Four Tips For Leading Your Team Well

TEASER 

Hey! If you're checking out this week's podcast, it means you're looking to lead your team a little better.

Maybe you're a church staff member, leading teams that oversee ministries, strategic planning or even your next hire.  Maybe you're an elder that's heading up a committee, overseeing staff reviews or organizing a handful of events this year.  Or you could be a volunteer tasked with leading offsite outreach projects or your youth group. 

 No matter what type of size of team you are leading or what they're tasked with, I'll bet somewhere along the way your run into a couple of the hurdles we're going to talk about today. And so, if you'd like a couple of insights on how to lead your team a little better, then I'd stick around because the church helper Podcast starts right now!

INTRO

Hey there, and welcome to another edition of the Church Helper Podcast. Our Mission here at Church Helper is to help churches make every decision on purpose. My name is Mike, and I'm excited to help you and your church today by talking about four things you'd likely face while leading a team before and how to overcome the challenges they bring. 

So without too much further ado, let's get right into them!

Four Tips For Leading Your Team Well

 NUMBER ONE: LEAD THE TEAM YOU HAVE

There are so many different leadership books that encourage you to try various leadership styles and strategies. For example, some people will tell you to be more assertive. Some people tell you that you need to be more of a delegator. Some leadership principles say that you shouldn't give answers before you ask ten questions, and other leadership strategies say that you should provide people with all the answers and a clear path forward. 

 And you know, in context, every one of those leadership ideas is excellent. If you have a team full of dreamers, you absolutely need to make sure you ask enough questions to get all the ideas out there and then help them develop a way forward. 

  If you have a team of doers, giving them clear-cut instructions with minimal input is how they'll react best. If your team is a good mix, you will need to mix principals knowing that some things will miss some leaders.

 But the mistake I think a lot of people, including myself at times, make is that they lead the way they think you're "supposed to lead." And I wish I could make that a more tangible thought, but really, it's more of a feeling. 

  So many people in leadership have a sense or an idea of the "right way" to do it because of a book they're read or a leader they follow. But so often, the thing that gets left out of the equation when deciding your leadership style is your team's personality. 

 I did this a few years ago. 

 I was trying to become a leader that was less hands-on and more of a delegator. I changed meeting styles, asked more open-ended questions and even sat back and watched things fail on purpose, hoping people would notice – but in the end, it just wasn't working out.  

 I blamed myself. I must have done something wrong. If only I could teach concepts better or be a better empowerer, then it would work. It wasn't until I look back on that time that I realized the biggest mistake I made was poorly identifying my team's personality. They weren't a group of creatives that wanted a lot of freedom in decisions making. 

They wanted to be a part of the process, but too much autonomy and too many options overwhelmed them. 

 I was trying to lead the way I thought I was supposed to, instead of looking at the team's strengths and leaning into those.

 So, idea one is simple. Choose a leadership style that is congruent to the personality of your team. If you do that, you will have a better chance of success no matter which type you choose.  

 In other words - lead the team you have.

NUMBER TWO – KNOW THEIR STRENGTHS 

 Knowing your team's strengths may seem like a no-brainer, but learning your team members' strengths takes a bit of work. And the biggest thing that I see happen is that a strength is misidentified because they're mistaken for either knowledge or passion. The reality is that a strength is something that combines the two. And when we only look at one side or the other, we can very often put our team members in a position they're either not well equipped for or not passionate about.

 For example, I enjoy live sound and lighting at events. I like the feel of being behind the console, setting up equipment or sitting behind a camera. If I get to be a tech team member for a couple of days now and again, I have a good time. When I was in my early 20's, I even started a small business with my friend Jair trying to do more of that kind of work.

BUT, if I'm honest with myself and with you - I'm not very good at it. Sure, I might know a little more than the average person. But as much as I try to understand EQ bands, DMX lighting packs and live streaming encoders, it just doesn't seem to stick. I get a little better here, but I'm really not at the level of knowledge that would make many bands or churches comfortable. I know enough to complete the task, but Audio and Video are not my strength. And, it's not something that I'm likely to excel at, really ever.

 Despite knowing about myself that it's not a strength, I've been put in leadership over those areas before because, from the outside, people assumed that I would be good at it. And when push came to shove, I did an ok job, but I'm not sure I did much better than someone else could have done because it's just not in my wheelhouse.

 In contrast, I've met people who are good at understanding the technical aspect of sound and lighting that don't enjoy doing it. They'll do it because they're the most suited for the role in knowledge, but if you asked them, they're rather be doing something else. The band sounds good, cues don't get missed, but nothing else about the role is fulfilling. It's not a strength, and eventually, being placed in a position you'd rather not be in really becomes a weakness.

