It takes only one leader to hijack a team and cause great pain to your ministry

I often write on the issue of alignment within organizations. I know from both personal experience as well as from working with numerous organizations the pain that an unaligned leader can bring to the organization.

Unaligned leaders essentially hijack their entire team from the rest of the organization. It happens in churches, missions and other ministry organizations. Unfortunately, when this happens, and the leader is redeployed, (often outside the organization) it often takes great time and energy to bring the team back into alignment with the organization as a whole. As a senior leader who has had to deal with this on a number of occasions I know the harm it does and the incredible effort it takes to rectify the situation.

Ensuring alignment throughout an organization is one of the most important jobs of a leader and one of the most critical issues to constantly monitor. When senior leaders allow leaders in their organization to drift or act as independent contractors they take their staff in the same direction. The longer it is allowed to exist the longer it will take to rectify. 

How do you ensure that your leaders are in alignment? Alignment always requires great clarity as to what the organization is about and what the non-negotiables are. Without clarity there will never be alignment.

Second, Senior leaders must spend quality time with leaders throughout the organization, dialoging, asking questions, probing and observing those who lead throughout the organization. And, asking questions of staff throughout the organization. 

If one knows or senses that there are alignment issues, push into it. It may well be that the issue can be resolved. Sometimes resolution means that a leader who is operating as an independent contractor needs to be moved out of their role. Remember though that where nonalignment occurs it impacts everyone on that team or in that division and therefore hurts the organization as a whole.

Philosophically I deeply believe in empowering leaders in our organization and our leaders have a huge degree of freedom. What I cannot do is to delegate and ignore issues of alignment. I never take it for granted, guard it constantly and talk about it regularly.

If you are dealing with alignment issues you may want to read Leading From the Sandbox which deals with clarity, healthy teams and healthy leaders.

A theology of relationships: 7 Biblical guidelines

Scripture has a great deal to say about relationships - principles that are often violated and which leads to all kinds of dysfunction, misunderstandings and conflict. If, on the other hand we lived out the relational counsel of Scripture there would be far less relational chaos in our world.

Speaking the truth in love
Speaking truth to others is incredibly important. Truth is about honesty. Not being fully truthful is a form of dishonesty which does no parties any good. Of course there are two temptations here. The first is not to speak the whole truth and the second is to speak the truth harshly (without consideration and love). Both will get us into relational trouble

Self definition
This is about the ability to speak the truth to others even when we know that others will disagree. There is often the temptation to tell others what they want to hear rather than what we really think. When Jesus says, "Let your yes be yes and your no be no," He is speaking to the issue of personal honesty (Matthew 5:37). When we give people the wrong impression of what we are actually thinking we sow the seeds of future misunderstanding.

Forgiveness
It goes without saying perhaps except that there are many who refuse to forgive those who have wronged them or for a perceived slight. Not only do we end up unable to restore the relationship when we don't forgive but we start to live in a prison of bitterness of our own making. A fallen world demands relational resets that can only take place when forgiveness is extended.

Making assumptions about motives
Much relational disconnect comes from assuming the motives of others - something we cannot do because we cannot know the thoughts and hearts of another. When Jesus tells us not to judge others but pay attention to the issues of our own hearts he is going to the heart of no making assumptions about the motives of others. We can judge behaviors but we cannot judge hearts and when we do we are usually wrong.

Extending patience and kindness
The fruit of the Spirit: Love, joy, peace patience, kindness, gentleness, and self control ought to be the guiding relational attitudes we bring to bear in every relationship and interaction. It is not easy and they are not called the fruit of the Spirit for nothing - they require the Holy Spirit in our lives to live out. Think of how much relational disconnect would be avoided if we lived that out!

Conflict resolution
When Jesus says not to let the sun go down on our wrath he is indicating that keeping short accounts is critical. The Scriptures say a great deal about peace between individuals and Paul tells us to live at peace with one another - at least as it depends on us. This is a choice we make. Matthew 18 makes it clear that to resolve conflict we must go to the one with whom a relationship has been broken and not to others.

Humility
A posture of humility, seeing ourselves realistically and treating others as worthy of honor is a huge asset in good relationships and one that was modeled by Christ. Pride and needing to be right and have our own way hurt relationships every time. By definition, pride destroys healthy relationships as it is now about me rather than about us.

Who needs to grapple with leadership issues of an organization?

Every organization has significant challenges and many senior leaders believe that they need to come up with the answers to those challenges. Every senior leader must engage in those issues but the truth is that it is equally important that senior leadership teams engage in those issues together. Who is responsible to solve organizational issues? It starts with the senior leadership team together.

Wise leaders allow organizational issues to be discussed and problem solving done by the leadership team as a whole. The more the senior leader dominates the discussion the more the rest of the team will allow the issue to rest on his/her shoulders. The less they dominate, the more the rest of the team will take corporate responsibility.

This requires a leader to allow transparency on issues the organization faces. Either hiding issues or not wanting them to be carefully scrutinized - usually because the senior leader takes personal responsibility - is a major mistake. If you want significant dialogue the team needs to know exactly what the issues are and the true picture. Bad news or problematic news means that there is significant opportunity for improvement. Hiding the bad news prevents the very dialogue that makes it possible to solve problems.

The key to a senior leadership group taking responsibility for an organization's issues is a senior leader who is willing to share the facts, willing to engage the team in problem solving and has the humility to admit that he/she does not have all the answers. That humility breeds others who become problem solvers with you - for the good of the organization.

