Top o’ the Mornin’ to Ya!
TLDR: Discover how identifying and operating in your God-given authority transforms your leadership effectiveness. Learn to delegate responsibilities outside your authority zone to create more space for using your unique gifts and strengths, leading to greater team performance, personal fulfillment, and Kingdom impact.
What?
I share my personal journey of discovering my areas of authority – teaching, coaching, leading, visioning, and surprisingly, managing details. I reflect on my experience as a ski racing coach, where I developed training programs with strategic ramping up and tapering cycles to ensure peak performance aligned with important competitions like championships and Junior Olympics. I also tell the story from the book “Six Types of Working Genius” where a team leader discovered that delegating responsibilities that didn’t align with his strengths to team members who actually enjoyed those tasks freed him to focus on what he did best.
Why?
Understanding your authority zones is crucial because it allows you to operate from your strengths and recognize where you should delegate. When we try to be authorities in everything, we limit our effectiveness and prevent others from stepping into their areas of giftedness. By recognizing and respecting different authorities – whether in your family, business team, or other contexts – we create environments where everyone can thrive in their unique roles.
Lesson
True leadership requires honest assessment of where your authority lies and where it doesn’t. My authority as a coach isn’t in telling you what to do in your specific business or home, but in asking questions, exploring your thinking, and guiding you to your own solutions. When we hand off responsibilities outside our authority zones, we actually gain more power – the performance in those areas improves because someone with the right gifts is handling them, and we gain more space and time to exercise our highest gifts and authorities.
Apply
Take time to write down your best areas of authority – the responsibilities, roles and functions where you naturally excel and are most effective. Then identify areas where you currently hold authority but should probably hand it off to someone else. Remember that delegating these responsibilities doesn’t diminish your leadership – it enhances it by improving overall performance and freeing you to focus on your unique contributions. This creates an environment where everyone thrives.
You be blessed.
Living in Your Authority Unleashing Your True Leadership Potential
