Episode 169: The #1 Trait of Great Leaders: Are You Coachable?

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Today Counts Show Episode 169

Preview

Gary Rohrmaye: So you hit the wall and that just means nothing’s working, right? Nothing’s working, I’m not seeing any movement towards my success, or I’m not seeing God move in these situations. Those are very vulnerable times. Those are soulshaping times and those are times where we need to continue to be obedient. There’s warnings on the other side of that for those who don’t–

Thanks to our Donors

Winston Harris: Hey everybody, before we jump into today’s episode, we’d like to recognize all those who make this podcast possible. The Lead Today Show is supported by all the generous donors of the Lead Today Community. Thank you so much for investing in shaping leaders through this podcast. Be sure to like and subscribe on whatever platform you are watching or listening today. All right, let’s jump into the podcast.

Introduction and Meeting our Guest

Jim Piper: Everybody, hey, welcome back to the Today Count show. We are so excited about the success that this podcast is achieving. I guess we measure success, because we’re up and to the right. And so I just want to say thank you to everybody. We keep growing. And obviously, you’re telling other people about it. So I truly, truly, truly want to say thank you. And I also appreciate the feedback that you send to us at jim@leadtodaycommunity.com.

As you know, the Today Counts Show is produced or sponsored by the Lead Today Community. You know that we talk about life and you know that we talk about leadership. And without apology, we talk about it from a Christian worldview. We’re not stuffy. So sometimes our conversations can get pretty wide, up and down, maybe not super straight on theological. because we like to have open conversations with everybody.

Today, I’m not sure how long I have known you Gary, but Dr. Gary Rohrmeier said probably at least a couple of decades. Acquaintances for sure. And you have been as a profession in the religious field for sure. But I doubt that you have stayed painted in that corner as a leadership coach and advisor for more than three decades. You’ve done some writing, you’ve done speaking on this topic. First of all, thanks for being on the show, Gary.

Gary Rohrmayer: Yes, glad to be glad to be here Jim.

Jim Piper Jr: Yeah, awesome. I brought you on the show for a couple of reasons. But the first and most important is The Lead Today Community we’re all about leadership, our two keywords is shaping leaders are two key purpose words. Shaping, ING, meaning never ending and then leaders is the object that we focus on. We serve leaders, we care about leaders. I was one of those young guys out of the chute as a banker leading way over my head. And I think I’ve always been over my head.

I probably haven’t been the most coachable guy either. I’ve got an entrepreneurial streak in me. And I kind of have to get a bloody nose or two before I go, “Huh, maybe I should get some coaching some some advice here.” I’ll give you an example, Gary. This term best practices, every time I hear it, I just get this nauseous feeling about me. Because I think by the time something becomes a best practice, it may not be a best practice anymore. That’s just my rebellious Jacob nature maybe. I don’t know. You know, I’m on the team, but I’m not on the team. I’m kind of one of those guys.

The Concept of Coachable Leaders

I want to talk to you about this idea of being a coachable leader. If I could just kind of describe my context, and then maybe you can dive into it from here, I’m going to throw you a big question to start off here in a second. So if I were to draw three circles, one encompassing the other I’ve got some core, what you’d call retainer clients that I work with. And then outside of that, I’ve got some really strong entrepreneurial both in nonprofit work and for profit work. Then we have a mass that we reach as well. That’s the simple way it’s broken down. And then the podcast is something that we have brought on to scale, communication, and what have you. And then it usually leads to interviews and speaking engagements, coaching, and then so forth.

One of the things that I did in the beginning is I said yes to everything. I said yes to everything because I needed to get paid. Fortunately, I’ve been doing this for long enough now where I don’t just say it. We really kind of interview each other in the beginning to see if this is– If you call one of my clients and you said, “Hey, what’s one of Jim’s cliches?” Well, they would say I’m pretty sure 80%, 90% of it said, “Well, in the front end Jim says that he only coaches winners.” I said because if I don’t and then I lose to and it tarnishes my brand.

Actually where that comes back around to is this idea of I’m looking for coachable leaders. What have you learned about coachable leaders? What is a coachable leader? At least start us off.

