Family Regeneration

Lead the Way God Made You – Book Review

Synopsis of book

I love to lead! I love everything about it. I love the thrill of creating a plan, the adrenaline rush you get when you realize that your plan will either all fall together at the last minute …or fall apart BUT above all, I love to develop a team. My poor teams have endured: talks, book studies, team building activities, and even my cooking – all in the name of “development”. I was excited to pick up a copy of Lead the Way God Made You by Larry Shallenberger. I was thrilled to see what tidbits of info I could glean. What pearl of wisdom can I…well to be honest…steal. Instead of a book filled with short pithy sayings, I was thrilled to find a useful tool that seemed to be written just for my team!

Lead the Way God Made You goes where most “personality tests” won’t go. It helps you understand who you are, how God made you, your leadership style, and most importantly, how you can confidently lead your team regardless of whether or not you’re a type A personality.

This book literally sets the stage for this conversation to take place within the context of your team by using the roles of a Director, a Drama Coach, a Stage Manager, Production Assistant, Theater Manager, and a Stagehand. Each of these positions has unique roles and functions within a team. With the proper understanding of these positions, one can learn to lead their team from any of these.

In Larry Shallenberger’s own words, “Use this book to discover how God wired you for leadership. Use this book as a template to discover how you can broaden your leadership repertoire. Use this book as a springboard for discussion with your teams to become more united toward a common purpose – the victory and fame of Jesus.”

Favorite chapters

Chapter 2 The Dramatic Leadership Assessment Test

(This chapter formed the based for our discussion over personality / leadership strengths and weaknesses.)

Chapter 10 My Leadership Profile Worksheet

This chapter “put something tangible into the hands of my team! It gave us a great base for further discussion and evaluation.

Favorite Quote

Pg24

“Imagine how dramatically you could improve your ministry – and your own attitude – if you led others from you strengths instead of feeling like a misfit. How secure would you feel if you didn’t have to fret about whether your leadership style was OK?”

What were you thinking???

In Chapter 11 Larry offers 2 scripts to help with “how to have this discussion with your team.” Does he honestly think that most children’s ministry leaders are so dense that they need help with setting up their own discussions?… Come to think of it, he’s probably right – good call! (It’s extremely helpful for the non-director type leaders)

Boy I wish I had said that…

I loved the concept of “dramatic leadership”. As a pastor, leader, and counselor, I have taken hundreds of personality tests in the past. I am always amazed at how accurate these tests can be. This assessment was awesome in that it not only helped me better understand my own style (as well as the other members), but it also created a forum for discussion. It was in this discussion that we (as a team) found freedom to literally lead the way God made us!

Final Thought

In my opinion, this is one of the best books out there to evaluate a team! I have used this book already in our ministry and will continue to use it year after year to foster discussions about team dynamics, leadership styles, and ways we can help our leaders Lead the Way God Made Them!

Over all rating:

If this were a movie… it would probably be Remember the Titans.

Didn’t break any box office records, BUT in my opinion…probably will have a very long-lasting impact in ministry due to being extremely helpful in team development.

…comment and be entered into the drawing to win one of the two free copies of this book – to be drawn on July 6

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Tags: Book Review, Larry Shallenberger, Leadership

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 at 6:00 am and is filed under Church Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.