Leadership Lessons From My First 25k Run

Have you ever felt like you couldn’t make it? That your body was going to fail? Your legs felt like jello?

That was me on May 12th, 2012.

Finish Line of Race

Image Via Creative Commons

I decided I would do my first 25K run by participating in the 35th annual 5th 3rd Riverbank Run. For those not familiar with the metric system, that is 15.625 miles in the imperial system. It’s quite the distance.

Through my training and the actual run I learned 4 valuable leadership lessons.

Nurture Leadership

Today, I am writing as a contributor to the Christian Writers Blog Chain. The theme for May is “Nurture.” If you are a Christian author or writer, be sure to check out Christianwriters.com to network with others.

You’re an excellent leader. You’re rocking it out.

Your team is awesome. They’re willing to follow you anywhere.

You’ve got it made.

Leaders, just like plants, need nurturing

Image By David Masters

You know what you’ve got to do to create great leadership.

It requires influence, persistence, a following.

And don’t forget it requires nurturing. Yup, that’s right, nurturing.

You need to practice Nurture Leadership.

Eventually you can get into the nuts and bolts of reality: nurturing, caring, and getting along.
— Jody Watley

Dictionary.com defines nurturing, as a verb, in three ways. Each definition plays into your role as a leader.

5 Characteristics of Real Discipleship

This is a guest post by Chad Barrett. He is the Director of Child Evangelism Fellowship of Greater Houston and Director of Inspiring Evangelism, a ministry dedicated to inspiring and training believers to share the gospel effectively. He is a speaker and has authored two books, Journey to Freedom: The Pursuit of Authentic Fellowship among Men, and The RADIUS Initiative. He lives with his gorgeous wife, Melissa, and their 4 kids. You can connect with Chad on FacebookTwitter, or at his blog

Chris recently trusted in Christ as his Savior, and he had enough baggage from his past that would fill a 747. He was not the easiest guy to get along with, and the people in his church soon began to avoid him. They had him fill out a church-membership card to join, baptized him, and made sure he got into a Sunday school class. But Chris needed more than programs, and growth in Christ was stifled.

Abnormal Leadership

Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Jesus.

All three were great leaders. Two created stellar companies. One created a movement that has spanned 2,000 years.

What else did these three leaders have in common?

Image by Francisco Huguenin-Virchaux Uhlfelder

They all went about leadership in an unconventional way. They broke from the normal and created a new path.

Richard Branson goes the distance to impress prospective customers. Backstage, before a speaking engagement, he approached Guy Kawasaki and asked him if he flew on Virgin Airlines. When Guy answered no, Richard gets on his knees and starts to polish Guy’s shoes with his jacket.

That’s not normal.

Steve Jobs created a juggernaut of a company with Apple. Coming up with the concepts of the iPod, iPad, etc. The company rose to astronomical heights. And he did it without focus groups. He broke with the conventional thought that you had to listen to your customers. He realized people didn’t know what they wanted until it was in their hands.