Gary Rohrmayer: Coachable leaders are easier to work with. Let’s just say that. You can do all the questions asking, all the caring and all the pushing you want. But the fact is that if they’re not coachable, they’re not going to move, move in the direction they need to move. Basically kind of define it as, just actually from the biblical concept of, you know I looked at the book of Proverbs and it looked just the idea of taking advice, right? Then the biblical injunctions there on that idea of taking advice and all the good things the scripture says about that that if we take advice we’re gonna succeed in this world. If we don’t take advice, we’re gonna struggle. There’s warnings on the other side of that for those who don’t take advice.

That’s where it kind of came up with this concept. Basically we kind of define it as this idea of this ability to take advice in an emotional healthy way that allows you to succeed and achieve the goals that you want to achieve and the life you want to achieve. It’s coming in as a student and a learner and processing those things from those angles. There’s a lot of humility in it. In the scripture, it talks a lot about humility, right?

Jim Piper Jr: Yeah, very much. I’m thinking about the opposite of what you just talked about. And I don’t remember chapters, verse and proverbs. But sometimes I want to say that they’re on the– The verses are situated almost like it’s two sides of the same door. But you know, to put it into street terms, it says that if you see a fool, you better confront the fool. Otherwise, the fool will cause you damage.

And then it says, don’t confront a fool because it never works. Basically what Proverbs says is takes a grenade throws it and just says, “Man, hopefully you won’t run into a fool.” And to be extreme, coaching itself, though, is in sports, it’s a great it’s a great term. Everybody looks at leadership through the lenses of coaching division. You know, college sports, professional sports, and we’re all amazed how one man or one woman has a track record of just creating winning teams. They’ll have bad years, of course, but they’ll sustain it.

Yet in the outside of the athletic world, coaching still kind of has this– I’m not sure what to call it. It almost makes me. In fact, if you go to my LinkedIn page, it doesn’t use the word coach. Because once I found my love for this once I was able to articulate my love for leaders and really trying to help leaders and feeling what leaders go through, I found that this coaching term has kind of been cheapened, if you will. This is going to sound a little prideful. But let’s see what you think about it.

Gary Rohrmayer: Sure. Okay.

Jim Piper Jr: I run into coaches who have never done anything. They’ve never accomplished anything. But they went to this certification process, and they’re hanging up this certificate in their office. And now all of a sudden they can coach. Many of them don’t know anything about financial statements. They’ve never really been in a fire. They’ve never, they’ve never even fired anybody. And so do you find that the public is becoming more open to coaching? And if so, how do we differentiate between? I mean, how do you find a good coach? First of all, if I could ask you that.

Finding and Choosing a Good Coach

Gary Rohrmayer: Yeah, that’s a good question. I mean, someone asked me that the other day and I actually, came up with a couple thoughts because it made me really think about that. “Well, how do you find a good coach?” When you’re looking for a coach, you got to number one, ask yourself, you got to kind of look inward first and you got to say what do I, what, why am I hiring this coach and what are my needs and what are the goals I want to achieve?

So you need to have a clear direction where you’re going. A good coach will ask you good questions. One of the good questions I ask all the time is, what do you want to accomplish in this relationship in the next 12 months? What do you want to achieve? And so hopefully, the coachee has that idea in mind.

And then the second one is you need to research coaches. Just do some research on potential coaches. The best way to find good coaches, especially in your field, would be to seek recommendations from trusted friends, people who’ve experienced them, they’ve worked with them already. I would do that first before looking at credentials or any certificate. Certifications are important, but I also think the success is important as you were stating basically. People who’ve been in the arena.

I’ve worked with a lot of church planters and pastors. Church planters, they’re edgy entrepreneurial guys and they want to know that you’ve been successful at what you did and that you’ve actually started a church and it’s up and running and going. So look for their success. Research their mentors. Who mentored them? Who’d coached them? Who was their coach? Who’s their active coach today? Then, again, look for testimonials of that nature.

