How This Guide Is Different — Read This First (Q only)

The leader brief, in one line: get past vague self-improvement talk. Every man names one specific leadership gap and one specific place to close it, this week, not someday. “I want to be a better leader” isn’t an answer. “I avoid hard conversations with my direct reports, and I’m calling Mark on Tuesday to ask how he does it” is. We’re not after a reading list. We want a skill, a resource, and a date.

A note on the chapters. Q4.2/Schooling is new to this circle. It makes one blunt claim: leadership is taught, and “Schooling never really ends in the life of a HIM.” The author admits, “At 25 I thought I had learned all there was to know about Leadership. By 55… I could also see how much further I had to go.” A man who thinks he’s done learning to lead is usually the one who most needs to start again.

Q4.3/Apprenticeship came up on July 10, when we talked about the man who saw your edge first. This week we aim it the other direction: you go find the master. The chapter’s pattern is watch, help, do. And it’s honest about what happens without it. The author never got an apprenticeship as a young lawyer, so he had to “Collision Learn the craft on my own,” which he compares to “learning to fly a plane through a series of mishaps and near fatal crashes.” It took him about ten years. Most men are Collision Learning leadership right now, because they never asked anyone to teach them.

Together the two chapters answer both halves of the QOW. Schooling gives you the resource (the head-knowledge). Apprenticeship gives you the practice (turning it into heart-knowledge). As the Schooling chapter puts it, “Before anything can be heart-knowledge, it must first be head-knowledge.” Proverbs 15:22 puts it more briefly: “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.”

The traps in this QOW. There are five, and each one lets a man talk without answering.

• Trap one — the fog. “Communication.” “Patience.” “Delegation.” Those are categories, not gaps. Push: “Give me the last time it cost you. Who was in the room?”
• Trap two — the book club. Men start trading titles and podcasts. Good resources, but a title with no date is a wish list. Ask: “When will you open it, and what chapter first?”
• Trap three — “I’m not really a leader.” Every man in this circle leads someone: a family, a team, a crew, a Q slot, a minivan full of Shorties. The Schooling chapter says the principles that applied to Moses in the Sinai apply “in the driver seat of your minivan.” Don’t let a man opt out on a technicality.
• Trap four — the humble-brag. “I care too much.” “I work too hard.” That’s a job-interview answer. Ask: “What would your wife say? What would your team say?”
• Trap five — someday. “Once things slow down.” They won’t. That’s why the prompt exists.

Five rules for the Q running this:

1. Go first, and make it real. Name your own gap: specific, a little embarrassing, and current. If you give a safe answer, every man after you will too.
2. Get three things from every man: the skill, the resource, and the date. Without all three, it’s just talk, and “mere talk tends only to poverty” (Proverbs 14:23).
3. Use the prompt every time. “What’s stopping you from starting this week?” Most men will say “time.” Push once: “Is it time, or is it that starting means admitting you don’t know how?”
4. Nobody names another man’s blind spot in the circle unless he asks for it. Q4 asks what your team would say about you. It’s not an invitation to tell the man next to you what’s wrong with him.
5. Write it down and follow up. The close is “Pick the resource. Set the date. Report back next Friday.” That last part only works if you remember what each man said. Write every name, skill, resource, and date down. Open next week’s QOW by asking for the reports.

The prompt, if you need to reset the room: What’s stopping you from starting this week? Ask it, then wait. The first answer is usually busyness. The real answer is usually pride or fear: pride that doesn’t want to be a beginner, or fear of finding out how far there is to go.

The close: Pick the resource. Set the date. Report back next Friday.

One caution on tone. This QOW can go wrong two ways. It can turn into a book club, where men swap recommendations, feel productive, and leave with nothing on the calendar. Or it can turn into a beat-down, where a man lists every weakness he has and leaves discouraged. Neither helps. What we want from each man is one gap, one resource, one date. Not every weakness. Just the one worth working on this week. Some men in the circle may be between jobs, or recently passed over for a role. Handle that with care. A man without a title is still leading somebody, and this is a good week for him to get sharper.

