Frank Boudreau - Everyday Leader: Priceless leadership principles that connect to everyday life for the everyday leader

2019 Frank Boudreau

Everyday Leader

Priceless Leadership Principles that Connect to Everyday Life for the Everyday Leader

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Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version). Copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019942719

ISBN 978-1-400326686 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-400326693 (eBook)

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T his book is a collection of leadership thoughts and principles that I know you will connect with in some way. But it isnt intended to be read cover to cover in one sitting. I recommend you consider it like a devotional that you pick up and read a couple of times a week. For things like this I generally set a repeating calendar notice to remind me to spend a few minutes getting a bit of a leadership nugget or shot in the arm, so to speak. You could pick it up daily and read the book in a little over three months. Or you could schedule two days a week and spread it out over a year, so that each nugget or morsel has a couple of days to really sink in as you apply the principle within. Whatever your style is, I know you will get some value out of this book and I trust it will have a positive impact on your ability to lead your team.

How did this come about? I have worked in some type of leadership or management role since the mid 90s. In some I was a little more successful than others. Early in this journey my boss at the time recommended that I read a book called The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell. That began the reshaping of my thinking toward leadership. It began to impact my approach to managing the production department that I was responsible for, as well as other areas of my life. My approach to the position I held at our small local church as a board member began to change. Most importantly it began to change the way I approached my role as husband and father. Not long after that I began to pick up other books on leadership and tried to focus on Christian authors. Their influence being scriptural I began to understand how much the Bible talks about and provides instruction on how to lead. Since then I have read many books, by Christian and non-Christian authors, on leadership and Ive been to a few seminars on the subject. It became a passion and I have come to realize how taking hold of the realities of true leadership can positively impact every part of your life. My wife and I used to teach Bible studies and Sunday school classes on marriage that we called, What the Bible has to say about marriage. Much of what I learned about leadership through the years greatly impacted that teaching. I have taken many groups of leaders through leadership studies based on books that Ive read. Ive also been a confidant to many business and church leaders over the years, filling roles such as sounding board, advisor, coach, and even mentor. I certainly dont claim to know everything on the subject. I believe that I am a work in progress, like most. I try my best to learn from my mistakes and repeat my successes. I guess the best way to describe me as a leader is that I am a student of the subject, and I simply want to share what Ive learned. As I go through the day to day I come across the occasional quote or illustration or experience that I find connects to a leadership principle in some way and my mind begins to process it. Several years ago, I began to write some of those thoughts down and to send them out to a group of friends and colleagues I work with on leadership development. I got some good feedback on them, so I continued to send them from time to time. I saved them and kept adding to them, as well as adding to the list of people I sent them to, until one day my brother said, Hey, why dont you put that stuff on the Net in a blog? I dragged my feet for quite a while but started to see that my list of quotes and thoughts as well as my list of recipients were growing and maybe I ought to go ahead and put it on the Web. Fast forward a few years and social media flew past blog sites, so I began to post them there. Finally, I decided to close the old blog site, but I didnt want to lose the posts so one by one I moved them over to my computer and then removed the site. Then I began to look back at all that I had written, and I was reminded of something the Lord impressed upon me to do recently. Not long ago I felt the Lord urging me to write a book on leadership. For a while I didnt put much thought into it other than Ill start that someday. What I didnt realize at the time was that I had already been writing a bookI just didnt know it at the time. I continue to write today so after this book there is much more to come. If you happen to be one of the many who read my blogs or social media posts over the years, I want to thank you for listening and I pray that it encouraged you in some way to continue to grow and give your best to those who you were leading. If this is your first time reading my work, I pray that it will impact you in the same way.

Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

O f course Im not saying that the people we lead are strings, but what a mental picture when it comes to leading effectively. Think about it, the term leading itself infers being out in front.

So many leaders, when the pressure is on, try to push the team to get more or better results. Now there might be some temporary desired results, but those are rarely sustained at any level. People will only allow themselves to be pushed for so long before they start to either push back or walk away. The best employees will tough it out for as long as they can. They will give you the benefit of the doubt, extend grace and understanding, and do their best to be loyal. They will tell themselves, Once we get past this rough spot itll be OK. But even the best have a breaking point. And if you dont start picking up on the signs, you lose them, too.