Amazing Team Part 2
Last week I blogged about how to have an amazing team and I wanted to continue that thought, so here’s a few more ways to have great people work with you and for you:
4. We are comfortable in our strengths and we let other people be comfortable in theirs.
Before we were lead pastors I believed that to be a good leader you had to be competent in EVERYTHING. The good news is that isn’t true! Our team brings with them a plethora of strengths and they don’t need us to try and outdo them. What they do need is for us to work our strengths to benefit the whole and to allow them to be amazing on their turf. For example, Mark is our humble leader. He really, truly doesn’t have an arrogant bone in his body. When he plays to that, we all learn and appreciate who he is. Humility is a rare trait and one worth following. Meanwhile, Chris Harold can brainstorm 1000 creative ideas at a moment’s notice. When you let him loose, nobody can hold a candle to what he can produce creatively. Lee is our thinker. He actually works from a framework of reality, numbers, figures, man-hours, and a plan…(I personally don’t get it because I’m all about taking BIG risks without any forethought!). We drive him nuts with our outrageous plan, but we also don’t dismiss his concerns. We know that if we will listen and address them, the entire vision will flow more smoothly in the end. And so on and so forth!
5. We understand that micromanaging is irritating, but so is never showing up.
Both extremes are unexceptable in leadership! Our team is competent to lead ANYTHING and so we try our best to be hands off, but not hearts off. Kris has full authority to lead the youth ministry with her vision, but we show up wherever and whenever we can to come alongside her. We also walk into the kid’s classrooms ALL of the time just to wave and hug a kid or two. It’s partly because we love our kids and youth, but it’s also partly because we are sending a message – WHAT YOU DO IN HERE IS IMPORTANT TO ME!
6. We care about the hearts of our staff kids.
If you take care of their kids, they will serve with gusto! We have structured our entire leadership team around children. We know a valuable key: parents don’t need fancy “things” at church for their kids…they need Godly people who look their kids in the eye and speak into their lives with love. We also accomodate the realities of kids on staff. We have childcare at our staff meeting, a Kid’s Lounge for children at multiple services, and we probably speak to our staff kids more on a Sunday morning than our actual team. If you sincerely care about someone’s kids, that means more than any paycheck you can hand out.
Once again, I’m at my word limit for the day, so that’s all for now!