What are the sources behind the powering of pace? Pace can supply our energy through momentum while at the same time depleting it through imbalance. It ultimately determines the speed of progress.
Baseball Break
Our son, Grant went straight from Wrestling, to his Junior Varsity baseball season, to our travel team. Weekends for the 2024 calendar year have been at a premium. It has been a high pace.
Our daughter, Ashtyn is a soon to be Senior. She has been to church camp, maintains a social life, and gets the most out of her gas tank.
Mix in Shannon and I’s work responsibilities, it is a busy season of life. The pace is high, rest is at a premium. This was the first weekend for as long as I can remember where we had nothing scheduled or planned for us.
In that space, I thought about this question. What is it that powers our pace? Here are three thoughts on drivers of our pace.
Necessities
A roof over our heads, putting food on the table, keeping the gas tank full, and paying the bills. Without these necessities, life is hard, much harder. These necessities drive our daily pace to meet our minimum needs in life.
The necessities listed above are provided by our careers. To meet these minimum needs in life, we should ideally maintain employment! We maintain employment by leading well. Not just managing tasks, but leading people.
When the pace gets high in leadership, remember the necessities we work to provide at home. Our careers allow us to serve others, especially those that are most dependent on us for those necessities.
Seasons
Our season is two teenagers with full sports and social schedules. This is a high paced season. The good news is that we are in full control of that pace for the next week. Both kids are getting their wisdom teeth out! The only schedule will be when they are served their Jello, yogurt, and other oral surgery compliant foods.
Most Seasons of leadership drive a high pace. Too often, we attempt to convince ourselves as leaders that unsustainable busyness is just a season. The further we go in leadership, those seasons tend to run into each other.
Every season must have a transition. One that contains rest and a slower pace. If not, we will find ourselves running fast on the treadmill of leadership, making no forward progress.
If we don’t slow the pace, our bodies, minds, and spirits will do it for us.
Circumstances
One thing is for certain in life, unexpected circumstances await us at every turn. These circumstances create chaos and confusion in our worlds. They power an unsustainable pace, past the point to which we are able to handle. A level of pace fueled by anxiousness, stress, and worry.
The same is true for leadership. No day is ever the same, all it takes is one unforeseen circumstance to disrupt our pace. We feel in control, we are planned and prepared…then bam! A good day can spiral into chaos and confusion. The pace can quickly go from low to high.
Circumstances drive pace, the challenge is to prevent them from driving us.
Conclusion
The greatest reality we must face is that we are the pace setters as leaders. Think of it this way, we should be the thermostat, not a thermometer. The difference between the two? A thermostat regulates indoor temperature. You set it and it drifts up or down a degree or two, but ultimately keeps things at a consistent temperature.
A thermometer goes up and down with the temperature outdoors. Our pace fluctuates with the pressures of provision of necessities, the change of seasons, and the chaos of circumstances.
Be the thermostat. Sustainability is everything in leadership. Most anyone can do our gigs for a short period of time and do it well. The question is, who can sustain the pace? Who can provide consistent, quality leadership for an extended period of time? Sustainability is the path to great leadership.
So…what is powering your current pace?