Listen Well, Lead Better by Steve and Becky Harling (book review)
I had a terrible misunderstanding in a ministry that I co-lead. This misunderstanding stemmed from a few things, one being my poor listening skills and then jumping to conclusions based upon them. To help remedy this situation and make wiser decisions in the future, I jumped at the chance to read Steve and Becky Harling's book "Listen Well, Lead Better."
While the back print said it was "written for leaders at all levels of churches, nonprofits, and businesses," it read as though it were mainly written for those leading within companies who oversee a large group. This does not fit my demographic of being a lay co-leader of a group, there were some good takeaway points from "Listen Well, Lead Better."
The book spoke about having teammates buy in to the core values of your business or ministry. This is so true and something I've had to be flexible with when our core leadership group changed in the past few years. New ideas were on the table about the direction of the group. I wasn't on board with some of those changes. When I took a step back to survey whether the values had changed, I saw that they had not, only the implementation of those values had changed. That was ok, so I got on board.
"Listen Well, Lead Better" also spoke of how to build a platform (my term, not theirs) for your business or ministry. They said that from the leadership or even employee or volunteer standpoint, you can only "evangelize" (again, my term) your efforts so much. It really is buy in from the customer or attendee that builds a following. It's testimonials from those people, invitations from them to others to attend, that builds a platform. I can invite people all I want to our events, but it really is when someone else who has attended says "hey, I love going to this group, would you want to come, too?" that a following or a building of a platform occurs.
Things I disliked about this book: it seemed very business-minded. Perhaps my demographic just did not fit the bill of this book but I thought it would be more about listening as the title says. There were parts about listening and if you stretch your thinking, it could all tie in to listening, but a lot of the book seemed to be about building your platform and growing your business and how to lead people doing so. That's fine, but I thought there would be more pointers on HOW to listen better, not just telling you to listen better. The closest that this happened in the book was the suggestion to perform interviews of your employees/team members to get to know them better and learn their values. I loved that idea and will be implementing that for our team.
Overall, this was a fine book. Nothing stood out as life changing but very good information and suggestions. I suspect that most leaders have the skills outlined in this book but I know we all have growing to do, so check this out to see if it's right for you.
Disclaimer: I received this book in exchange for an honest review. Others may have differing opinions about the book. All opinions are my own. Links in this post link to Amazon Smile in support of Emmaus University in Haiti. If you buy using these links, you will be helping to equip Christian leaders in Haiti.
While the back print said it was "written for leaders at all levels of churches, nonprofits, and businesses," it read as though it were mainly written for those leading within companies who oversee a large group. This does not fit my demographic of being a lay co-leader of a group, there were some good takeaway points from "Listen Well, Lead Better."
 |
| image via Baker Publishing Group |
"Listen Well, Lead Better" also spoke of how to build a platform (my term, not theirs) for your business or ministry. They said that from the leadership or even employee or volunteer standpoint, you can only "evangelize" (again, my term) your efforts so much. It really is buy in from the customer or attendee that builds a following. It's testimonials from those people, invitations from them to others to attend, that builds a platform. I can invite people all I want to our events, but it really is when someone else who has attended says "hey, I love going to this group, would you want to come, too?" that a following or a building of a platform occurs.
Things I disliked about this book: it seemed very business-minded. Perhaps my demographic just did not fit the bill of this book but I thought it would be more about listening as the title says. There were parts about listening and if you stretch your thinking, it could all tie in to listening, but a lot of the book seemed to be about building your platform and growing your business and how to lead people doing so. That's fine, but I thought there would be more pointers on HOW to listen better, not just telling you to listen better. The closest that this happened in the book was the suggestion to perform interviews of your employees/team members to get to know them better and learn their values. I loved that idea and will be implementing that for our team.
Overall, this was a fine book. Nothing stood out as life changing but very good information and suggestions. I suspect that most leaders have the skills outlined in this book but I know we all have growing to do, so check this out to see if it's right for you.
Disclaimer: I received this book in exchange for an honest review. Others may have differing opinions about the book. All opinions are my own. Links in this post link to Amazon Smile in support of Emmaus University in Haiti. If you buy using these links, you will be helping to equip Christian leaders in Haiti.
Comments