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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.
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.
Summary
- 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.
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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
