Speaker A
This is the Craig Rochelle Leadership podcast.
Craig Groeschel discusses how to lead up in an organization, shares journaling benefits, and answers leadership questions on his podcast.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
Generated from the transcript and can be wrong — check the timestamp.
Key Takeaways
- Journaling is a powerful leadership tool for reflection, accountability, and gaining perspective.
- Focusing on developing leaders (coaches) creates exponential growth in teams.
- Leading up requires influence, respect, and strategic communication even without formal authority.
- Proactively addressing complacency in leadership can foster urgency and professionalism.
- Leadership is about impact at all levels, not just positional power.
What the video covers
- Craig Groeschel opens with gratitude for listeners and shares info about an upcoming conference.
- He emphasizes valuing time and outlines the podcast format: answering questions, teaching, reviewing, and application.
- Groeschel explains his journaling practice, highlighting five key benefits including memory, reflection, accountability, idea capture, and perspective.
- He addresses a question from a high school baseball coach on whether to focus on developing coaches or players, recommending prioritizing coaches for exponential impact.
- The main focus is on the most common leadership question: how to lead up when not in charge.
- Groeschel shares an early personal story about leading up in ministry despite limited authority.
- He responds to a listener struggling with complacency from their director and how to respectfully challenge leadership.
- The episode encourages proactive influence and leadership regardless of formal position.
- Listeners are invited to submit questions and receive notes via email.
- The podcast blends practical advice with personal anecdotes to help emerging leaders navigate organizational dynamics.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Leadership podcast.
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I want to say a big thanks to all of you who are sharing this on social media.
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It means the world to me when you help get the word out.
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If you're enjoying these podcasts, it would be awesome if you would rank them, write a review.
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That actually really helps the ratings.
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And so if you can do that, that'd mean a lot.
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Also, if you're looking for a conference next month in the month of October,
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I'll actually be in Atlanta at Catalyst. We partner with Catalyst all the time.
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And they've got an amazing conference going on there, October the 6th and the 7th.
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There's information on the Catalyst website.
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So anyway, our most valuable resources are time.
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I want to value your time.
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So we'll dive right in.
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Here's what we're going to do.
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Is I will answer some of your questions.
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I try to do that each time.
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I'll do a teaching.
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Today, what I'm going to do is do part one answering what has been the most often asked question.
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In the history of my leadership, honestly.
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The most often asked question.
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Then I'm going to give you a review.
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And then we'll dive into some application questions.
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Because truth without application is doesn't make a lot of difference.
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So,
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each week I love to try to answer a couple of questions as best I can.
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You can email me with questions, comments, ideas, thoughts anytime.
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You can also go to life.church/leadershippodcast.
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And you can, you can sign up to receive the notes every single month.
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So we'll send them to you the day before the podcast releases.
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And then you'll have the notes in front of you.
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Let's dive into a couple of the questions that came in.
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Dale said this.
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He said, I've heard two quick mentions of journaling.
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You said you could kick yourself for not starting sooner.
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Could you go into a little depth of how and why you journal?
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Good question.
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For years and years and years, I was kind of wanted to journal.
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Because most people that I admire journal.
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Whenever I find a common quality in the people that I admire,
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I think there's probably a reason why they do it.
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And so I felt like if a lot of people I look up to do it,
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I may want to do this.
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So I tried for a long time and I never could be consistent.
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Then I found one day a five-year journal.
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And it changed my journaling habits.
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A five-year journal, basically, there's maybe four or five lines that you write on.
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You don't have to write a lot.
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And then what's really cool is you can see year over year over year.
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So if I'm journaling on September the 12th, I can see what happened last September 12th.
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The previous September 12th and so on.
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And I find five real big benefits from journaling.
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The first thing is obvious that you remember special moments.
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That's important.
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And you really can document your life that way.
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Number two is I can reflect on what I'm learning.
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Right now I'm listening to a book a week and I can put down the big idea.
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That's sticking with me.
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That's helpful.
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Number three, there's accountability to my goals.
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I have written goals.
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And then I can journal how I'm doing with my goals.
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Peter Drucker said, what's measured improves.
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In every area, if I'm getting in shape, if I'm developing my leadership gifts,
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if I'm trying to have financial goals,
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whatever is measured improves.
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And so this gives me documentation and journaling.
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Number four, I jot down theories.
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All great leaders always have theories.
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I'm always thinking of new ideas.
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And if you don't write them down, you'll often lose them.
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So I put my ideas down.
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And then number five, it gives me perspective.
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I think this is my most favorite thing about journaling.
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Is, for example, last night I read last year's and I was facing a really big problem on yesterday's date a year ago.
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And now I almost forgot about that problem.
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And this is what I see over and over and over again.
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Whenever I'm writing about something that's a burden to me today, I think to myself, a year from now,
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this is probably not going to be that big of a burden.