 And here's why this is so important.  

 When a leader misidentifies a person's strengths and puts them in change or something, expectations get set. Unfortunately, because of the misidentified strength, expectations become unrealistic from the start. And when expectations are off, then outcomes aren't what you expect them to be and in the end. And when outcomes aren't what you thought, leaders get disappointed.

I've seen many leaders, including myself, get disappointed at a result or get down on themselves because of an outcome that wasn't ever going to happen in the first place.  

So then, how can you find the strengths of your team? I would suggest a tool like the Clifton Strengths Finder. It's not a personality test like the Enneagram or Myers-Briggs but designed to identify what your team members are best at. If you're curious about this, reach out to us, and we can point you in the direction of best practices or help you through it! We love to bring churches through exercises like this, and every time we do, it's incredible that people who have worked with each other for ten years learn about the team or why it makes the decisions it makes.

NUMBER THREE - KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN URGENT AND EXCITEMENT 

Have you ever noticed how something that you're excited about always finds its way onto your to-do list earlier than it maybe should? How many times as a leader have you had that you come up with a new idea, and the rest of the days' tasks get put aside so you can start to work it out. 

 If you're anything like me, the answer would be a lot of days.

And when you're working by yourself, this is ok. It's your time and schedule, and maybe you decide to put in extra hours in an evening or weekend to start in on something that's got you going. But when it comes to your team, something new or fun for you can quickly turn into something that they need to get done "right now." And unless you're solving an immediate problem, most new ideas or projects aren't urgent.  

 The problem that you'll run into here is easy to spot. Because your team likely has their own to-do lists or deadlines, they don't always understand why something that wasn't on their radar 20 minutes ago just shot to the top of their list of most important things to do. 

 And getting something dropped on their desk that they weren't expecting can be frustrating for a team member that thought they had a handle on what was going on that day. So now that team member needs to pivot to something they weren't even thinking about.  

 If you think about it, you know or have talked to people that feel this way. At some point, you had a friend that's said, "I don't know what it's going to be this week, but at some point, I'm going to get a call or email from my boss that will throw my whole week off." When your team feels this way, they start to tense up whether they know it or not. They're always waiting for the next shoe to drop, and they have trouble focusing on their work.

 And the prevention of this is simple – make sure that you have an excellent filer process for things you're excited about. I'm not saying you don't get on your passion project. I'm just saying make sure the timing makes sense to you and your team. The best way to do this is to have someone you trust to bounce it off of. Someone that has the strength to say, "that's a great idea, but it really could wait a couple of weeks."

NUMBER FOUR - LEADERS EAT LAST, BUT THEY STILL EAT 

The concept of "Leaders Eat Last" isn't a new one but was popularised by the 2014 Simon Sinik book of the same name. In the book, Sinek tells some fantastic stories of businesses and organizations with teams leading well together.

 He highlights the importance of developing empathy, making sure you're fostering an environment of encouragement, allowing for autonomy and bringing a great collaborator. You can see the theme through the book – think about your team before you think about yourself. And this is the best way to lead a team. I would suggest grabbing this book if you haven't read it. It's pretty good.

 But sometimes, leaders, especially church leaders, had a misguided need to suffer for the sake of other leaders as a badge of honour. And I've been guilty of this too. You run an event all day and realize you didn't stop to take that break, eat a hotdog, or get out of the sun. You're running a retreat and feel the need to be up until 3 am planning the next day, or you've gone five hours without going to the bathroom because you "don't have the time."

 Not taking care of yourself in leadership is just as bad as not taking care of your team because eventually, you'll start to burn out, and it will trickle down to them anyways. 

 I'm sure someone needs to hear this today, and I can't say it enough.

 Yes, you should put your team first, but just because you're at the back of the buffet line doesn't mean you shouldn't be in the line eat all. Take the time to care for your team, but then make sure you take the time to care for yourself too. You don't need to be a hero to be a great leader.

OUTRO

 Hopefully, today's podcast helped you out a bit. 

 Make sure you like and subscribe to the podcast or our YouTube channel, and if you think someone needs to hear this content today but they can't find their browser, you can go to our website for them,

churchhelper.ca/podcast, to print out a full transcript of today's episode.

 Make sure you go back and check out our series that just finished called "Get to Know You Staff" – it was all about how to help Elders and Staff empathize with each other better so that they can be a great team. 

 If you've ever got any questions, please reach out to us through email at hello@churchhelper.ca or go to the Get Help Today tab of our website. 

Thanks for taking a few minutes to help your church make every decision on purpose today. I'm Mike, and I'll talk to you again real soon.