And then you want to kind of look for the stylistic or relational alignment. Do you count this person as trustworthy? Just in your first meeting with them, right? Because they feel like a trustworthy person. Do they share your values, your worldview? Is there relational chemistry, right? Does their experience and expertise fit what you need at this moment in your life?

Then there’s things, we do this all the time. We do like free 30 minute coaching experiences. We’ve learned how to do that and do it well and basically kind of help somebody solve a problem or navigate an issue within 30 minutes and help them achieve some strategic goals or objectives. Then you can move on. If you’re still not sure about it, you can move on to a three month trial period where you’re doing the coaching.

Coaching vs. Mentoring

And so the one thing we need to really understand: There’s a difference between coaching and mentoring. The mentors in my life, and I have lots of mentors, right?

Jim Piper Jr: Yeah, me too.

Gary Rohrmayer: But I have a few coaches that I work with, And the mentors say, they say, “Gary, I’m available to you. Call me if you need any help, right? Call me if you’re stuck on something.” Whereas a coach, the coach is going to say, “Hey, I’m going to help you in this next 12 months achieve these goals you want to achieve. I’m going to take ownership in it just as much as you are. And I’m going to make sure we meet, that we’re connecting, whether it’s every other week or monthly, whatever that is. And I’m going to check in on you during the week.”

So I’m texting one of my guys now because I’m want to make sure that he followed through on something that he said he was going to do this week. I said, “I’m going to send you a text next week to follow up to make sure you did what we agreed that you would do this week.

Jim Piper Jr:  Gary, what do you find as whether they’re bad habits or whether they’re character flaws or insecurities, what do you think in your experience a lot of leaders have to overcome to be to become a coachable leader?

Gary Rohrmayer: Part of it is overcoming themselves, right? Their own nature, their own perception of themselves. Someone asked me the other day, said, “Gary, what have good coaches done for you?” I said, “They’ve saved me from myself.”

Jim Piper Jr: Wow, that’s a great question. Yeah.

Gary Rohrmayer: “They saved be from myself,” because in and of ourselves, we’re flawed human beings. We’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to make bad decisions. And we need to be willing to humbly submit to others and ask for advice. Right? I think that’s a critical piece. Some people just are saying, “I know the way I want to do it and this is the way I want to do it.” And the only thing that’s going to make them coachable is experiencing enough pain, right?

The great leaders, if you look at through scripture, the great leaders, the people, leaders I’ve known, they’ve all been what we call coachable leaders. And part of that is, we talk about this issue of spiritual authority, right? As a concept, as a principle, that as leaders, God trusts us with some spiritual authority. God delegates that authority to us. It’s different than the gift of the Holy Spirit and all that, but there’s a profound spiritual concept to understanding coachability. One of them is this concept of spiritual authority.

When we allow the authority of Christ to dominate our lives, ultimately, we’re all, every great leader must be a strong follower because we’re following the Commander in Chief, Jesus himself. And so spiritual authority is the source of true credibility in leadership. It makes our leadership legitimate because it’s something that is God given, God delegated. And people see it and people follow you.

Spiritual Authority and Leadership

And part of it is it’s a direct result of God doing a greater work in the deeper areas of the leader’s life. You know, so that they can act with courage and faith and conviction in the face of great challenges and also great opportunities. That’s a real important one. you know, we talk about spiritual authority is not something that leaders seek because leaders seek to know God, right? We don’t seek authority. If we’re going to seek authority, then we’re in trouble, right?

Jim Piper Jr: Right.

Gary Rohrmayer: Spiritual authority is not delegated by humans. It’s it’s God empowers leaders with his authority. You probably remember Bobby Clinton’s book, The Making of a Leader.

Jim Piper Jr: I talk about it all the time.

Gary Rohrmayer:  That book shaped my soul and he says spiritual authority is delegated by God and it’s not something that– You know, we can have authority in areas of expertise. We can have authority, positional authority, but it’s not till we experience God’s spiritual authority that we’re going to see things, see the world shaped in a different way.

