Now that summer is here, we want to remind you that there is a healthy rhythm to leadership work. As leaders, it's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day tasks and forget the purpose and focus of our work. That's why it's important to take a step back and reflect on our goals and how they align with God's will.

This often-shared bit of leadership wisdom is from the one who is widely considered the GOAT (“Greatest Of All Time”) of hockey. The key, Wayne Gretzky’s father taught him, was not to skate to where the puck is, but to where the puck is going to be. Anticipate the direction and speed of the puck and get there first.

Get proximate to people who are suffering.” Bryan Stephenson.

In the Christmas carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” one line has always spoken to me. Reflecting on the birth of the Savior, carolist Phillips Brooks wrote, “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight.” The hopes. The fears.

Not the dreams. Not the vision. Not the stirring speech that motivates, but the hopes and fears. The places of pain and need.

Leaders are visionaries.

At least that’s what we have been told and what we expect of ourselves!

Most of us who lead, love the idea of stirring people to action with a compelling, inspirational vision. A vision that is so beautiful that people rally to serve it, even sacrificially.

Many of my friends, colleagues, and clients who serve as pastors were able to take a sabbatical this past summer. And I am very glad. The renewal that comes from an extended time of several weeks away is real and really necessary.

Most leaders I know need far more rhythms of rest and renewal in their lives in order to lead and minister with deep health for the long haul. I know that I do. To this day, I try to take several weeks of time off for both rest and writing (a deeply restorative activity for me).

Honestly, it can sound pretty sad and to start the awkward “do you want to be my friend conversation?” is so humbling. And yet we need it. Our friends are our anvil as we are forged in leadership.

Great leaders are committed learners. Resilient leaders remain the most teachable. While it is true that the best teacher is the leadership experience itself, Warren Buffet estimates that he spends 80 percent of his time reading.

The problem with most leadership programs, this and other studies have concluded, is that they are focused more on concepts than context, principles than practices, more on reading experts than reflecting on themselves, and, mostly, more on learning about leading than actually doing the work of bringing organizational change.