt overwhelmed, if you're like, just don't know how to grow this thing and if I do more, I feel like I'm going to break. I don't know how to scale this. Well, you came to the right place. And as usual, I hope this helps you thrive in life and leadership. Hey, you can get the show notes for this episode at KeriNewhof.com/episodes685 or in the description of your podcast player. I want to say thank you to all of you who are tuning in for the first time and those of you who are regulars. We're really, really glad that you're here and if this episode is helpful to you, please subscribe. Please share it with a friend. Maybe share it with your team. You could even use this as a team teaching. We're on YouTube and also audio. Gotta do a quick shout out to our podcast partners too. This episode is brought to you by church.tech. Church.tech just launched a new feature called Ministry Tools. It's a brand new section on their platform designed for everyone who has ministry work that is not sermon related. They've done a big deal with sermons, but they're going beyond that. All the features you've come to love on church.tech are still there, but now Ministry Tools makes it possible for your whole team to get involved and operate at their best. If you haven't checked it out yet, this is the perfect time. You can sign up for a free 14 day trial at church.tech. And if you enter the code Keri at checkout, you'll get an exclusive discount of 25% off of your first three months. So go to church.tech and take your ministry to the next level and spend more time doing what matters most to you, being a pastor and pastoring your people. And today's episode is brought to you by glue. If you aren't welcoming people who move into the community with direct mail, well, you're missing out. You know, direct mail is effective. And the question is like, how do you reach these new people? Well, this doesn't involve driving around town, looking for moving trucks or looking stamps. What you can do, it's pretty simple. Sign up for glue plus, design your card, and then glue in their partners send 50 postcards per month to the new members in your community, in your city. It's that simple. So if you want to get started, visit glue.us/movers and use the code Keri 20 for 20% off. Be the first to welcome new movers home and tell them about what they can expect at your church. Now, let's dive into today's teaching. So one of the things that I think a lot of us struggle with is scaling your personal capacity. I have struggled with this over the years. You know, I started with a handful of people back in the day when I was 30 years old. And then our church grew to thousands of people. And now I lead something that, well, literally touches millions of people and it's crazy. And how do you actually scale your personal capacity? So here's where we can start with this, okay? A whole lot of leaders, most of you listening, me too, why are we leaders? Because we know how to do, okay? When you were hired, you were probably really good at flipping hamburgers. You were really great at making sure those fries came out golden crispy. Or maybe you were really competent at cleaning. I mean, most of us start out at entry level jobs, right? You're scooping ice cream. You get good at it. What do you get? You get a promotion. You go to seminary. You go to university. And you're good at doing. You're low person on the totem pole. And you just do, do, do, do, do, do. And as a result, you get promoted. So as a result, because you're a leader, you probably really know how to do. But few of us actually know how to scale. And the problem is when you're really good at doing, more and more people show up. Or you get more and more responsibility. Or both happen. And then you got to figure out how to scale. So this is a problem for a lot of leaders. For example, did you know 85% of churches never reach more than 200 people in attendance on a weekend? Now, that's only a problem if you're trying to reach your community. And I know a lot of you are trying to reach your community. But 85% of churches never reach more than 200 people. Now, I believe the primary reason for that isn't spiritual. It's structural. One of the things that happens is pastoral care taps out at 200 people. You just cannot care for a group larger than that as a solo act. And a lot of us are solo acts. And we don't know how to break that leadership lid. That's not just a problem in churches. It's a problem in businesses. So businesses use a different model. But measuring by revenue. Did you know that only 9% of businesses scale past a million dollars in revenue? Only 9%. Now, I'm sure there are some people who don't want to do that. That's fine, you know, that's fine. But the reality is, I know there's a lot of business leaders who would love to see it grow and they just get stuck. So in the church world, in terms of attendance and in terms of the business world, in terms of revenue, there's a small percentage of people who figure out how to scale. So why do leaders get stuck? Why do leaders and organizations get stuck? So when I look back on my own leadership, here's what I realized. When you're starting with a handful of people, guess what you do? You try to run everything, you try to lead everything, you try to control everything, attend everything, and know everything, okay? That's what I tried to do as a young leader. And if you're maybe in a church plant or you're just starting out in ministry, there is a season for that. Yes, you're at every meeting. Yes, you're going to run everything. Yes, you're going to lead everything. Yeah, you know, control, freakism isn't good. But you're probably going to try to control the outcomes on a few things or at least the narrative of where you're going. And yeah, you should be attending all of the events for a season. And you probably need to know everything, right? You learn everything. And so for the first couple of years of