Spiritual authority is exercised by obedient faith. Rebellion cripples the delegation of God’s authority, right? Spiritual authority is something that is expanded through submission and humility and obedient faith. God’s love language is obedience. So that’s really dynamic. Spiritual authority always brings glory to God and it benefits those under its care. And spiritual authority starts in the family and moves out from there.

To me, I work with leaders and really talk about that issue. How are you responding to authority in your life? It will really, really reflect on how you handle the authority God gives you.

FAT: Faithful, Available, Teachable

Jim Piper Jr: Yeah, that’s good. You reminded me of a lot of things in my youth, right? I think about that acronym, I think that’s the right term. You remember fat, FAT? You know, I remember when I–

Gary Rohrmayer: Yep.

Jim Piper Jr: Yeah, I remember when I was working with high school students, and I think it was Dr. Dan Spader. I went to one of his leadership  conferences. He was genius at simplifying concepts. For those listening, if you haven’t heard FAT, it sounds kind of funny, but it stands for faithful, available, teachable. To me, it was always like that whole idea is you’re a leader in making, a leader in action, you will catch them being FAT: faithful, available and teachable.

One of the things that I have seen, I’ve been guilty of it in my own life, Gary, because if we still use these terminologies, I’m kind of a type A guy now. I’m 65 now. So I’ve learned a lot. If I’m not type A in my physical behavior, I’m still type A in the head. Using Stephen Covey’s terminology, I don’t know if the four quadrants were original with him or not, but he certainly made them popular if they were not original with him.

Dealing with Burnout and Overwhelm

I think one of the things that I have found in leaders, whether I’m talking about engaged leaders, I’m not talking about lazy leaders that are positional leaders, you know, that I probably wouldn’t coach anyway. But you know, leaders who are really trying to win leaders that are trying. You know, I mean, there isn’t a day that goes by– That’s a little bit of an exaggeration. But there’s very few work days that go by that I’m not in a conversation with a leader who’s either burnt out. Or he or she has run into some fork in the roads that normally they’d be able to handle, but it seems like everything’s too heavy now. And they get confused.

They’ve been living in quadrant one, the majority of their time has been living in quadrant one, where everything’s urgent, everything’s important, to where that has actually become a fact. It’s not a fact that everything is important, and everything is urgent. But to them, as we say, feelings are facts. And all of their feelings are saying that their life is just out of control.

So I’m kind of teeing off from the comment you made where you said you’re texting a client even now, trying to hold them accountable to something that they asked you to hold them accountable for to get done. And one of the symptoms I began to see when somebody’s in quadrant one is they’re just scattered and they don’t get things done. Probably more important than that is they cannot seem to differentiate from what needs to get done versus what they do.

When they get tired, they tend to do what they’re good at and they tend to do what’s easy. They don’t necessarily commit themselves to the project that’s going to take 40 swings at because that just seems overwhelming. So they don’t even start. You know, or they won’t take on a conflict, a hard conversation that they need to have because they’re wiped out. In your coaching, how often do you run across leaders like this? And how do you help them untangle themselves? How many of them don’t come out of it?

Helping Church Planters and Building Trust

Gary Rohrmayer: There’s always circumstances and things that happen in people’s lives and choices they make that set them on a different path. When I was working with pastors and church planters, the goal was we want every church plant to succeed yet. We knew that it’s a risky business. When I started planting churches, the average was average success rate was about 20% make it and which was actually better than starting businesses because it about 10% of the startup business startups make it. Over time, and really, part of the process is when we when we started intentionally coaching church planters, we saw the success rate go up.

And back the, it was like a matchmaker. Someone would say, “Well, Gary, you’re going to be his coach.” We didn’t know anybody, no one knew anybody. And so it was really kind of cold turkey. Part of that is I had to build trust. I remember one time I had a guy that was just, he was just resistant. He was like, “I’m doing this because they told me. The organization said I had to have to do it.”

I remember I just kept loving him and asking him questions and showing up and being there and affirming him. Then I just remember we had a breakthrough moment. It changed like that and we were comrades and we were locked arms and he planted a successful church that’s going today. Those are some of the things. So part of it is just to help them work through it.