Facilitator Notes under each question tell you what to listen for, how to restart a stalled room, and where to push. You won’t use all fifteen questions. Pick 6–8 and give each one time. Part One is the QOW itself, so don’t skip it. Q15 is the close, so don’t skip that either.

Q1: Think of the best leader you’ve ever worked for, played for, or served under. What’s one thing he could do that you still can’t?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the warm-up. Men find it easier to describe a skill in someone else than to admit a gap in themselves. Start there.
• Listening for: concrete skills, not personality traits. “He could walk into a room of angry people and calm it down.” “He remembered everybody’s kids’ names.” “He could tell you you’d screwed up and you’d leave wanting to work harder.”
• If the room stalls, ask a simpler one: “Who’s the best boss or coach you ever had? What did he do that the bad ones didn’t?”
• Push deeper: “Did he learn that, or was he just born with it?” Most men will guess “born.” Hold that thought for Q5.
• This question hands men their answer to Q2. Point that out when you get there.

Answer: Almost every man can picture a leader who did something he still can’t. That picture is useful: it turns “be a better leader” into a skill you can name. Scripture tells us to learn from examples like that. Paul wrote, “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things” (Philippians 4:9, ESV), and “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1, ESV). The Apprenticeship chapter says the first stage of learning any craft is simply to watch: “An apprentice first watches, then helps and finally does.” You’ve already done the watching. The leader you admire showed you what the skill looks like. The Schooling chapter adds that the principles are “universal and timeless”: what that coach or commander did works “at work or in the driver seat of your minivan full of Shorties.” Concrete step: write down the one thing that leader did that you can’t do yet. You’re about to find out it’s your answer to the QOW.

Why This Matters: Vague goals don’t get worked on. Skills you can picture do. If you can describe what great looks like, you can start building it.

Q2 (THE QOW): What leadership skill do you need to develop — specifically? And what resource could you seek out this week to grow in that area?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the main question. Everything else supports it. Get two things from every man: the specific skill and the specific resource.
• Then use the prompt: “What’s stopping you from starting this week?” (That’s Q3. Run it right after.)
• Turn away fog kindly but firmly: “Communication” → With whom? In what situation? When did it last cost you? “Being more patient” → With whom, and what happens when you’re not?
• A specific skill sounds like: “Running a meeting that doesn’t drag.” “Giving hard feedback without blowing up.” “Delegating without taking it back.” “Listening to my wife without solving the problem.” “Leading a Q without over-talking.”
• A specific resource sounds like: a named man, a named book with a first chapter, a class with a sign-up date, a Q slot on the calendar.
• Watch for trap three: “I’m not really in a leadership role.” Remind him who he leads.

Answer: Proverbs 1:5 describes the wise man as someone who does two things: he “increase[s] in learning,” and he “obtain[s] guidance” (ESV). The QOW asks the same two questions: What do you need to learn? and Where will you get it? The Schooling chapter says the range of useful resources is wide: “Spending four years at West Point and reading Leadership For Dummies in one’s spare time are both examples of Schooling.” The best resource isn’t always the most impressive one. It’s the one you’ll start this week. For most men, the right resource is one of four things: a man who already has the skill, a book or course that teaches the principle, an opportunity to practice it (a Q slot, a project, a hard conversation), or feedback from the people you lead. The worst resource is none: “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied” (Proverbs 13:4, ESV). Wanting to grow isn’t the same as growing. The sluggard wants it too. Concrete step: say your skill and your resource out loud in this circle, in one sentence each.

Why This Matters: Most men have wanted to be better leaders for years without ever naming what “better” means. A named gap can be closed. A vague one just gets carried around.

