Dare Great Things For Christ

DGT Episode 256 - When People Just Don’t Want To Work - Leadership Lessons From Aquinas Part 5

Anyone who wants to be successful in leadership needs to be really good at working with people.  The more a leader understands human behavior the more effectively they’ll deal with it and reach the goals of their organization and their mission.  This is where St. Thomas Aquinas gives us a distinct advantage.  He represents a wealth of knowledge coming from the Catholic tradition about how we work, how our hearts work, how we make decisions.  And in this fifth part of our series we look at how he solves the problems of when people just don’t want to work.

 

DGT Episode 255 - Leading As If Seeing The Invisible - Leadership Lessons From Aquinas Part 4

Some do it more from a personal charisma than from a studied approach, but all leaders have to bring people with them towards the vision that they’re casting.  And so that begs the question: “How can we who have to make decisions everyday make them in a way that other people will find attractive?”  Well, reaching back into our Catholic theology we find this subject matter already treated by St. Thomas Aquinas.  And in this fourth part of our series we explore it today.

DGT Episode 254 - Leading From The Heart - Leadership Lessons From Aquinas Part 3

All great leaders are capable of casting a vision.  But casting a vision is not easy to do.  To have a vision towards a goal means you want to have that goal.  And sometimes are hearts are just afraid to stretch out into the unknown and into the unforeseen.  The grace of God can help us to heal and to have the daring we need to want the things we don’t yet have.  And when we do we become leaders of the heart.  St. Thomas Aquinas helps us understand this process and how we can actualize it in our own lives as leaders today.

DGT Episode 253 - Making Winning Decisions - Leadership Lessons From Aquinas Part 2

 For many people, making decisions is one of the hardest things about leadership.  And yet it is something that every leader has to do all the time.  Loving and serving our God doesn’t take away our responsibility to make good choices and to engage them with all the energy that we have.  But if it’s so important then why do we have such a hard time doing it?  St. Thomas Aquinas offers keen insight into how decisions are made and how love can turn a decision into a choice.

DGT Episode 252 - Making Winning Decisions - Leadership Lessons From Aquinas Part 1

Amongst the great minds of western civilization, St. Thomas Aquinas holds a very special place.  As a Catholic priest he united the depths of our faith with the real practical situations that people face every day.  He does this in an amazing way when it comes to making decisions.  And for all of us in the working world, we know how important this skill set is.  In this first of a series, I try to open the wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas to help us learn an essential skill for our leadership. How to ask for advice?  

DGT Episode 251 - Passing The Fire - St. Paul The Leader Part 7

We all know that leadership is about vision and passion but sometimes we forget that if no one is following us we’re not leading anyone.  In truth the test of a good leader includes their ability to engender their spirit in their followers.  And few people were better at this than St. Paul.  In many of his writings, especially his letters to Titus and Timothy, we have a valuable lesson of how a Christian passes their inner fire to their followers.  A lesson our Christian leaders can use today.

DGT Episode 250 - Finishing What He Started - St. Paul The Leader Part 6

By all accounts St. Paul checks all the boxes when it comes to being an effective leader.  But of all of his many wonderful qualities, the strength that dominates his personality without a doubt is his perseverance in the face of adversity.  St. Paul is someone who finishes what he starts.  But many of us struggle to do the same.  Burn out is a real thing and persevering in the face of adversity sometimes just isn’t worth it.  What’s the secret to Paul’s outstanding sense of grit and how can we imitate him today?

DGT Episode 249 - Doing What Needs To Be Done - St. Paul The Leader Part 5

If anyone were to survey the general American public, two things would stand out.  First we would all be convinced that things need to be done, actions need to take place, decisions need to be enacted.  And secondly, most of us would agree that it is really hard to do what we know we need to do.  Even if we know what needs to be done it can be a very difficult task to start what we know we need to do.  It was no different for St. Paul.  Yet he gives us the secret of allowing Christ to help us start  doing what we know needs to be done.

DGT Episode 248 - Making The Right Kind Of Choices - St. Paul The Leader Part 4

Sometimes we imagine saints to be people who have life all figured out.  They seem to know and execute on God’s plan perfectly and therefore it can be hard for us to try and imitate them.  The life of St. Paul, however, shows us something very different.  Many times he did not know what to do and yet he still made decisions.  How did a saint as great as St. Paul make decisions about God’s will?  How did St. Paul know what to do?  By looking at the scriptures we can learn value lessons to help us in our leadership as well.

DGT Episode 247 -Flipping The Script - St. Paul The Leader Part 3

Have you ever felt like you were in a box?   Like no matter what you chose in life there were already predetermined outcomes and there’s nothing you could do that could change it?  Few things will kill the heart and ability of a leader more quickly than fatalism.  An attitude that says it’s not even worth trying because you won’t make any difference. Funny thing is, we’re not the first people to face fatalism.  We’re not the first people to face the boxes that life presents to us.  True leaders find a way to become creative anyway and Christian leaders become creative with Christ.  Let’s look at St. Paul as an example.