Why Great Leaders Take Strategic Timeouts (Avoid Burnout & Lead Effectively!)

Leadership today often glorifies speed and productivity, but the episode highlights the immense value of strategic timeouts for long-term success. We explore critical moments when leaders should pause to reassess their direction, prevent burnout, and adapt to external changes.

• Recognizing the need for pauses in leadership 
• Importance of alignment before major initiatives 
• Maintaining control by resetting strategies when necessary 
• Adapting to external changes and innovative thinking 
• Preventing burnout through recovery and intentional breaks 
• Embedding timeouts into the organizational culture 
• Focusing on a few strategic priorities for greater impact 
• Reflecting on the balance between speed and direction

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Chapters

• 0:07 Strategic Timeouts for Effective Leadership
• 8:26 Importance of Leadership Timeouts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Do you ever feel like you're running full speed ahead but you're not sure you're even going in the right direction? Too many leaders glorify speed. We always talk about speed. We celebrate hustle and productivity and moving fast and climbing that hill, but what if slowing down is actually the key to winning the game? We're going to talk about that today. We're going to talk about strategic timeouts those moments when great leaders need to pause and regroup and reset up their teams for long-term success, and it's a conversation I think you're really going to enjoy. It's really going to be helpful to you and your leadership, and so stick around. We're going to tackle that today, right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name is Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom, and today we're talking about I'm going to have a conversation, you and I, that could really save your leadership from burnout and keep your church and organization on the right path.

Speaker 1: 1:01

And that's sometimes you just in leadership, you need to take a pause. Sometimes you just need to slow down in order to speed up. Have you ever heard this phrase? Velocity is speed with direction. Too often we're climbing the ladder of success. Yes, success in the church, of church growth, of what other people think. We're climbing that ladder, we're trying to move so fast and we do that for so long, only to realize we're just going in the wrong direction. We're leaning against the wrong wall. So, instead of reacting to everything and making hasty decisions, we need to kind of time some of these intentional pauses to assess first of all are we moving in the right direction? Are we still aligned with our mission? Are we focused on the right things? We've mentioned this before here, that Jesus was our example here. Okay, jesus, in his ministry, took times where he hit pause. Okay, jesus withdrew from the crowds, he withdrew from the work of his ministry, and he did so because it was really important. Because if the Son of God took timeouts for clarity and for prayer and to refocus, why wouldn't we? So when do you do that? When is the right time to call a leadership timeout? Maybe you're not sure. It's not in our nature to pause, right? If you're a driven leader, it's not in your nature to say hold on here, let's tap the brakes. That's the last thing we want to do. I think there are four critical times when it's really not. Should you take a timeout? It's yeah, you definitely should, okay, so here are four times.

Speaker 1: 2:56

If you're getting ready to start a major launch or an initiative, if you're gearing up for something big maybe it's a new ministry, maybe it's a church plant, maybe it's a building campaign you know, instead of rushing forward, you need to pause for alignment. You need to pause for alignment. Here's an example for you Glean is a company that you may not have ever heard of, but it's a billion-dollar company, and before they launched the company, the leaders delayed the launch by 10 days for better team clarity and strategy, and it paid off. As Seth Godin always says, you need to ship things right, and sometimes you do need to ship these new programs, but you don't want to ship them too early. You need to take time. Maybe it's 10 days, maybe it's six months that you need to pause before you launch something big. But before you launch something big, you probably need to pause and make sure that everything is in alignment. Okay, so that's the first one.

Speaker 1: 3:57

Number two is when you feel like you're losing control of the game. Sports teams call timeout when the other team is dominating the momentum, and sometimes in leadership, the same thing applies. So if you're constantly finding yourself reacting instead of being proactive, it's probably time to hit pause and to reset your strategy. There's no harm, no foul, no pun intended to call a timeout, particularly when you just need to regroup a little bit. Okay, so that's number two.

Speaker 1: 4:26

Number three when external changes demand new thinking, the world is moving fast. You would have asked me two years ago how AI would factor into the church and into my work in staffing and I would have said I've never heard of AI. Right, the world is moving fast. Culture shifts and new ministry challenges are coming faster than ever. But are you updating your approach or are you stuck on a strategy that worked 10 years ago? So I mentioned AI. Ai advancements are forcing companies, big companies like OpenAI, which is the new company, but OpenAI in the last two years has caused Google to pivot immensely, and churches and organizations must do the same.

Speaker 1: 5:17

But sometimes you just have to take a little bit of a pause. Sometimes you need to put some things on hold to try and reevaluate where you are and what you need to do next, and then, finally, sometimes you just need to hit pause in your leadership to prevent some burnout and to sustain that high performance. Pastors and leaders, we're not perfect. We don't have an infinite amount of energy. We are not designed to just run full bore all the time. Even elite athletes build in recovery time. Matter of fact, they build it in because it's so important. Now. Burnout doesn't happen overnight. It's the event. It's the result of never calling that time out and you don't want to be burned out.

Speaker 1: 6:03

Like I mentioned before, jesus modeled rest and reflection and renewal, and if, at the very least, we need to take Jesus as an example, right, if we fail to pause and if we just go full bore all the time, we risk losing ourselves and our teams. And man, I've seen it, you've seen it as well. You can lose your ministry, you can lose your marriage, you can lose your family if you don't just play this really well and take times to pause. You need to make so timeouts, making these timeouts part of your ministry culture, and you really do need to try to embed these timeouts into your regular cadence. Coaches adjust at halftime, great leaders do the same.

Speaker 1: 6:53

It might be a regular staff retreat, it might be a strategy refreshes, it might be reviews that come on a semi-regular basis that help you stay on mission, but those things are really important and you need to set, I think, no more than three strategic priorities at a time. If you're doing more than that, not everything can be urgent. So you need to focus on what matters and you need to emphasize deep work. We did a whole series on deep work here on the podcast. You can search, I think, just under our podcast and on YouTube for deep work on our channels and you will find a whole series on deep work. But leaders who focus, who work with focus and intention, just tend to make better decisions. So you need to build space for kind of that big picture thinking and creativity and problem solving, because that's really where a lot of the breakthroughs are going to happen.

Speaker 1: 7:52

Okay, I love this quote. John Wooden, the famous coach, said be quick but don't hurry. Okay, that's the kind of leadership that we need today. Be quick but don't hurry. Okay, that's the kind of leadership that we need today. Be quick but don't hurry. Sometimes in your leadership you can't go. You can't run full bore all the time. You need to take some intentional breaks. Sometimes you got to tap the break and sometimes you need to regroup and that's going to be something that's really going to help you in your leadership. I hope it's been helpful for you today.

Speaker 1: 8:26

Here's my question for you when was the last time you called a timeout? If you've been feeling stuck or burned out or just going through the motions, it might be time just to pause and reflect. It might be time to realign. It might be time to call a timeout. I'd love to hear from you. You can leave a comment here. You can also reach out to me anytime.

Speaker 1: 8:48

Tell me what's a time where you call it a leadership timeout. How did it help you? I'd love to know that and if this episode was helpful, I'd love to hear from you as well. Reach out to me anytime. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom is my email address. I read every single email and I'm really glad that you're listening to this. If there's any way that I can help your church, reach out to me. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. All right, thanks for joining me today. Remember, the best leaders know when to push forward and when to push pause and when to refocus. You can't let the busyness of ministry, you can't let the busyness of the enemy, be the enemy of your impact. You've got to be intentional, you've got to be strategic and to lead well. A lot of times you've got to just hit pause, just hip-hop.