Q3: What’s stopping you from starting this week?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the leader’s prompt as its own question. Run it right after Q2, while the answers are fresh.
• Listening for: the reason behind the first reason. “I’m busy” is almost always first. Ask: “Busy enough that you can’t make one phone call?”
• The real answers: not wanting to look like a beginner; not wanting to admit to someone else you don’t know how; fear that the resource will show you how far behind you are; waiting for a “better time.”
• Push deeper: “If you started this week and it went badly, what’s the worst that happens? If you wait a year, what does that cost?”
• Point to the season. Proverbs 20:4 says the sluggard doesn’t plow in the autumn. It’s September.

Answer: Scripture is familiar with the man who’s waiting for better conditions: “He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap” (Ecclesiastes 11:4, ESV). And: “The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing” (Proverbs 20:4, ESV). The perfect week to start never comes. There’s this week, and there’s “someday.” James warns against planning as if tomorrow is guaranteed, and Proverbs agrees: “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” (Proverbs 27:1, ESV). But busyness usually isn’t the real obstacle. The Schooling chapter names the deeper one: leadership is “counterintuitive,” and learning it means being taught things your instincts get wrong. Starting means admitting you don’t know how, and that’s what most men are really avoiding. The author admits he got one core principle wrong “(a lot) until I got it right.” Nobody enjoys that part. Concrete step: name the real reason, not the calendar one, and then name the smallest possible first step that gets around it — one call, one chapter, one sign-up.

Why This Matters: Whatever’s stopping you this week stopped you last year too. If you don’t name it, it will still be in charge next September.

Q4: If your team — at work, at home, or here — had to name your biggest leadership blind spot, what would they say?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is one of the leader’s follow-up questions. It’s the fastest way past fog and humble-brags.
• Rule four applies: each man answers about himself. Nobody volunteers another man’s blind spot.
• Listening for: men who pause. The pause usually means they know exactly what their team would say.
• If the room stalls: “What does your wife say when she’s frustrated with how you’re handling something? That’s probably it.”
• Push deeper: “Have you ever actually asked them? What would it take to ask this week?” That can become his resource.
• Tie it to Proverbs 15:22: the people you lead are some of your best advisers, and most men never ask them.

Answer: By definition, you can’t see a blind spot yourself. That’s why Proverbs 15:22 matters so much: “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed” (ESV). And the advisers who can see you most clearly are often the people you lead. Your team already knows your blind spot. The question is whether you’ll ask them. Scripture shows what happens when a leader won’t listen. When Rehoboam became king, the older men advised him to lighten the load on the people. “But he abandoned the counsel that the old men gave him and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him” (1 Kings 12:8, ESV), and the kingdom split in two. Ecclesiastes names the type: “an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice” (Ecclesiastes 4:13, ESV). Compare Moses. His father-in-law watched him judge the people from morning to evening and told him, “What you are doing is not good… You are not able to do it alone” (Exodus 18:17–18, ESV). “So Moses listened to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said” (Exodus 18:24, ESV). The greatest leader in the Old Testament got his most important leadership lesson from someone watching from the side. Concrete step: ask one person you lead this week, “What’s one thing I could do better as a leader?” Then say “thank you” and nothing else.

Why This Matters: Most men guess at their own weaknesses and guess wrong. The people you lead have the answer. Asking them is free, and it may be the best resource you find this week.

Q5: Lombardi says, “Leaders aren’t born, they are made.” Do you actually believe that about yourself — or do you secretly think you’re either a “leader guy” or you’re not? Where has that belief let you off the hook?

Facilitator Notes:

• Come back to Q1. Many men said their best leader was “just born with it.” Ask whether they still think so.
• Listening for: the man who says “I’m just not a people person,” “I’m more of a behind-the-scenes guy,” or “I’m not a natural speaker.” Those can be real temperaments. They can also be excuses.
• Push deeper: “If leadership is a skill, what would it take for you to get better at the part you think you’re ‘just not’?”
• Don’t argue temperament out of existence. The point isn’t that every man should be loud. It’s that every man can learn to lead well in his own way.

