One of my favorite parts about my job is that I get to interact and work with leaders. I get to work with small group leaders and I get to work some of our awesome student leaders who serve and take charge at our weekends and student lead workshops at Winter Retreat. Even though we (and I say we because I put myself in this boat as well) are leaders and are in charge of certain things, we all have our insecurities. All of us do, most of the time. I was talking to my good friend and co-worker Colton today about how it’s crazy to think about a few years ago, how scared, incompetent, and how useless we felt when asked to step up to do a certain thing or task and how now we don’t even think twice about doing it.

I can look back and remember thinking (and I know you can, our volunteers can, our students can) about what we were saying to ourselves when that certain leadership thing was asked of us:

No way.

That’s too hard.

I’m not ready for that.

I’m busy.

I think you have the wrong person for that.

So and so would be much better for that, why me?

I have never done anything like this, how am I going to pull this off?

I came to the conclusion the one saying that got me and every leader (staff, volunteer, small group leader, student leader) to step up and encourage them to move forward and give them the confidence to do it, was:

You got this.

Those 3 words can move a leader from standing still to jumping forward. It is important for their growth as a leader to hear this from the person leading them. To know that your leader has enough confidence in you to pull something off that will stretch you and let you they think you can, is all it takes most people to move forward in their faith, in their leadership and their life.

All leaders need to hear these words. It’s vital.