Category: Leadership

The Most Memorable Gift I Could Have Given

Rod Denton in Christian Living, Leadership, Marriage

My wife Sue’s birthday was fast approaching, and try as I may, I couldn’t think of a memorable present that she needed, that I could buy for her. We had been married for forty years and memorable presents were now more difficult than ever to find.

However, in the process the word memory would not leave me and then it came to me; why not buy Sue a memory. After all, you can never wear a memory out, it can never add clutter to your house and you are less likely to forget it. But what kind of memory! Now my thought processes were quite stirred and I started …

MAKE PLANS THAT OUTLIVE YOUR LIFE

Rod Denton in Christian Living, Discipleship, Leadership, Mentoring, Mission

“Is this a tragedy?” John Piper asked an audience of 50,000 young people when he spoke of two 80 year old ladies, Ruby a nurse and Laura a retired doctor, who were killed instantly when their car went over a cliff in the Cameroons, where they were serving as missionaries.

I continued to watch the video of John Piper where he said, “What happened to these two ladies was no tragedy. But this is a tragedy.”

And then he told the story from a Readers’ Digest article about a couple aged 59 and 61, who took early retirement to live in a coastal development in Florida, USA to spend …

INSIGHT……that separates leaders from followers

Rod Denton in Leadership, Mentoring

INSIGHT is a critical quality that characterises great leaders and the decisions they make. It separates leaders from followers and great leaders from ordinary leaders and can be defined as perspective, intuition, vision and discernment. However, insight can be compromised by logic, precedence, fear, legalism and traditions.

Jesus was a person of insight and often saw things that others did not see. The religious leaders of His day sent spies to catch Him out in something He said, but “He saw through their duplicity.” (Luke 20:23) On another occasion we read, “When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’” (Mark 2:5)

Leaders possess …

SHAPING YOUR CULTURE……. By what you create or what you tolerate

Rod Denton in Christian Living, Discipleship, Leadership, Mentoring

I was recently reminded of the valuable responsibility leaders have in shaping the culture of their organisation. They can shape their culture intentionally, or they can shape their culture by default.

This important lesson was brought home to me when I listened to a presentation by Danny Meyer, the CEO of a restaurant chain in America called Shake Shack. He spoke of how he chose to define the way he would shape the culture of his restaurant by “shaping the way that people would feel when they dined in one of the Shake Shack restaurants.” And it all started with the interview of prospective staff where staff are appointed …