Answer: If leaders are born, then a man who wasn’t “born one” has nothing to work on. That’s comfortable, but it’s false. The Apprenticeship chapter says it directly: “No man is born Living Third–he must learn to do it through Positive Habit Transfer.” Nobody is born putting others first. Every good leader you’ve admired was taught it. Even Jesus, in His humanity, “increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52, ESV). Joshua didn’t show up ready to lead Israel. He spent years as Moses’ assistant, “a young man, [who] would not depart from the tent” (Exodus 33:11, ESV), and only later was “full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him” (Deuteronomy 34:9, ESV). The Schooling chapter adds that a Virtuous Leader doesn’t treat everyone “the same”: he adjusts his style to the people and the moment. That means there’s room for your temperament. There isn’t room for your excuse. Concrete step: finish this sentence honestly: “I’ve told myself I’m just not the kind of guy who ___.” Then ask whether that’s true, or whether you’ve just never been taught.

Why This Matters: “I’m not a natural” is one of the most expensive beliefs a man can hold. It feels like humility, but it keeps you from learning anything.

Q6: The Schooling chapter says, “At 25 I thought I had learned all there was to know about Leadership. By 55… I could also see how much further I had to go.” When did you last deliberately learn something about leading — and what replaced it?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the Schooling question. Most men had some leadership training early (military, a first management job, sports, church) and then stopped.
• Listening for: the date. “Probably when I got promoted in 2014.” “Basic training.” “Never, really.”
• Common replacements: experience (“I’ve been doing this 20 years”), confidence, busyness, and the assumption that a title means you already know how.
• Push deeper: “Is twenty years of experience twenty years of learning — or one year repeated twenty times?”

Answer: The Schooling chapter’s central claim is simple: “Schooling never really ends in the life of a HIM who seeks to Lead Right.” The author says the more he practiced leadership, the more he realized “how much more I have to learn, how little of the Leadership Principles I actually know.” Growing leaders see more of what they don’t know. Stalled leaders think they’ve seen it all. Proverbs is hard on the second kind: “Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him” (Proverbs 26:12, ESV). And: “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice” (Proverbs 12:15, ESV). By contrast, “Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning” (Proverbs 9:9, ESV). Note what that verse assumes: the wise man is still being instructed. Experience isn’t the same as growth. It only becomes growth when you keep asking what it’s teaching you. Concrete step: name the last time you deliberately learned something about leadership. If it’s been more than a year, that’s your answer to why this QOW matters now.

Why This Matters: The man who stops learning doesn’t stay the same. He falls behind the people and problems he’s leading. If you’ve stopped learning, your leadership has started aging.

Q7: Proverbs 15:22 says, “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.” Who are your advisers on leadership right now? Name them. If the list is short, why?

Facilitator Notes:

• Make them count. “Advisers” means men (or women) you actually go to for counsel about how to lead — not people you admire from a distance.
• Listening for: the man whose honest answer is “nobody” or “my wife.” Both are common. The wife answer is good but incomplete. He needs men too.
• Push deeper: “When you face a hard leadership decision, who do you call? Or do you just decide and hope?”
• Why men have short lists: pride, isolation, not wanting to look weak, or never having been shown how to ask.
• This sets up Q9, which is about finding the specific man who has the skill you’re missing.

Answer: Proverbs doesn’t say “with one adviser.” It says “with many advisers they succeed” (Proverbs 15:22, ESV), and it repeats the point: “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety” (Proverbs 11:14, ESV). Counsel is part of the plan, not something you add when the plan starts failing. The Schooling chapter says, “No man develops his own Leadership Foundation. It is the product of an LDP that is initiated and overseen by other men in the Group who have committed themselves to Leave Right.” Most men have learned to lead by themselves, and that’s why the Apprenticeship chapter’s lawyer took ten years of “mishaps and near fatal crashes” to get competent. The wise man takes the other road: “Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future” (Proverbs 19:20, ESV). If your list of advisers is short, your blind spots are probably long. Concrete step: name your advisers. If you have fewer than two men you’d actually call about a leadership problem, add “find one” to what you commit to in Q15.