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And so journaling actually gives me tremendous perspective.
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Ryan asked an important question.
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I like this question.
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Ryan said, I'm a head baseball coach at a local high school with six assistant coaches.
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And about 50 players in my program.
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I find myself wondering who I should focus on more.
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Do I build my coaches or do I build my players?
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Or is there a balance?
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Really good question.
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I've never coached a sports team.
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So I'm going to give you my opinion and it may or may not be completely accurate.
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But this is what I think.
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Anytime we lead a growing organization, eventually we're all going to have to face
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a similar situation.
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Ryan, an easy answer would be you have to focus on both.
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The more nuanced answer is obvious, and that is it depends.
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If we were sitting down across from each other having coffee, I would ask you some questions.
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To kind of dig deeper into it.
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I'd ask you, how long have your coaches been with you?
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I'd ask you, how good are they?
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I'd ask you, where do your players need to be most developed?
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I would ask you to tell me about your gifts.
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Are you, are you better at developing players or developing coaches?
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And so I'd try to find some stuff out like that.
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Not knowing any of that, here's how to answer your question.
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And this is my gut, okay?
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My gut is this, that you're going to want to focus more on the coaches.
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You may even enjoy the time with the players more.
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But I'm going to lean toward the coaches because there's exponential value in working with coaches.
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As leaders, we don't just lead followers.
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We want to lead leaders.
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Then one day, we want to lead teams of leaders.
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And then one day we want to lead teams of leaders leading teams of leaders.
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So, my gut is you're going to want to work with your coaches.
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In other words, Ryan, if you have six average coaches, you can have a decent team.
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If you have six crazy strong coaches, you're going to have a great team.
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You're never going to neglect or ignore your players.
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But I think you'll have a better result if you're coaching those who are coaching others.
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Okay.
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Hands down, the most commonly asked question in this podcast.
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And then from people all the time is is this.
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They ask some version of this.
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I'm not the boss.
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I'm new on staff.
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I'm only in my early twenties.
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I've got ideas.
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How do I influence my boss?
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How do I help my supervisor see how a different idea could make a big difference?
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The big question is, how do I lead when I'm not in charge?
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Or another way of asking is, how do I lead up?
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Most of the time when we talk about leadership, we talk about kind of leading down in the organization.
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Or maybe leading horizontally.
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What I want to do is talk about how do we lead up?
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And Matt asks this question last month.
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If you have questions, email me.
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And comments, questions.
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Email away.
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Matt said this.
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He said, I'm frequently faced with complacency from my director.
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In regards to the movement of our business.
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If I have vision and drive and want the organization to thrive, how do I respectfully challenge this behavior in order to create a greater sense of urgency and professionalism from the top of the organization?
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Matt's asking, how do I lead up?
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The first time I remember leading up was years ago, I was maybe 22 years of age.
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And I felt called into full-time ministry, wanted to serve in the church, but didn't have any role.
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I had a pastor, his name was Pastor Nick Harris.
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A hero to me to this day.
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And Nick called me in for a meeting and Nick essentially offered me a part-time job to get young adults in the church.
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And I was super excited and yet at the same time, I was like, oh, but I wish it could be full-time.
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And so I actually led up without even knowing that I was leading up.
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And I said, Pastor, I would be honored to do this part-time.
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Is there any way I could be full-time?
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He said, well, actually no, we don't have the finances.
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So then I asked, well, if I were to contribute to the growth of the church and we had more people coming, therefore more resources,
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then could I be full-time?
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And he said, well, yes, actually that would be amazing.
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And so then I said, well, how many people would we need to join the church?
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Under my leadership in order for me to go full-time?
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And he kind of looked like he had never thought of this idea.
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And then he jotted some notes down on a piece of paper doing some kind of math.
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And he said, well, if you influence 40 people to join the church, I'd hire you full-time.
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And guess what?
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Suddenly, there was a goal, there was a promise, and within a certain amount of time, I actually influenced 40 people to join the church.
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And Nick was good to his word.
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And what I realized is that I was 22, he was in his late forties.
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I was kind of intimidated by him and such because he was so such a, you know, father figure and a great man in my life.
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But what did I do?
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I led up.
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Then over the next five years of working together, we had the most amazing partnership.
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Because he empowered me, trusted me, trained me and developed me.
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And guess what he let me do?
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He let me lead up from my perspective, a young adult, and help impact his organization to make it way, way better.
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Because he had the wisdom to invest in me and also the humility to allow me to lead up.
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Why is leading up important?
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Let's dive into some content.
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Number one, why is leading up important? Because no organization will ever be what it could be.
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Without honest upward communication.
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Let me say it again.
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Your organization, it will never ever be what it could be without honest upward communication.
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If you are not in charge, you need to understand.
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You are on the front lines.
