Episode 109: Upstream Leadership in Your Family and Foster Care

Leadership is something we talk about a lot on the podcast, because we are all leaders! It is your choice if you are going to be a good one, or not. Parenting is some of the hardest kind of leadership, because you are maxed out in your pay grade, because oh yeah - you don't make any money doing it!

We talk about 2 books that we are reading and have read, but that came to our attention via podcasts we listened to.

The first one is called "The Motive" by Patrick Lencioni, and we became aware of it when Lencioni was on The Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast. 

You have to ask yourself if you are a Reward of Responsibility-centered leader. A reward-centered leader has worked hard to become a leader, and now that they are one - they feel like this is the end of their journey. They don't do hard or unpleasant work, and have the mindset that others should be serving them, and they have 'arrived'.

A responsibility-centered leader sees their leadership role as the beginning of their journey. Now that they have gotten their new role - they have to work hard to be the best leader for their team and organization.

So again - which leader are you? And again - this kind of thinking applies to parenthood. There are reward-centered parents, and responsibility-centered parents. 

The second podcast we listened to is the Storybrand Podcast with Donald Miller, and he interviewed Dan Heath who wrote "Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen." This book was such an inspiration and filled with so many positive victories!

Problems and solutions start on a micro-level, and they can in turn be changed to macro-level results. An example that Heath gave was how one city more or less eradicated homelessness! They started off with recognizing the problem, mobilizing a team of power players (city officials, police, hospitals, mental health providers) and basically writing a list of the homeless people in their area, knowing them each By Name, and providing homes for them. Amazing!

Both episodes are great, and we just started reading 'The Motive' and finished reading 'Upstream' and we recommend them both!

The Good Word of the Day

"He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God."

- 1 Corinthians 4:5b

That's a good word! Check your heart and make sure you are the kind of leader that your team and family need!

Thanks so much for tuning in this week. Next week we have an amazing interview with Julie Lythcott-Haims!!!!! She is the author of How To Raise an Adult! You do not want to miss this episode!

And we are SO thankful for our amazing sponsors! Thanks to our newest sponsor - The Keller Gibbs Realty Team ! We have used them for every house we have ever bought - which is strangely quite a few! (Arizona has had so many ups and downs in the real estate world in the last 15 years! We have bought 4 different homes with Keller Gibbs team!)

And if you would like to connect, check us out at fosteringvoices.com and feel free to email us at [email protected] , and hit us up on social media!