Why This Matters: A leader with no counsel isn’t independent. He’s exposed. The strongest leaders you know have more advisers than you think.

Q8: The Schooling chapter says leadership is “counterintuitive,” like the principle of Pass Praise/Take Blame. Which leadership principle goes most against your natural instincts?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the head-knowledge question. Some skills can’t be figured out by instinct. They have to be taught.
• Give examples: passing praise and taking blame; listening before speaking; letting someone else do it worse than you would so they can learn; making yourself dispensable; giving credit when you did most of the work.
• Listening for: the one that makes a man wince.
• Push deeper: “Who taught you that? Or has nobody ever told you that’s what good leaders do?”

Answer: The Schooling chapter explains why leadership has to be taught: “so much of what a Virtuous Leader must be and do is counterintuitive.” Our instinct is to take credit and avoid blame. The Virtuous Leader has to “completely invert this formula”: “Success belongs to the Group, but Failure is the burden that a Virtuous Leader must bear alone.” The author learned it from an Army sergeant who wrote on a chalkboard in big letters: PASS THE PRAISE AND TAKE THE BLAME. He says, “To know how to do it right, I had to first be taught what right was.” You can’t practice a principle nobody ever taught you. Jesus had to teach this directly, because His disciples kept arguing over who was greatest: “whoever would be great among you must be your servant… even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve” (Matthew 20:26, 28, ESV). The Apprenticeship chapter says the goal is to make “intuitive by training that which is counterintuitive by nature.” That’s what schooling is for: learning the principles your instincts get wrong. Concrete step: pick the principle that goes most against your grain, and find one resource — a book chapter, a sermon, a conversation with a man who does it well — that teaches it.

Why This Matters: Your instincts will lead you wrong in exactly the moments that matter most. If you only lead by instinct, you’ll repeat your natural mistakes for the rest of your life.

Q9: Who do you know who already has the skill you’re missing — and have you asked him how he built it?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is one of the leader’s follow-up questions, and it’s often the best resource a man has.
• Get a name. “A guy at work” → What’s his name? When do you see him next?
• Listening for: the reason he hasn’t asked. Usually: “I don’t want to bother him,” “He’d think it’s weird,” or “I’d have to admit I can’t do it.”
• Push deeper: “If a younger man came to you and asked how you learned something you’re good at, would you be annoyed — or honored?” Almost every man says honored.
• Point to the room. The man who has the skill may be sitting in this circle.

Answer: The Apprenticeship chapter says the oldest way to learn any craft is to “find a willing master.” Elisha did exactly that. When Elijah called him, “he arose and went after Elijah and assisted him” (1 Kings 19:21, ESV). Years later, Elisha asked for more: “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me” (2 Kings 2:9, ESV). He didn’t wait to be offered. He followed and he asked. That’s Proverbs 1:5 in action: “the one who understands obtain[s] guidance” (ESV) — he goes and gets it. And “the ear of the wise seeks knowledge” (Proverbs 18:15, ESV). Most men assume the man with the skill would be bothered. Usually he’d be honored. The Whetstone principle says older men have a “natural” desire to pass on what they’ve learned. But the Apprenticeship chapter also says learning costs something: the apprentice worked around the shop, and his wages were “the opportunity to obtain a vocation.” If you want a man’s skill, be ready to spend your time on his schedule, and be ready to hear hard things. Concrete step: name the man, and ask him one question this week: “How did you learn to do ___? What would you tell me to do first?”

Why This Matters: The fastest way to close a leadership gap is usually a conversation with a man who’s already closed it. Asking costs you a little pride. Not asking can cost you years.