ministry with a very small group of people, that was me. Run everything, lead everything, control everything, attend everything, know everything. And we had to plot trajectory in a new direction. We had to create a new mission and a new vision, and that was a season. The problem is if you keep it that way, your church never grows, your business will never grow, right? We've all been the mechanic who does what? Runs everything, leads everything, controls everything, attends everything, knows everything. And your car isn't done today because I had this thing happen, and then I've been on the phone all day, but I'll get it done tomorrow, right? That's what happens. So why does this happen? Well, it happens for a few reasons. Number one, it could be a season, right? If you're a church planter, yup, for a few months, you're going to be doing all of the above. But over the long term, a lot of leaders try to scale things. You hire a team, you hire some staff, and you still find like, well, if I give it to you, you're not going to do it properly. I got to run this thing. I got to lead this thing. I got to be there. If I'm not there, things fall apart. I got to know everything. I got to figure it all out, and it doesn't scale. So I want to break down several reasons why this happens again and again. It happened in my leadership. Maybe that you'll recognize this is happening in your leadership. A, confusion. The vision is unclear. The strategy is unclear. The values are unclear. In other words, it all lives in your head. So when you try to give it to someone else, they don't do it, right? Why? Because you're the only person who knows it, right? You haven't been clear on your strategy. You haven't been clear on your vision. You haven't been clear on your values. So there's this confusion in the organization. And that's why a lot of leaders swoop back in. And they're like, well, I told you that that's not the way to do it. Okay, you got to do it this way. And then you're like, ah, I can't delegate. I can't release to anybody. So that's usually a lack of clarity on your part as a leader. Your team isn't empowered because you haven't made it clear what the objectives are, what the strategy is, what the values are, any of that. So that's the first thing, lack of clarity, confusion. Number two, identity. This is a big problem, especially for pastors, but it happens in the business space too. In other words, what you do has become who you are. Well, I always preach. I preach like 45 Sundays a year. This is like, what I do is become who I am. This is part of my identity. I'm always in on those meetings. Hey, man, I've never missed an event in the five years I've been here. So what happens? And you see this in people who have led for 30, 40 years, they can't let go. And what you do has become who you are. So it's identity, it's a lack of clarity. But there's also possibly a loss of mission. And this happens particularly when we get unhealthy. And I've had seasons where probably this has been true of my leadership. And this is this, with a loss of mission, you have become more important than the mission itself. In other words, the one thing standing between you and a realized mission is, well, I really like to be at the center. I really enjoy this. I need to do this, right? You need to be needed. And the mission somehow gets lost. So what are the five ways to scale your personal capacity? Well, we've already hinted at it, right? Because if you're the leader trying to run everything, lead everything, control everything, attend everything and know everything, here are five ways to scale your personal capacity. Number one, don't run everything. Number two, don't lead everything. Number three, don't control everything. Number four, don't attend everything. And number five, don't know everything, okay? That's going to sound very counterintuitive. It's like, what do you mean, I shouldn't run everything? I'm the leader. Yeah, but if you really believe in the church context of the body of Christ, all the gifting doesn't reside with you. It resides with the body of Christ, with the people of God. So you can't be running everything. Secondly, that's spiritual. Secondly, on a practical level, if you're running multiple ministries on the same night, you can't be in two places at once, right? You've got to empower. So you can't run everything. So that's step one. Number two, don't lead everything. And you're like, well, I'm the leader, right? I'm the one who gets a paycheck. What do I do? Well, you want to develop leaders. You want to develop and empower your staff. You want to develop and empower your lay leaders. And the reality is for a lot of churches, you don't have 20 staff. You have 20 volunteers. You want to lead and empower them. And if you want to make a leader feel significant, give them something significant to do. So you want to share that leadership. And when the mission, vision, and values are clear, that is so much easier to do. And third thing, don't control everything. So a lot of us who are in leadership, we're a bit control-y, right? We're control freaks. Don't do that. If the mission is clear, values are clear, the strategy is clear, the vision is clear. You won't need to control everything because people understand the assignment. And you've hired great people. So your control isn't really exercised. And no, that's not the way we do lights. No, that's not how to play this song when you don't even have a degree in music. Okay? So that's not you. You're kind of responsible for the overall mission and the vision, but you don't know everything. You don't control everything. So that's a third. You don't control everything. And then D, you don't attend everything. So what do I mean by that? Well, what that means is you have to be comfortable not being in the room. There was a season where I was out when my kids were younger five nights a week. We had three little churches and they