Perspective in Leading

Our staff at the Suncoast is reading the book "Leading on Empty" by Wayne Cordeiro right now. At our last staff meeting I shared a quote that jumped out at me,

"The way we view our problem oftentimes is our problem"

You could apply that to almost anything in life and leadership but here was my realization for our staff. I am by nature a negative person. I have the painful gift of being able to walk into a room and tell you everything that is wrong in a matter of seconds. I see the problems. AND, many times at our staff meetings and conversations I spend all my time talking about the problems and not enough time talking about all the amazing things God is doing in the life of our church. Instead of celebrating with them I drag up any and every problem and talk about what we are going to do about it.

Here is what I realized. Obviously, the staff at the Suncoast thinks for themselves, but as the leader I have to walk that line in how I present things. Yes, I want to be real and when something bad happens it hurts, and I get frustrated, and it is OK for people to see that and for us to walk through the bad things together. We are all in this as a team. Stuff is not always going to go right at the church and that needs to be addressed. But, on the flip side if I don't do a better job at showing off the positive then I run the risk of ruining the perspective of the people around me. Because it is so easy for me to point out all the problems I have to be intentional about this!

So, that is where I am at right now. Trying to do a better job at walking that line. I would be curious to know your perspective and what you have learned as a church planter / leader / pastor on walking the line between dealing with the problems but not letting that ruin your perspective on the church...