Q10: What’s the difference between reading about leadership and actually practicing it this week?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is one of the leader’s follow-up questions, and it’s the guard against trap two (the book club).
• QSource language: head-knowledge vs. heart-knowledge. Schooling gives you the first. Practice turns it into the second.
• Listening for: men who’ve read a lot and changed little. That’s most of us.
• Push deeper: “What’s the last leadership book you read? What did you do differently the week after?”
• Make it practical: for every resource named in Q2, ask, “Where will you actually use it this week?”

Answer: The Schooling chapter uses the author’s law career to make the point: “Law school taught me what I needed to know to be an attorney, but it has been practicing law that has taught me how to do what an attorney does.” Without practice, what he learned “would have been useless or, at best, theoretical.” But the reverse is also true. Without the schooling, he’d have been “a talented mimic… A Mascot.” Reading without practice makes you a theorist. Practice without learning makes you a mimic. You need both. James says the same about God’s Word: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22, ESV). Notice the word deceiving: reading about something can make you feel like you’ve done it. Paul told Timothy, “Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress” (1 Timothy 4:15, ESV). Hebrews describes mature people as “those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice” (Hebrews 5:14, ESV). If nobody around you can see your progress, you’re probably just reading. Concrete step: pair your resource with one real situation this week where you’ll use it — a meeting, a conversation, a Q, a dinner table.

Why This Matters: Most men don’t lack information. They lack practice. One page applied beats one book admired.

Q11: The Apprenticeship chapter says “an apprentice first watches, then helps and finally does.” For the skill you named, which stage are you in — and what would the next stage look like?

Facilitator Notes:

• This makes the resource concrete. Different stages need different resources.
• Watch-stage: he needs to see it done well. Resource = shadow someone, sit in on their meeting, observe a Q.
• Help-stage: he needs to do part of it with someone experienced nearby. Resource = co-lead something, take one piece of a project.
• Do-stage: he needs his own opportunity, with someone to debrief him afterward. Resource = Q a beatdown, lead the meeting, have the conversation — then ask for feedback.
• F3 examples: shadow a site Q (watch), co-Q (help), VQ or lead a QOW (do).
• Push deeper: “Have you been stuck in ‘watch’ for years because ‘do’ is scary?”

Answer: The Apprenticeship chapter gives a simple pattern for learning any skill: watch, help, do. In the watch stage, the apprentice “learns the process… from observing it being performed by the master.” In the help stage, he “physically contribute[s].” In the do stage, he leads with “the master close by to offer advice, counsel and Correction,” like “a student pilot who is flying the Leadership-plane with the instructor available to grab the yoke.” Jesus trained His disciples this way. He called them “so that they might be with him” (watch) “and he might send them out” (do) (Mark 3:14, ESV). And He said, “For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you” (John 13:15, ESV). Each stage has its own resource. Watchers need a model. Helpers need a partner. Doers need a debrief. The chapter is honest that the do stage is rough: “Many, maybe most, of his initial Outcomes will be less than desirable.” Expect to be bad at it at first. That’s part of the process, not a sign you should quit. Concrete step: name your stage for the skill you picked in Q2, and name one resource that moves you to the next stage.

Why This Matters: Many men stay in “watch” forever because “do” is uncomfortable. Watching a good leader for ten years doesn’t make you one. At some point you have to take the controls.

Q12: Firestone says, “The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” Welch says that once you’re a leader, success is “all about growing others.” Who’s watching you learn — and what are they learning from how you handle your own gaps?

Facilitator Notes:

• This turns the QOW outward. Your growth isn’t just for you.
• Listening for: kids, direct reports, younger men at work, FNGs in the AO.
• The platoon story from the Apprenticeship chapter is powerful here. Consider reading it aloud (see the Answer).
• Push deeper: “Is there any part of your job that nobody else could do if you got hit by a bus tomorrow? Why is that?”
• Name the connection: a man who won’t admit his own gaps can’t teach others to admit theirs.