weren't that complicated because dozens of people attended in the first few years. But we were going through massive transition and I was out five nights a week. What I wouldn't do to have those years back. Now, did I need to be out at certain meetings? Yes, absolutely. Did I need to be out five nights a week? No. Did I need to be at every event that the churches had? No. And several years into my leadership, I began to understand that. And I'll tell you, I went through real difficulty. I remember it was probably three years into my leadership. And there was a big event and I talked about it with our elders. And we agreed that I was not going to be present. Well, I felt so guilty. I felt like I had to have a sick note from the doctor. Or I had to have a reason why I couldn't be there. I had to have an excuse why I couldn't be there. And they're like, no, this is healthy leadership. You shouldn't attend this event. And I remember, you know, in the house we were living at the time, we had a big living room window. And I remember that night, I hid in the back part of the house because I didn't want anyone who knew there was an event at the church to realize that I was home and I could have been there. Now that was a long time ago. I eventually got over the guilt. And then I realized, oh, this actually is a strength. Like if you're going to have multiple locations, if you're going to minister to thousands of people, if you're really going to empower the team, then you don't need to be there. In fact, your need to be there is a sign of a lack of leadership, not the presence of great leadership. So I had to get used to that emotionally and people got used to it. And eventually what you want to do is you want to kind of make yourself irrelevant, right? Otherwise, succession doesn't happen. And I led our churches for 20 years. And now I attend Sunday mornings. I attend strategically. But most people don't even know who I am. And that's great. Okay. So you don't attend everything. And then the final part is don't know everything. All right. You don't have to know everything. And I know in the early days, yeah, yeah. If it's small, sure, you're going to know everything. You're going to know everyone's name. You're going to know, you know, the membership. You'll probably know the donor data. You'll know all this stuff, right? Because well, there's really you. But as things get bigger, things get complicated. And you want to bring on experts. And you want to bring on people who understand things at a deeper level than you are. You're going to have people who are better at discipleship than you are. People who are more well read in theology than you are. You're going to have people who are better in operations than you are. And that means that you will soon hopefully reach the point where I always looked at it this way. Our church is can access. If can access broke, I wouldn't know how to fix it anymore. Because it reached a level of complexity that was far beyond my ability. And the same is true with what I've done for the last few years here on the podcast and in my company. It started out as a hobby. I knew everything. I knew, I had, you know, the codes to everything. I had the passwords and the usernames to everything now. I don't even know how, how my company works. I haven't been able to figure that out. I don't, I don't really know that. I have a small, powerful team that knows all that stuff. What do I know? I know how to do this. I know how to write you content that I hope is helpful. So you've got to release the pressure on that you put on yourself to run everything, lead everything, control everything, attend everything. And know everything. And when you do that, you will start to scale your personal capacity. And now a quick word from one of our partners. Today's episode is brought to you by preaching cheat sheet. A recent study showed that 46% of pastors say one of their biggest struggles is feeling like attendees don't absorb or use what they preach. Did you hear that? 46% of pastors feel that way. Look, I get it. Okay, we've all been there. But if you feel this way more often than not, I would love to help. I have a free 10 step preaching cheat sheet that outlines you guessed it. 10 simple steps to help you get the most out of your sermon prep. Each step ensures that your sermon and delivery are clear. In other words, you're ready to go before you get into the pulpit. You don't sit there at lunch going, you know, could have done this, could have done that. Get that done first. Over 30,000 pastors have downloaded copy to help with their sermon prep. It's something I still use to this day even after decades of preaching. I love filling out each of the steps as I write my sermon. And then I sit down to review the message the night before and I can go in with reasonable confidence that this message is going to land or at least that I have done my best. So I'd love to get a copy for you for free. If you want to be more confident on Sunday mornings, visit preaching cheat sheet.com. That's preaching cheat sheet.com to download your copy for free. And now back to the conversation. So I want to revisit very briefly before we wrap up. Why do most leaders not empower their teams? It's a lack of clarity around the mission, vision, values, and strategy. It's impossible to delegate what you can't articulate. So what happened to me when I didn't have this written down is I would try to delegate something. And then I would say, no, no, no, that's not it. No, no, no, no, that's not it. And I spent too much time telling people what it wasn't because what it was lived in my head. So what I had to do was I had to write it down. And that was hard, like clear mission, clear vision, values, and strategy. This is how we do. People like us do things like this. These are values. This is our strategy. Now, you won't be able to do this in a day. But if you give yourself six months to a year, like