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You see things that others don't see.
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You have ideas that could make a big difference.
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In fact, many of you, you're thinking of solutions to problems that your supervisors do not even know exist.
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That's how important you are.
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No organization will ever be what it could be without honest upward communication.
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Number two, your ability to lead up now will help determine your ability to move up later.
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If you make a difference wherever you are, that will open doors for more influence in your organization in the future.
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Now, the biggest myth in leadership is this.
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Hands down.
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The biggest myth in leadership is this, that you have to be in charge in order to lead.
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There is nothing further from the truth.
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You do not have to be in charge to have influence or to lead.
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The great news is, years ago,
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leadership was often thought of as positional power.
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In other words, if you have the title, you have the power.
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If you have the position, you have the power.
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Today, things are really, really different and I think it's great.
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Instead of just having positional power, now people have what we might call personal power.
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What is personal power?
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Personal power is simply based on what any group of people think about a person.
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If you're trustworthy, you'll have personal power.
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If you care about people, you'll have personal power.
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If you listen to others, if you get things done, you'll have personal power.
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And interestingly enough, positional power is not what it used to be.
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In fact, many of the younger generation actually are more skeptical about positional power.
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Sometimes resent positional power.
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What they're looking for is authenticity.
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They're looking for people who care.
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Personal power, you can make a difference anywhere from your organization if you really care about people.
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So, what do we do?
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We're going to lead up by serving up.
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We're going to lead up by serving up.
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We're going to influence those above us starting with a serving attitude.
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If you want influence,
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care about people.
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Love them.
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Help them improve.
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Why? Because people will follow a leader with a heart.
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Faster than a leader with a title.
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Let me say it again.
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People will follow a leader with a heart faster than a leader with a title.
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You do not need a title in order to lead.
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Five things that matter when leading up.
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Today's part one, we're going to talk about two today.
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And we'll talk about three in next month.
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Five things that matter when leading up before we talk about number one.
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Let's just acknowledge that leading up can be a little risky.
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Okay?
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If you lead up in the wrong way, it can cost you.
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If you lead up with a rebellious attitude, you can be labeled as a troublemaker.
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You might have, they think you have a critical spirit or whatever.
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And let's just go ahead and call it what it is.
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If you serve under an insecure leader, a stubborn leader or an overly confident leader, leading up can be very, very tricky.
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Okay?
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Let me say it again.
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If they're insecure, stubborn or overly confident, it's tricky.
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And so we're going to get into some details.
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How do you lead up effectively?
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Number one, if you're taking notes, honor matters.
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Showing honor matters.
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I asked my pastor, why did you let me make so many decisions?
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Why did you trust me to influence the organization?
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And he said, because you always showed honor to me.
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You always showed honor to me.
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You always had my back.
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I like what my friend Andy Stanley says.
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He says this.
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He says, honor publicly results in influence privately.
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It's so powerful.
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Honor publicly results in influence privately.
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If you don't feel a sense of honor for the person who is above you,
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they're going to sense it through you.
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If you're looking around going, I could do better than that.
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You know, I should be in that role.
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What you need to understand is that if you were supposed to be in that role, you would be in that role.
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You're not in that role because you're not yet supposed to be in that role.
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If you want one day to be over others, you need to learn to be under others and show honor.
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Show honor where you are.
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Now you may say, well, you know, but my leader is not amazing.
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You know, if I worked for a great leader, it'd be easy to show honor.
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No, you're, you're mixing respect and honor.
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We need to remember that respect is earned.
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Honor is given.
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Respect is earned.
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But we simply honor those in authority over us.
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We believe that they are there because they're supposed to be there.
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And we're going to serve them and help their mission be better.
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Now, if you don't honor your boss, your supervisor, the owner, your pastor, whatever,
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then quite honestly, you might consider doing everyone a favor and going somewhere else where you can show honor.
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Because if you want to lead up, you have to honor up.
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If you want to lead up, you have to serve up.
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Number one, honor matters.
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Number two, if you want to pitch an idea,
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you want to help influence your supervisor, your boss.
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Timing matters.
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Timing matters.
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Now, men, we know this is true if you're married, timing matters.
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I don't understand it, but I can approach my wife one day and be kind of flirty and I'm cute and adorable.
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I can approach her the next day, do the same thing and I'm a jerk.
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What happened?
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I don't know.
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It's a mystery to me.
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But my wife will sometimes say, you have the worst timing, like I thought all times were good to be romantic.
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But evidently there's sometimes better than others.
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Okay.
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If you want to lead up, timing really, really matters.
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Timing matters.
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Make sure the time is right to pitch your idea.
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For example, on our team, the public bathrooms are right by a guy's office.
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I'll often go into the bathroom and he'll follow me into the bathroom and try to pitch an idea.
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Okay?
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Can I just say, that's bad timing.
