Prioritization

Even as I write this post, I sit in the ICU room of my father-in-law.  I am accompanied by my wife, her mother, and of course, the one person we are all here for, my father-in-law Adrian.  We sit by his bedside and wait.  Waiting is extremely difficult, especially when a member of the family is the one lying in the bed.  Yet, sitting here has given me copious amounts of time to think, pondering how this reality affects and influences my future leadership.

So, what do waiting in a hospital room and leadership have in common?  I'll explain through a short story.

As any seminary student knows the common practice is to go through the entire week, preparing for classes, reading books, writing papers, studying language, memorizing... all these and so much more comprise the week of a seminarian.  This leaves very little time to prepare a sermon throughout the course of a week.  Thus for me, and many others, preparation for a Sunday morning sermon occurs most typically on Friday afternoon and Saturday.  It's not that we don't know what we are going to preach on, passage wise, or that we do not seek to compose some thoughts roughly before Friday/Saturday.  It's just that the majority of the sermon outlining and writing necessitates being accomplished on Friday afternoon and Saturday during the day.

It's into this sacred space that this current leadership lesson plays out.  With my last sermon at my teaching church scheduled for the coming Sunday, amidst the craziness of final papers and projects, I faced the typical Friday/Saturday craziness of sermon preparation.  I knew what to preach, the thoughts were already copiously generated.  Yet, the writing had yet to be done.  Spending most of Friday digging beneath the surface of the text left the actual writing to Saturday.  Knowingly my wife left me to occupy myself with the art of sermon writing.  Barely two hours into this process my wife broke the concentration as she flew through the office, panic etched deep into the worried creases of her face, phone in one hand- a change of clothes in the other.  "Stop," I commanded, "What's going on?" my feeble question freezing her in place.  "Mom just called.  It's Dad...,” her response drifting into oblivion as I began my own hurried preparations dropping my pen mid thought.  Although both of us were very aware of this reality, neither one of us could be completely prepared.

Five hours later, still silently sitting in the ICU waiting area, I learned this week's leadership lesson.  Leadership is constantly about prioritization.  As leaders, we continually come face to face with too many things to do, all as seemingly important as the next thing, and not nearly, enough time to do them all.  Yesterday my reality forced me to prioritize, my sermon or my wife, staying home or going to the hospital, my children or my wife, being a pastoral presence to both my mom-in-law as well as my wife or being a husband and son...This is just the beginning as I'm sure there are several other choices regarding prioritization I fail to mention.  Yet, as I look at this list, I realize that all these things inform each other.  Thus, not one single thing can be isolated.  I am a pastor, but I am also, more importantly, a husband and a father.  I am a student but I am also, more significantly, a son-in-law.  I am a father but I am also a husband.  Not one single thing, call it the hats I wear, can be worn independent of another.  Rather, each one informs every other one.

So, what lesson have I learned concerning leadership throughout the last twenty-four hours, even as I sit in the ICU room?  I have learned that the only way for me to be a great leader is by identifying my priorities.  With the priorities identified, I am then able to handle all the other competing things, which vie for my attention.  In fact, once clearly identified, the priorities that present themselves every single day can be stacked up, looked at holistically, and then dealt with according to their individual priority level.  Yet, this can only be accomplished in as much as I understand clearly where my priorities lie.

The bottom line this week, especially as it relates to this concept of prioritization, KNOW YOUR PRIORITIES!  Understand their relationship to each other.  Then when life interrupts, as it always will, you can immediately figure out the most important priorities in your life and pay attention to them.

For today, this is my view from The Road Less Traveled.