a year from now, those can be crystal clear. And when they're crystal clear, then people understand the assignment because it's impossible to delegate what you can't articulate. So as a result, if you don't get that level of clarity that really empowers your team, you're going to swoop back in, you're going to say, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, that campus pastor is no good. Oh, we got to replace her. Oh, no, no, no. They might be perfectly good people. They just can't understand the assignment because you never articulate it. It's impossible to delegate what you can't articulate. OK, second reason. You don't trust the people on your team, OK? You'll never delegate authority or truly empower people that you don't trust. And there's two levels of trust. There's character trust. Are they good people? Are they going to steal? Are they going to lie? Are they going to throw shade at people? Like, are they decent people? And I'm going to assume, for the most part, that you're good at that. That you really test for character. You've got great volunteers, great leaders. But the other part of it is not just character. It's competency, right? Someone might have a wonderful heart. But at the end of the day, if they're not good at what they're doing, you just know the sound's going to be terrible at that event. Or you know that the worship leader is going to be off key. Or you know the preacher isn't going to be prepared. Well, they might be great people, but they're not competent. So you need character and you need competency. Now, how do you get that? Here's my suggestion after many, many years of hiring people. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn't work out. Here's the truth. Hire for character. Train for competency. You hire for character, you train for competency. Hire for character, train for competency. Why do I say it that way? Well, I say it that way because I don't know how to teach an unethical person to be ethical. I don't know how to help a liar stop lying. I don't know how to help a gossip stop gossiping. Okay, I don't know how to do that. I can't fix the character things, but I can train for competency. If you have a good person who has an aptitude for an area or potential in an area, it's like, here, take this online course. Here, I actually sent an assistant to Harvard once. It's like, go study this, okay? I trained another assistant in project management. I mean, people can be trained for this. Hire for character, train for competency. Then you're not going to worry about your team. You're clear. They know what to do. You've got great people. Now you can get on with delegating, equipping, and releasing. So where does this leave you? Well, if you're a leader who builds a team and organization where you don't run everything, lead everything, control everything, attend everything or know everything, true scale becomes possible. And I want to leave you with this. I've thought about this a lot and I love this idea that there are three levels of organizational success, okay? If you think about this, there's three levels. And as you think about this, every mom and pop shop, every church, every business, every organization you know will probably fit in to one of these levels. Level one is nothing runs without you, okay? So when you're not there, things fall apart. If you're a church planter right now and it's week two, yeah, you're probably not going on a month long vacation because if you're not there, it's going to fall apart. And in the early days of leadership, that's pretty normal. If you launched a business last month, you need to be there. I mean, you are the secret sauce that keeps it all together, but that has to have a shelf life. Now, the problem, this isn't a problem in the startup days. It's a problem when a year or two or three years down the road, you try to take a vacation and the whole thing falls apart when you're not there or you're on the beach and you got your phone in your hand and you're calling people and texting people every few minutes because they don't even know how to do things when you're away. So that's level one of an organization. Nothing runs without you. When you're not there, it falls apart. So those are some signs that you're at this level. You can't take time off. When you do, your phone is constantly buzzing. You're always on Slack. You're always in Asana. And here's the third. When you get back, you spend a lot of time repairing and fixing what broke. A whole lot of stuff went wrong because you weren't there. And now you got a mop and a bucket and you're fixing it up a lot. I don't have stats on this because I made up these categories. But I'm going to say probably the majority of businesses or at least a significant minority operate at level one. Nothing runs without the owner. That's the corner store, the convenience store, the mom and pop shop, the small church. It's like, yeah, so and so is in the hospital. We didn't know what to do. So glad you're back. And then you never get a break. Now that's level one. Level two is that things run without you. Okay. So when you're not there, things continue to operate. And sometimes it operates well. You might even if you get good at this and there's many, many churches and businesses that run at level two where you come back after three weeks and they're like, oh, wow, yeah, you know, we didn't really miss you. And that's good. That's progress. Okay. So here's some signs that you're at level two. Take a couple of weeks off. Your phone isn't buzzing. You get uninterrupted time off for two or three weeks at a time, even a month off. And then when you get back, there's very little or nothing to fix. If you get good at this, your team might even start to tell you they like it when you're away because they feel empowered and equipped. Now that's a really good level to be at. And you might say, okay, I want to get to level two. Awesome. But did you