Leadership Wednesday 29 - Get Serious About Fun

This week our church’s staff had its annual Christmas party. In my three Christmases on staff we’ve had a nice lunch at church and sang some songs. This year, though, we went to a local deli for lunch and then headed to the bowling alley to knock over some pins. Our senior pastor, Rob, wanted to be sure that our team was making time to just have some fun. And, as you can see in the picture below, Rob made sure that he was having fun.

It’s easy to get caught up in the task of leadership. Leadership is a serious business, or at least it should be if what we’re leading has any value. I spend a lot of time in vision and planning meetings, learning from our past mistakes to make a better future. Leadership is about creating a better future through our businesses or organizations and we need to take that task seriously.

But it’s also important to have some fun.

We need to go bowling, we need to wear silly hats, we need to laugh and have a good time. Gathering a team together, without an agenda other than having fun, goes a long way in building camaraderie. Having fun strengthens relationships, which will provide the foundation for the serious task at hand. And we’ll have a much greater chance of completing that serious task if we get serious about having fun.

How have you seen fun help your leadership and strengthen a team?