I remember I had a church planter was working with and and we were in a coaching time and he was just fixated about these four, two couples that left his church. We couldn’t just couldn’t get out of that to talk about anything else. I just kept asking them questions, kept asking them questions and praying, “Lord, give me a good question to ask.” I mean, that’s the key thing of coaching. It’s asking good questions.

And as pastors, we collect illustrations. As coaches, you need to collect questions. I just kept praying. in the midst of this, he was just locked in on this. Finally, I just was direct about it and said, “Man, we’re just not moving past this. You’ve been a pastor for years. You’ve had people leave your church. We all know that pain and stuff like that.” I said, “Why is this one bothering you so much?” That was kind of the question. Why is this one bothering you so much? He thought about it he said, “Well, I guess it’s because my best friend left the church.”

Jim Piper Jr: Oh.

Gary Rohrmayer: So all of a sudden I was like engaged with him, right? I mean, I’m right there with them.

Jim Piper Jr: Yeah, those are feelings of betrayal. That’s even a bigger deal. I had an elder. This is back in the California days. Again, I was pastoring a large church, I was over my head. It’s a long story, but I basically inherited the position. I had an elder who who kind of started rubbing up closely to me. He was kind of an engineering type of mind and like I said before, I’m more of a innovative kind of person. And so the engineer to me kind of slows me down, but that’s exactly what I needed because he said two things that I continue to share with people today, whether they’re pastors or not because the principles apply.

One of the things that he said is that people that go to your church, they’re slugging it out every day. You have no idea of all the different things that they bring in to church. So if you ever wondered what you should be doing during the week, he says, man, do your very best to bring your best. That’s one thing he told me. It really helped because as a young leader, I was insecure, and I thought I had to do this. I was like all over the place, kind of goes back to the quadrant one quadrant two conversation.

Coaching Approaches and Directness

Jim Piper Jr: The second thing he said, there was a mindset similar to this pastor that you were coaching who someone left. You know, attendance is an emotional thing for most, I’m just gonna say it, winning pastors. I know that’s going to offend many. If you don’t got some ego, I don’t know. Anyway. He could tell that sometimes my effectiveness behind that podium, that pulpit was my mood, my energy, my attention to detail was dictated by the number of people that was there.

So the second thing that he said to me is he said, “Jim, focus on who’s here, not on who isn’t here.” But it’s almost like he could read my mind, right? And that’s going to lead me to another question for you. I want to see if this has been your experience too. As a coach, the coaching profession, they have various methods that they teach you. And I have found that I’ve really got to know my client.

And I’ve got to make sure that this idea of a coachable leader, I’m not projecting everything on this person as what is coachable and what’s not coachable, because everybody’s so complex and so different. I mean, they got their temperament, then they got their conditioning, all the good, bad and ugly that’s happened in their life. And most importantly, what they did with it and the top of that iceberg is their character.

It seems as though I have to have a pretty good mix of an inductive approach to your point asking the questions. And I shouldn’t be deductive heavy, but some things are quadrant one. If they don’t see it that way, I have sometimes felt, “Man, I got to lay this one out.” And I just got to say, boom, here’s what I think you should strongly consider. Not just a half a step away from telling them what to do as if I was their boss. And just saying I strongly–

The feedback that I’ve received on that has been pretty good. I can’t say my batting average is 1000. But have you found that as well that you’re having to kind of– I mean some are actually looking for a little stronger direction?

Gary Rohrmayer: Yeah. And they’re looking for and I like to use terms in the sense of, you know, can I encourage you in this direction? Right? As I kind of look at this, it’s more directive. Especially when you’re coaching people, like it were somebody starting up a business or starting a church or ministry, there’s things that need to be done. And so you’re a little more, you know, focused and and directive in that in that coaching style, especially when there’s a timeline on it. Right?

And I think that’s part of it is, again, why are you pursuing coaching? What do you want to achieve in your coaching and your coaching relationship? I find people want to be held accountable. But you just have to do it again in a nice way, right? Ultimately, they’re paying you to coach them, to help them achieve this goal. One of the guys I coached wrote a book and then he wrote that book that year. He achieved that goal. You know, that was one of the things that he wanted to see achieved. He lifts up to that book as a trophy and I lift it up as a trophy too, that I helped him–

Jim Piper Jr: It’s a partnership. Yeah.