know that there's a third level? This third level is very rare. Most businesses never get there. A lot of churches never get there. I think this is the ultimate in leadership development. And as you scale your personal capacity, this is what you want to shoot for. Now you're probably not going to get there in a, well, you're definitely not going to get there in a year, probably not going to get there in five, but you can get there in seven or 10 years. And level three is things grow without you. So level one, nothing runs without you. Level two, things run without you, but level three, things grow without you. So when you're not there, the church or the organization grows. Signs that you might be at level three, you can take a month off and you didn't hear crickets. In fact, your organization was thriving. And here's what will be true. When you get back, you will have learned your team made decisions in your absence, sometimes very key decisions while you were away. If you're a pastor, people kept attending even when you were preaching, even when you were on sabbatical. And sometimes even more people show up and the church goes through a growth spurt when you are away. And when you're back, your team looks to you for some high level input, but it's running really smoothly and they barely noticed that you were away. Okay. So they missed you, sure they missed you, and you provide strategic long term mission and vision, but you're basically working yourself out of a job. And that's the ultimate level of leadership. Things grow without you. So scaling your personal capacity, where does this leave you and me? Well, let's start here. Why don't you evaluate where you are? Would you say and maybe ask some people around you who love you enough to tell you the truth? Are you level one? Nothing happens without you. Are you at level two as an organization that things run without you? Or are you truly at level three? This is rare air. So don't like kid yourself and try to pretend you're at level three when you're not. But things grow without you. And then if you're not at the level you want to be, if you're not at level three, and even if you are, you can still do this. You want to identify and assess areas where you're holding too tightly, where you're trying to run, lead, control, attend, and know everything. You probably want to drill down and clarify, clarify, clarify your mission, vision, strategy, and values. And then you want to assess your team. Do I have the right people? Have I hired for character? Am I training for competency? And this engenders teams that you feel that you can trust. Now, I'm giving you in 20 minutes, 20 years of leadership development. All right. I spent too many years at level one when my kids were young. Then we got to level two and it felt uncomfortable. There's a bit of emotional growth there that you have to get through, where you're like, yeah, I don't have to come in and put out fires after I've been away. And no, my phone didn't buzz and people missed me, but they didn't really need me. And then you want to get to level three, will things grow without you? And I think the ultimate test of level three is after you leave. So after leading the church for 20 years, I went through a succession plan. And now the church is entirely independent of my leadership. And you know what? It is bigger and better than when I led it. And that is the sign of successful leadership. That's what you want, right? You don't want your 38 year old texting you in the morning, hey, mom, like, what should I wear today? Or your 40 year old son going, dad, I need a job. Can you write my resume for me? It's like, I was hoping we were past that. You know, you're not 18. Yeah, I love to help you as a teenager. But ideally as a parent, you want your kids to thrive. You want them to do better than you did. And shouldn't that be true of your organization? So I hope you get to the point where you pass level one, where nothing happens without you. And if you're a church planter or you're in a startup right now, hey, give yourself six months or a year, you can get there. If you've been operating at level one, man, give yourself the tools that you have now in this podcast to start figuring out, what do you need to clarify? What do you need to release? Who do you need to empower? You want to get there because you want to move to level two, where things run without you and they run well. And then you're in a place to work at level three, which is so rare in leadership, things grow without you. And isn't that really what we all want? So why don't organization scale? Because leaders can't let go. And now you know how to make it different. It will be different among you, and you're going to release, and you're going to let go, and you're going to empower, and you're not going to be controlling. Hey, before we go, don't forget you can sign up for a 14-day free trial at church.tech and begin using their AI ministry tools today. Simply enter the code carry it, check out. You'll get an exclusive discount of 25% off your first three months. So go to church.tech, take your ministry to the next level, and you get back to what you really love doing. And that is serving in your area of expertise. And what if you were the first church to welcome new movers home when they moved into your community? That's something that you can do by going to glue.us/movers and use the code carry20, you will get 20% off. Hey, I'm so glad that you listened. And if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and review. If you've watched this on YouTube, make sure you subscribe. If you're listening, subscribe wherever you go. And if you found this helpful, share it with your team or with your friends. Text them a link. That helps the show grow. And we'll be back to our regularly scheduled guest next episode. I sincerely hope this episode helps you identify and break a growth barrier that you've been facing.