Answer: Welch’s quote can sound like two separate stages, first grow yourself, then grow others. But the people you lead are watching you grow, or watching you not grow. The Apprenticeship chapter says, “Because the apprentice is carefully watching, it is incumbent upon the master that he meet or exceed the Standards that he has set.” Your kids and your team learn more from how you handle your weaknesses than from anything you say about leadership. The author tells a story on himself. As a 22-year-old platoon leader, evaluators “killed” him halfway through a combat exercise, and his platoon failed. “Although each man knew his job, no man knew my job. I had hoarded all that knowledge for a very selfish reason: so that I would be indispensable.” Six months later he taught his leaders his job, and when he was “killed” again, they did better without him. The evaluator said, “He’s made himself dispensable and there is no higher form of leadership.” That’s Firestone’s point, and Paul’s: “what you have heard from me… entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2, ESV). The skill you’re building this week is also a skill you’ll eventually owe someone else. Concrete step: name one person who’s watching how you lead, and one thing you know how to do that he doesn’t yet.

Why This Matters: A leader who stops growing eventually has nothing new to pass on. You can’t give away what you never went and got.

Q13: Proverbs 1:5 says, “Let the wise hear and increase in learning.” Why do the wisest men you know keep learning — and what does it say about a man who’s stopped?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the character question beneath the QOW. Learning is a posture before it’s an activity.
• Listening for: the connection between humility and learning. Men who keep learning usually know they haven’t arrived.
• Scripture examples to have ready: Paul at the end of his life asking for his books (2 Timothy 4:13); Apollos, a gifted teacher, being taught more accurately by Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18:24–26).
• Push deeper: “What’s harder for you: admitting you need to learn, or making the time to do it?”

Answer: Proverbs 1 opens with a surprise. The book written to make people wise says the wise still need it: “Let the wise hear and increase in learning” (Proverbs 1:5, ESV). Two verses later it names the foundation: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7, ESV). Wise men keep learning because they know they’re not God. Fools stop because they think they’ve arrived. Look at Paul in prison near the end of his life, writing to Timothy: “bring the cloak… also the books, and above all the parchments” (2 Timothy 4:13, ESV). After everything he’d done, he still wanted to read. Look at Apollos, “an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures,” who let Priscilla and Aquila take him aside and explain “the way of God more accurately” (Acts 18:24, 26, ESV). The Schooling chapter says the author’s practice of his faith drove him back to study: “the more I have Practiced the application of its tenets, the more I have sought to understand the theology that underlies them.” Humble men stay teachable. Teachable men keep getting better. Concrete step: ask yourself honestly whether your problem this week is time or teachability. They need different fixes.

Why This Matters: A man’s willingness to be taught says more about his character than any skill he has. When a man stops learning, it’s usually a pride problem, not a time problem.

Q14: Lombardi says leaders are made “through hard work.” Scripture says God is the one who makes a man. How do those two fit together — and what does that mean for the work you’ll do this week?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the deepest question in the guide. It’s where self-improvement meets grace.
• Two ways to get it wrong: “It’s all up to me” (which leads to pride or burnout) and “God will change me, so I don’t need to try” (which leads to passivity).
• The key verses: Philippians 2:12–13 and 1 Corinthians 15:10. Both say “work,” and both say “God.”
• For men who aren’t Christians: the question still works. Ask, “Where does the drive to get better come from? And what do you do on the weeks you fail?”

Answer: Scripture doesn’t make you choose between hard work and God’s work. Paul puts them in the same sentence: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12–13, ESV). And about his own life: “But by the grace of God I am what I am… I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10, ESV). Grace doesn’t make a man lazy. It gives him a reason to work that isn’t about proving himself. Lombardi is right that leaders are made through hard work. The Christian adds who is doing the making: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10, ESV). That changes how you handle failure. Paul said, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Philippians 3:12, ESV). You don’t grow in order to be accepted. You grow because you already are. Concrete step: before you start your resource this week, ask God for wisdom. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach” (James 1:5, ESV). Then do the work.

