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    Unshakable Leader: The Simple Yet Amazing Power of Alignment
    Unshakable Leader: The Simple Yet Amazing Power of Alignment
    Unshakable Leader: The Simple Yet Amazing Power of Alignment
    Ebook94 pages1 hour

    Unshakable Leader: The Simple Yet Amazing Power of Alignment

    By John Opalewski

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    About this ebook

    Leading is hard. Staying healthy while leading is even harder. Difficult people, unrealistic expectations, crammed calendars, and the gravitational pull into relational isolation often creates the perfect emotional storm. Many men and women drown in the choppy waters of leadership, never to return. Bringing a healthier, less anxious, and more-aligned version of yourself to the people you lead is the most influential and catalytic behavior you bring to the table as a leader. Unshakable Leader is a practical, powerful guide to personal alignment and its impact on our leadership. It introduces key behaviors to position a leader for long-term personal and professional health. The business you lead, the church you pastor, the team you serve, and the family you direct deserve a better you. The impact of getting personally aligned will be deep, wide, and lasting.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateOct 1, 2020
    ISBN9780989054669
    Unshakable Leader: The Simple Yet Amazing Power of Alignment

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      Book preview

      Unshakable Leader - John Opalewski

      Coaching

      INTRODUCTION

      UNSHAKABLE LEADER

      THE SIMPLE YET AMAZING POWER OF ALIGNMENT

      It’s all about alignment.

      So many leadership books have been written. So much great data to sift through. So many ways to do leadership. But when everything is said and done (and read), it all comes down to alignment. The more aligned you are personally, the healthier you become. The healthier you get, the stronger the organization, family, or team you lead gets. Personal alignment starts with you.

      Leading well is hard. My sense is in the days ahead, it will only get harder. Leadership possesses its great points, high moments, and victories. For a pastor, walking alongside people as they figure out their relationship with Jesus is fulfilling. Being invited into your parishioners’ lives is an honor.

      Leading well is hard

      As a parent, watching your children flourish is rewarding. When they develop solid character, build great relationships, and discover their God-given destiny, life doesn’t get much better. Watching them parent their own children well is a special treat.

      In business, leaders love it when their team members perform at a high level, grow toward their full potential, and bring a winsome attitude along with them. Watching team leaders blossom before your eyes is exciting. Working shoulder-to-shoulder with high-capacity people is a blast.

      But leadership also possesses a slimy underbelly. People are messy, and leading them often gets tricky. When an employee in the corporate world is underperforming, he is given a performance improvement plan, with a time deadline for making necessary changes. If after thirty-to-sixty days, no discernible improvement occurs, he is either reassigned to another role in the company, or let go. Personnel decisions like this happen every day in the corporate world. They are part of business culture, and nobody is particularly shocked when the hammer gets dropped. But it’s never easy for a leader to make difficult personnel decisions.

      Pulling off the same process in the church world is even more complex. Personnel changes happen, but they require a pastoral flair. Truth must be combined with love in pastoral settings. When a church staff member is reassigned or let go, churchgoers often are shocked because they see these kinds of decisions as unchristian or outside of their expectations. Often their response is colored by closeness to the particular person being reassigned or fired.

      The increasing complexity of leading in the twenty-first century requires a commensurate increase of personal alignment in the life of a leader, or else he/she will find leading not only difficult, but dangerous. This could be dangerous to their mental and emotional health—threatening the health of the family, team, or organization they lead.

      A landmark study of 14,000 lead pastors in the United States, conducted by The Barna Group, revealed 37% of lead pastors are at medium-to-high-risk of burnout.¹ Things aren’t much better in the corporate world. According to Harvard Business Review, 25% of entrepreneurs felt moderately burned out, while 3% felt strongly burned out.²

      Leadership health is central to a thriving team or organization. Our God-given mission and calling hang in the balance. Unshakable Leader is written for leaders who are healthy, and for those who are struggling. It’s for those on a roll, and those feeling stuck in neutral, or perhaps even experiencing decline. It’s written to help leaders lead better, lead longer—and have more fun along the way. The goal of this book is to encourage leaders who are healthy to stay well—and to assist leaders who aren’t healthy to get well.

      The journey toward leadership health starts with personal alignment. Achievement without alignment is possible, but problematic. If you get aligned in your personal life, it sets you up to win in your professional life . . . without success crushing you.

      Let me give you a real-life parallel to illustrate the amazing power of alignment. I go to a chiropractor occasionally to help me address back/neck pain. My chiropractor let me in on a little secret: when he adjusts and aligns my spine, two huge benefits emerge:

      1. My body gets more balanced and upright.

      2. My central nervous system can efficiently facilitate communication between my brain and the rest of my body. When the spine is misaligned, my body is thrown off balance and is forced to work harder to compensate. The more aligned my spine, the healthier I get.

      When aligned correctly in our personal lives, we’re able to handle leadership challenges with more energy, effectiveness, and resiliency. When misaligned, success in our relationships, work, and in reaching goals seems harder and requires more effort. What’s happening personally impacts us professionally.

      Alignment isn’t complicated. It’s an unbelievably simple concept. However, the execution of it isn’t always simple. Alignment takes practice, but it’s so doable. It is easy to grasp the concept—and at the same time—so amazingly powerful.

      Three Big Ideas

      Throughout this book, the words ownership, network, and rhythms become almost mantra-like, because they are the overarching ideas or principles guiding us on the alignment journey.

      You own the degree of alignment in your life

      Ownership: You own the degree of alignment in your life, one hundred percent. Your team is not responsible for your level of alignment or misalignment. Neither are your spouse or board. You, and you alone, are ultimately responsible for stewarding your personal alignment.

      Network: Personal alignment requires a network of trusted people who speak into your life. A robust network includes your spouse (if married), a doctor, counselor, mentor, or coach, and some deep friendships to help you process life. Alignment rarely, if ever, develops in a vacuum.

      Rhythms: Alignment isn’t the same thing as balance. It includes an integrated set of rhythms which leaders develop—work/rest rhythms, physical rhythms, spiritual rhythms, etc.

      Five Alignment Components

      It’s my belief the following five components are integral to personal alignment:

      1. Spiritual Hunger: Maintaining regular times of meaningful connection with God. Encountering Him privately, as well as in public and small group gatherings, is foundational to personal alignment.

      2. Physical Fitness: Integrating exercise, nutrition, and sleep to keep your body strong and healthy. Physical fitness has been undervalued in general by leaders. Our aim is

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