Gary Rohrmayer: That’s part of it. Whereas in a mentoring relationship, it’s like, “Well, I’ll just give you advice when you need it.” Mentoring has a great role and it’s an important role in people’s lives, but it’s very different than coaching.

Accountability and Ownership in Coaching

Jim Piper Jr: Yeah, for leaders listening to this podcast with Dr. Gary, Rohmayer, here’s an important context that I’m to throw out and then I’m to let Gary commentate on it. I’m going to give you the play by play and he’ll give you the color here and commentate it because I I know he can do this. Whether you have a coach or you are the coach and I think what Gary and I are saying is that both should probably be true for us. Whether it’s formal or not, we should be coaching folks and we should be receiving coaching from others.

But the context for effective accountability I have found is ownership. If you agree to be held accountable, but you don’t really own what it is that you’re trying to do and then I really don’t know what’s going on there. So you really got to get down into your soul and say, “Do I own this, whatever this is?” If you own it, and then I think you’ll be open to accountability. And that is when accountability becomes effective. What do you say about that, Gary?

Hitting the Wall and Soul Shaping Times

Gary Rohrmayer: Well, yes, I mean, again, it goes back to the whole reason of looking for a coach is that I want to be accountable. What I want to achieve is important to me. And I’m going to pay someone to help me achieve that. That’s really important. But we all get stuck sometimes. Right? I remember one guy I was coaching years ago. In pastoral terms, you get the call and you hit the wall. Right?

Jim Piper Jr: Been a while since I’ve heard that.

Gary Rohrmayer: Yeah. So you hit the wall and that just means nothing’s working. Right? Nothing’s working, I’m not seeing any movement towards my success, or I’m not seeing God move in these situations. And those are very vulnerable times, and those are the times that Bobby Clinton would talk about as those are soul shaping times, and those are times where we need to continue to be obedient to the call, even when we’re hitting this wall of resistance.

I’ve helped pastors through that many, many times. And part of it is just to help them say, “This is a normal process you’re going through. This is normal. It’s okay. And giving them permission to kind of breathe in.”

Jim Piper Jr: Yeah, that’s big, Gary, right there. I think if I can just interrupt you there, I 100 % high five agree with you on that statement. If you haven’t been through it, whatever it is, and you have somebody who’s experienced who’s been there, they can look at you with sincerity and say, “This is normal. This is par for the course,” that really does add an invaluable something, right? I don’t even know what the word is, but it calms them down. They get into more of an acceptance mode, not acceptance, like give up, but okay, all right. It really helps with their insecurities, other other things like that. That’s a powerful word right there.

Encouragement and Caring in Leadership

Gary Rohrmayer: Well, I can give you a quick example. You know, I was talking to a leader and he was struggling over his numbers, right? And like we’re kind of going back to what you said, numbers count, they matter. He was just struggling about the wins and losses, the wins and losses. And he goes, he’s like, “Man, we’re doing great, but man, it’s just bothers me these losses we get.” He was just kind of asking the question, “Why does this bother me so much? I’m just wrapped up in it.” And I looked at him and I said, “It’s because you care.”

Jim Piper Jr: Yes.

Gary Rohrmayer: “You care. This is important to you. You want to achieve this. You believe that God’s called you to achieve this goal, whatever it is, right? And the problem is, there’d be a bigger problem if you didn’t care.”

Jim Piper Jr: Yep, yep, that’s so good.

Gary Rohrmayer: I remember talking to a pastor one day and his church was dwindling, dwindling. It was just a simple thing of you needed a worship leader, right? I said, “Do you have a worship leader for Sunday?” “No, we’re just going to do tape music.” You know what a downer that is?

Jim Piper Jr: Yeah, yeah, that’s waving the white flag.