Why This Matters: A man who grows only to prove himself will quit when it gets hard, or get proud when it goes well. A man who grows because he’s been given grace can keep going after he fails.

Q15 (THE CLOSE): Pick the resource. Set the date. Report back next Friday. What’s your skill, what’s your resource, and what day this week will you start?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the close. Every man answers, and nobody passes.
• Three parts, every man: the skill (specific), the resource (named — a man, a book and chapter, a class, a Q slot, a feedback conversation), and the day (this week).
• Write it all down. Next Friday, open by reading each man’s commitment back and asking, “How did it go?”
• Watch for the man who can’t land it. Help him in the moment: “What’s the smallest version you could do by Wednesday?”
• Read the commitments back before you pray.

Example answers — what a real answer sounds like:

• The conversation guy: “My gap is hard conversations. I let performance problems slide at work until they blow up. Greg runs a bigger team than me and he’s great at it. I’m texting him tonight and taking him to lunch Thursday to ask how he does it.”
• The feedback guy: “I don’t know what my blind spot is, which is probably the problem. Monday I’m asking my two direct reports, ‘What’s one thing I could do better as a leader?’ and I’m going to just say thanks.”
• The home front: “My gap is listening. My wife says I solve instead of listen. I’m reading the first two chapters of a book on it by Wednesday, and I’m practicing at dinner Thursday — no advice unless she asks.”
• The F3 guy: “I’ve been stuck in ‘watch’ for a year. I’m signing up to co-Q with Dizzy in October, and I’m putting the date on the Q sheet before I leave today.”

The test: a real answer includes a skill you can picture, a resource with a name, and a day. Push back on these:

• “I want to be a better leader” → At what, specifically?
• “I’ll read more” → Read what? Which chapter first, and by when?
• “I’ll find a mentor” → Who’s the first man you’ll ask, and what day?
• “Sometime this month” → What day this week?

Answer: The QOW and the whole hour come down to one decision: whether a man turns “increase in learning” (Proverbs 1:5, ESV) into something he actually does before next Friday. “In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty” (Proverbs 14:23, ESV). Everything we said this morning is just talk until it has a resource and a date. The Schooling chapter says, “Before anything can be heart-knowledge, it must first be head-knowledge.” That’s the resource. The Apprenticeship chapter says what’s counterintuitive “must be made intuitive by training.” That’s the practice. Jesus puts both in one invitation: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me” (Matthew 11:29, ESV). A yoke is something you work in. Learning from Him means walking with Him. And He promises that “everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40, ESV). Choose your teachers carefully, because you’ll become like them. Concrete step: say your skill, your resource, and your day, out loud, right now. Next Friday, report back.

Why This Matters: Men don’t grow from good intentions. They grow from commitments made out loud and followed up on. Pick the resource. Set the date. Report back next Friday.

“F3 is not a religious organization but we do ask that you believe in something higher than yourself. I am a Christian, so I will lead us out in a Christian reflection and prayer.”

Closing Prayer

Father, we confess that we often think we know more than we do. We have been slow to ask for counsel, quick to trust our own instincts, and content to talk about growing instead of doing it. Thank you that you do not leave us as we are. You are the one who makes men, and you finish the work you begin. Give each man here the humility to name his gap honestly, the courage to ask for help, and the discipline to start this week and not someday. Send us wise counselors, and make us wise enough to listen to them. Where we lack wisdom, give it generously, as you have promised. Make us men who grow so that we can help others grow, entrusting what we learn to faithful men who will teach others also. Above all, teach us to take Christ’s yoke and learn from Him, who is gentle and lowly in heart. In His name we pray. Amen.