Introduction: Tensions of Leadership

If you’re reading this, you’re a leader. A leader of your family, in your workplace, in your community, in your church and if you don’t believe any of those to be true, you are a leader of yourself. Having influence over something qualifies you as a leader.

Being a leader comes with its share of struggles and victories, loneliness and mountaintop moments, and more often than not, I’ve found how we manage tensions is where the heart of success has come from. Over the years, I’ve learned that most leadership is usually successfully navigated by managing tensions. We have to sift through information, motives, multiple options and uncharted territory to make the right choices, to lead the right way.

How you manage these tensions are very important to you, your influence and how you continue to operate years to come. I have found that managing these tensions is how I as a leader found refreshment, avoided burnout, became more efficient and will hopefully increase my effectiveness and longevity for the next 30+ years of leadership here at Watermarks.

Over the course of 2020-21 these are the leadership tensions we’re going to tackle:                                            

• Thick Skin & Soft Heart

• Leader & Boss

• Capacity & Capability

• Preparation & Execution

• Growing & Maintaining

• Work & Rest

• Shortcuts & Standards

• Gut & Glory

• Fear & Culture

• Invested & Obsessed

• Managing & Releasing

• Catching & Sending

• Hung & Unhooked

• Timing & Company          

• Working On & In

• Risk & Reward

• Flexibility & Control

• Quality & Quantity       

• Urgent & Important

Over 15 years of leadership at Watermarks, these are the tensions that we have managed and will continue to manage. We hope you join the journey with us as your leadership grows, because when you grow, everyone grows.