Gary Rohrmayer: I told him, I said, “I gave you a lead on five different people you could call and you haven’t done anything with it.” I said, “I’m telling you, if I knew I didn’t have a worship leader, it was Monday and I didn’t have one scheduled for Sunday. I’d have a stomach ache all week.” And that kind of motivates you to move into action, right?

Jim Piper Jr: Yeah, I think that’s where sometimes spiritual people live in the clouds. You know, they somehow unplug to humanity. You know, when I see that somebody is anxious about something, I don’t run and say, “Oh my gosh, look how immature they are.” Instead, I’m going, “Well, man, something that they care about isn’t going right in their eyes.”

I first tried to align with “Man, what’s rocking in your world?” Because if you don’t care about it, it’s not gonna bother you. But if you’re messed up jacked up sideways, then you’ve been boned with something. Which kind of leads me to, again, I don’t know about you. But you know, the reason why I think teachable leaders really need to have a coach ah is because have I always thought about things the right way?

The Importance of Perspective and Reframing

The answer is a clear no. It’s an absolute clear no. You know, when I graduate from my board of directors, me, myself and I, and actually add some other people onto that board, it is amazing the different perspectives that I get. In fact, I’m sitting in a studio right now that only came about because I had a board member who was thinking bigger than me and who pushed me.

I don’t normally need to push normally I need to get tackled from behind. But I have somebody on my board who, occasionally I have to go, “Man, I got to get hustling.” I think that’s another part of it too. I think that coaching and I don’t know if this has been your experience too, I kind of feel that I have a great advantage in all the years I’ve been– The title that my clients have given me is friend and advisor to leaders and I’ve embraced that with a lot of affection. Because I came out with the standard deal in the beginning, but like I told you, I said yes to everything.

And we all have a good time laughing at that too, because entrepreneurs, they find themselves in that same situation. And you know, it’s something that we can all chuckle. Speaking of church planting, I think it was Bob Logan in the church planners toolkit that I went through at International School of Theology a long, long time ago. I don’t know how they came up with the 87%, Gary, I don’t know how they came up with that.

But there are certain things that stick in my mind that has come from coaching, I already gave you a couple of examples. Here’s another one that 87%, 87% again, I don’t know how scientific that number was. But somebody had enough boldness to write it and do a research in their demon paper or something. I don’t I don’t know what. But the junk you’re living with today, 87% of that can be found originated in your conception phase.

And I thought, “Man, that is just so darn true.” Especially if you are starting something new, if you are moving into a new location, are you trying to as another one of my friends, Jon Chasteen says, a re-leader. You are taking on someone else’s mess and now you’re trying to regenerate, renew what what have you. Just so important to think about the conception phase. Working on your business, not just in it, as we say.

But reframing is the word that I wanted to throw out. I think that I know I have a good coach and I know that I’m becoming more coachable when I allow myself to sit in community, we’re reframing on how I’m thinking about something actually happens. Sometimes that community brings affirming ideas that okay, I’m thinking about this pretty well. But other times I’m going, Wow, man, I was 30 degrees off here. And that doesn’t take too long to become a real problem. I’m sure you find reframing is a big part of what you do as well.

Gary Rohrmayer: Yeah, just helping people, right? Kind of get a fresh perspective on their situation and that’s, you know, good coaches help you, right? And that’s where they help you find encouragement in times of despair, right? They help you push through quitting points.

Jim Piper Jr: And that’s exciting, right? That’s exciting to receive that. I had a client a few weeks ago text me about something and, and I read it, he did one of those fatal 360s. And I said, which really brings out the coward and a lot of people and the systemic goo in a culture. And I’m not completely done with 360s. But I think there’s a better way that’s my own Jim-isms.

I read what he sent me and I said to him, “This just isn’t fair.” He knows me well enough to know that I don’t mince my words. And he goes, “Well–” And this was right before he’s going on vacation, weekend vacation. He said, “Jim, if I didn’t have those words out of been stewing on that all the time at the beach.”