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That's bad timing.
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Don't pitch an idea when some guy's going to the bathroom.
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And it's, you know, it's kind of a joke.
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But you really want to make sure the timing is right.
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What you'll want to do is look at the rhythms of those you serve.
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And ask yourself, what is the best time of the week and even the best time of the day?
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For example, for me,
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Mondays, I've kind of, I'm exhausted from the weekend.
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I'm doing meetings, that's not the best time.
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Tuesday is sermon day.
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I'm buried in sermons prepping.
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It's not the best day.
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Wednesday afternoon, I'm done with the sermon, that's a good time.
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Thursday is a really, really good time.
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So if a team member is approaching me, timing really matters if they look at my schedule.
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Then when you meet with your leader,
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be prepared.
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Value their time.
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If you're pitching an idea, I'd recommend you have it written down.
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You have an agenda.
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We had a guy on our team that asked my assistant a while back, they said, could I have seven minutes of Pastor Craig's time?
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Well, this wasn't a guy that I'd met before, but he wrote down the three bullet points he wanted to talk about.
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Gave it to my assistant, asked for seven minutes.
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I thought that's rather intriguing.
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His ideas were good, they were typed out, organized.
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So I took the meeting.
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He sat down, started his stopwatch and, you know, his on his iPhone and the timer.
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And at seven minutes into the meeting, he had done a great job.
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He said, well, my time is up and so I'm going to respect your time.
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And I'm going to, you know, if you want to know anymore, ask me questions.
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So I said, no, no, wait, wait, wait, that's a good idea.
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He came in organized, he was respecting my time.
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And so I took up about another 20 minutes of his time because I wanted to hear more.
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What happened?
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He came in very, very prepared.
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A lot of times that doesn't happen.
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People come in and waste your time, show up late, they're not organized.
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Timing matters, timing matters, timing matters.
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Now, next week we're going to look at three other things.
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But I want to do a quick review and hit one more big thought.
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Why is leading up so important?
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Number one, no organization will ever be what it could be without honest upward communication.
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You're on the front lines.
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You see things others don't see.
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Your perspective is valuable.
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Number two, your ability to lead up now will help determine your ability to move up later.
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The biggest, biggest myth in leadership is that you have to be in charge in order to lead.
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You do not have to be in charge.
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If you want influence, care about people.
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People would rather follow a leader with a heart than a leader with a title.
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What matters?
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Honor matters.
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Honor publicly results in influence privately.
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If you want to be over, learn to be under.
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Respect is earned.
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Honor is given.
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Timing matters.
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Look at the rhythms of those that you serve.
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Three application questions and one more big thought.
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Question number one.
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What is something specific you can do to increase your personal influence with people in your organization?
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Great question.
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Ask yourself.
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What is something specific you can do to increase your personal influence with people in your organization?
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You might bring cookies on their birthday.
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Visit someone in the hospital, listen when they're hurting, but just be, be, be specific.
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What you can do.
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Number two.
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What are three things you can do to show honor by serving up?
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Think about whoever you report to.
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What are three things, specific things, name them.
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That you can do to show honor by serving up.
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Then number three, this is where I want to drive it in.
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If you are the point leader, if you're in charge,
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what are three things you can do to give your team specific opportunities to help your organization by sharing their wisdom with you?
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What are three things you as the point leader can do to give them opportunities to share their wisdom with you?
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Now, if you even think for a moment, you're the leader and you think, well, I really don't care what they think.
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That is completely unacceptable.
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If you say you don't care, either you have the wrong people or you are the wrong leader.
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Let me say it again.
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If you even think, well, I really don't care what they think, either you have the wrong people or you are the wrong leader.
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What do you do?
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Either change the people around you or change your mindset because they are the most valuable resources you have.
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The team that surrounds you.
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If you do not value those who are around you, they will not stay.
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If you do not listen to those who are around you, you will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing valuable to say.
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Remember, your organization will never be what it could be without honest upward communication.
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Next week, next month, we'll cover part two of this.
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Thank you again for sharing on social media.
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Next month.
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Part two.
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Remember.
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Be yourself.
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Be yourself.
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Be yourself.
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Be yourself.
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People would rather follow a leader who's always real than one who's always right.
Speaker B
Thanks for joining us for the Craig Rochelle Leadership podcast.
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Be sure to subscribe so you can get new episodes delivered directly to your device the first Thursday of every month.
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And for show notes on today's episode and on previous episodes, just go to www.life.church/leadershippodcast.
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And if you're a fan of the show, we would love it if you would give us a review on iTunes.
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And help us spread the word.
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Thanks again and we'll see you next time on the Craig Rochelle Leadership podcast.
Topics:Craig Groeschelleadershiplead upjournalingcoachinginfluenceorganizational leadershippersonal developmentteam buildingleadership podcast
