What's in Freed To Lead

All leaders want to be the best they can be. But the truth is that you can read as many "how to" books as you like and still not be a truly effective leader. People don't follow leaders who use the right techniques. They follow leaders who are authentic and real.

Christian leaders have a huge advantage over others because they have become new creations in Christ. In the 10 sessions of Freed To Lead and the Steps To Freedom For Leaders you will be surprised as you are helped to take the truths of this new identity much deeper so that you can learn to lead as the new person in Christ that you are.

Session 1: The Adventure of Leadership

Christian leadership is the leadership the world really needs today. Yet the very people who need true leadership are the ones consciously or unconsciously undermine, attack, sabotage and destroy leadership. As Christians, we have a great advantage when approaching this dilemma - Jesus, the greatest leader who ever lived, lives in us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Session 2: Real Christian Leadership

Every single one of us can be a real Christ-centred leader. True Christian leadership is distinctively different from other forms of leadership. It's an issue of discipleship - if we are following Jesus well, we will lead others well. 

Session 3: Being And Doing

In both leadership and discipleship, the primary issue is not doing: it's being. Our 'doing' always flows from our being. Our tendency is to either forge ahead and do things in our own strength, or to hang back too much and not do what we should. The biblical principal is that we can do "all things" but only "through Him who strengthens" us. 

Session 4: Leading In Your Context

Being a healthy leader alone does not determine our fruitfulness as a leader. Our people-system will determine our leadership effectiveness far more than we realise. A healthy people-system will often help make an unhealthy leader effective; an unhealthy people-system will often render a healthy leader ineffective.

Session 5: Building Healthy People-Systems

Leadership is the primary determinant of whether people-systems remain healthy or become even more fruitful. The power to influence our people-systems towards health comes from our being: our spiritual health and our genuine commitment to our people. The greatest bane to our leadership is anxiety. To the degree we have unmanaged or unresolved anxiety, we cannot lead effectively.

Session 6: Overcoming Personal Anxiety

Resolving anxiety is a choice. This session includes a number of practical ways of reducing anxiety, from examining our 'Godly Goals' to practising different spiritual disciplines. The dilemma is that anxiety always hides or disguises itself, so we can be completely unaware of the corrosive influence it is having on our leadership.

Session 7: Overcoming Group Anxiety

We must be anxiety-resistant leaders if we are to lead our people-systems to resist and resolve chronic anxiety. This session looks at five classic behaviours of anxious people-systems and how to overcome them. The challenge is that authentic, healthy, connected leaders are the only hope for chronically anxious people-systems - and yet those people-systems will always try to expel the healthy leader before the anxiety is resolved.

Session 8: Building And Keeping Trust

This session looks at indicators of low-trust and high-trust people-systems, and signifcantly the 'trust environment' that God places us in. It goes on to explore trust building behaviours of being and trust building behaviours of doing, and examines how to regain trust in a people-system when it has been eroded.

Session 9: Overcoming Personal Pitfalls

We face five different types of personal pitfalls - temptation, self-centredness, emotional, communication and exhaustion. Even though we have been given everything we need in Christ to avoid these pitfalls, we still tend to fall in them. This session examines each one, and offers strategies for overcoming them. 

Session 10: Overcoming Group Pitfalls

Group pitfalls are a set of predictable, but not inevitable reactions within your people-system in response to effective leadership. They invariably present as dilemmas, rather than problems, and commonly fall into one of four camps: selfishness, sabotage, strife and suffering. This session explores effective (and ineffective!) ways of dealing with Group Pitfalls.

The Steps To Freedom For Leaders

The Steps To Freedom For Leaders focus on the personal and spiritual issues common to people in leadership - whether it's in the church, the marketplace, the home or the community. They will help you identify and resolve personal and spiritual issues that can weaken, undermine or even destroy your leadership. Just like the Steps To Freedom In Christ which is part of the Discipleship Course, the steps can be used in a group setting, through personal appointments or individually. We strongly recommend using them in a personal setting with an encourager and prayer partner.