Gary Rohrmayer’s Book: 10 Marks of a Coachable Leader

Gary, before I let you go, you have written a book and if I wrote down the title correctly, it’s 10 Marks of a Coachable Leader. We have a pretty broad audience and one thing I tell the audience all the time is be a reader, be a reader, be a reader. Where can we get Where can we get our hands on this book, 10 Marks of a Coachable Leader? Before you answer that question, what else do you want us to know? I mean, the title sounds pretty clear. What else do we need to know about that book?

Gary Rohrmayer: Yeah, well, it’s available on all the outlets out there, Amazon, all that. You can get it cheaper at my website, garyrohmayer.com.

Jim Piper Jr: Okay, we’ll get that in the show notes.

Gary Rohrmayer: garyrohmayer.com.  It really came out of, our church, I was really aggressive in discipleship and in one-on-one discipleship and it kind of just grew out of that. Then I started coaching pastors and church planters. So this whole kind of just grew out of that and being coachable and studying it and asking myself, “Am I coachable?”

When you look at the successful leaders in scripture, right, Apollo’s is one of those, think like just the example of him. He was a great, learned, wise man. Yet, he was brought under the wing of Priscilla and Aquilla. They invited him and said, “We need to help you learn a few things a little more accurately.” And so he went on to be a great, great leader. And so that whole concept.

These 10 marks that I’ve seen in my coaching relationships. It’s a quick read. It’s a power packed book. One guy said, was like, “I got punched in the face.” You know what I mean?

Jim Piper Jr: That’s awesome. I love that. As an ex-wrestler, I resonate with that.

Gary Rohmayer: Well, I wanted to make it short, powerful to the point. Initially, I wrote it years ago and I gave it to my clients, my coaching clients. And so now we’re just kind of broadening it out. I use it in our coaching ministry we have now today and make sure everybody reads it. Every staff member I’ve ever hired, they’ve all had to read this because I said, “This is the way I’m going to relate to you as a coach.” But it just kind of walks through those, what we call those 10 marks from a very strong Christian perspective, a lot of biblical injunctions in there.

Jim Piper Jr: We need that. We need that in the workplace. All of my clients know our foundation and who we are. A couple quick things before you go just on the side, it’s kind of fun. I love the title of your book 10 Marks of a Coachable Leader because it’s like in your face. I like that because I always wrestled better when the match started off where I could tell this guy was serious.

It would get me on my toes and I go, “Uh-oh, I’m in for a battle here.” It gets you on your toes. So I like that. But you’ve been in Chicago for a number of years and I need your help to tell me the story. I flew in really late. And I don’t remember what side of town I was in. I don’t remember any of that. I mean, Chicago is massive and I was going to a function in our denomination. But I was by myself for some reason. I don’t know why. I was in the rental car and I was starving to death. And so I’m driving down this dark street. Chicago has these they’re beef sandwiches, but is that what they’re called beef sandwiches?

Gary Rohrmayer: Yes, yes, yes. Italian beefs.

Jim Piper Jr: Italian beef. They’re not beef dips. They’re not they’re not those kinds that I’d be used to in California, whatever. And I walked in right when they were closing, they said, “Sorry, sir, we’re closed.” And I said, “Guys,” and I could be pretty theatrical. I go, “Guys, I’m going to die here.” They go, “Well, actually, we’ve got enough to make one.” And yes, of course, I was starving to death so everything does– I inhaled and that was amazing. That was amazing.

So the next day for lunch, I remember we had that old horrible hotel lunch that was being served. I grabbed a few guys and we split and we went back to that same place for lunch. We were 30 minutes late for the next session, you know. But people were used to that with me.

Closing Remarks

Anyway, Dr. Gary Romer, thank you for your time. I hope that that’s your book, 10 Marks of a Coachable Leader, I think I’ll order it on your website for my library and of course, for my own research that I get better as a leader and as a coach. Good seeing you again. God bless you.

Gary Rohrmayer: Yeah, good seeing you. Thank you, Jim. You did a great job with this podcast. This is great.

Jim Piper Jr: Thank you.

Outro

Winston Harris: Thank you for joining us here at The Today Counts Show. Be sure to like and subscribe on whatever platform you listen or watch so you don’t miss any content—and stay tuned for more coming soon.
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