Trust busters and builders

There are practices that contribute to cultures of trust and those which contribute to cultures of mistrust. Leaders of others set the pace by choosing practices that support cultures of trust.

Trust Builder: Choosing to trust.

Trust Buster: Starting from mistrust

You can count on me to trust you unless you give me a reason not to do so. In the event that trust is broken, I will clarify how trust can be re-established.  I will always start from a position of trust rather than a position of mistrust

Trust Builder: Being candid and up-front.

Trust Buster: Being vague and fuzzy

You can count on me to tell you what I am thinking, what my expectations are, how I perceive your strengths and weaknesses and if there is a performance issue, what you need to do to solve it. You may not always agree with me but you can count on me to be clear a bout what I am thinking and why.

Trust Builder: Keeping my promises

Trust Buster: Breaking my promises

I will commit to those things that I can commit to and you can count on me to follow through with my commitment. If for some reason I find myself unable to carry through on a promise, I will tell you. I will not commit to those things that I know I cannot deliver on.

Trust Builder: Acting consistently

Trust Buster : Acting inconsistently

My life will match my words and you can count on me to be consistent in how I treat those who report to me, in the pattern of my life and in living out the commitments of the organization. Inconsistency will be an exception rather than the rule.

Trust Builder: Listening carefully

Trust Buster: Not engaging in real dialogue

I will respectfully listen to and dialogue with you and will be candid in my responses. This means that there is always opportunity for dialogue, questions, clarification and my commitment is to carefully consider your opinions and suggestions even if in the end I choose a different path.

Trust Builder: Being fair and equitable

Trust Buster: Giving preferential treatment

You can expect me to act with your best interests in mind and to always seek to be fair and equitable in decisions that impact you.

Trust Builder: Caring for people

Trust Buster: Using people

You can expect me to genuinely care about you as a whole person and never simply use you for my or the organization's purpose. This means that I will also seek to engage you in your sweet spot where there is convergence between your gifts and our needs.

Trust Builder: Self disclosing 

Trust Buster: Secretive or unable to 'read'

You can expect me to be appropriately self disclosing about who I am, what I am thinking, where I am going and my own challenges.

Trust Builder: Empowering

Trust Buster: Controlling

Where you are given responsibility I will empower you to carry it out within clearly articulated boundaries rather than micromanage you or control you.

Trust Builder: Clarifying

Trust Buster: Making assumptions

If it appears to me that you have violated my trust or acted inappropriately, I will ask you for clarification on what happened and why rather than assume that you deliverately chose to do something unwise or inappropriate.

Don't resaw the sawdust

How many of us live with high levels of regret: issues from the past that continue to haunt our minds, our hearts and our conscience! Yet we know intellectually that God has taken care of all that has been forgiven and sin which we have forsaken. But our intellectual knowledge often does not match our heart acceptance.

The regrets of life are like sawdust and you cannot resaw sawdust. It is dust that has already been sawn and now is good for nothing but to be swept up and left in the sawdust bin.

God's grace covers all of our sin and all of us have plenty of sin to cover, and his grace is always greater than the amount or severity of our sin. He has made sawdust of that sin removing it from us as far as the east is from the west.

The evil one wants us to continue in our guilt and shame. Both which have been lifted and paid for. Don't let him.

The next time you think of those regrets, remind yourself, "You cannot resaw sawdust." God shredded it, leave it in the bin. It is a simple reminder that can free us from what God has already paid the price for.

Healthy teams

Consider this definition of a healthy team: A high impact ministry team is a group of missionally aligned and healthy individuals working strategically together under good leadership toward common objectives, with accountability for results. All of these same criteria apply to healthy church boards as well.

A team is not simply a random group of people thrown together because there are slots to fill - at least healthy teams are not built that way. Think of the team you are on or the team you lead and consider these key elements of healthy teams.

Healthy teams are missionally aligned.

They are made up of people who are all committed to the same mission and understand with great clarity what that mission is (see the last blog on alignment). Mission is the true glue that holds the team together more than any other factor. Non aligned teams are not teams because by definition they cannot be moving together in the same direction (the arrows don't all point in one direction).

They are made up of healthy individuals.

Too often we ignore the issue of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) when building team. Healthy individuals are open to the opinions of others, lack defensiveness, are aware of who they are and how others perceive them, are able to release people rather than control them, can engage in constructive and robust dialogue and have the ability to abide by common decisions.

When you consider the definition of a healthy person above, you realize how critical that is for a team to function well because in the absence of that kind of health teams will be dysfunctional and dysfunctional teams are never high impact.

They work strategically together toward common objectives.

Good teams are those where the members are committed to working syneristically together rather than simply doing their own thing and showing up for meetings and pretending it is "team." This means that team members embrace the objectives of the whole team and take the whole team into consideration in decisions that they make. It is about "we" not "me." Teams that are about "me" rather than "we" are not true teams and do not see the same results.

They have good leadership.

Teams are not led by committee. Someone must lead and provide the necessary clarity and direction and accountability but in an open, collegial atmosphere where robust dialogue is practiced and the team has ownership of their objectives. But there must be leaders. In fact, good leaders are those who can do just that.

Passive leaders cannot lead healthy teams and in the absence of leadership someone else will step in or the team will exist as a "gathering" but will not be team.

This requires team leaders to put a lot of time into team meetings for the sake of missional alignment, increasing the health quotient of team members (development), white boarding strategy together, determining common objectives and ensuring that there are real results. Team leaders cannot treat team meetings lightly if they want to lead a healthy team.

They hold members accountable for results.

This is not very popular or common in ministry circles. We focus more on relationships than we do on ministry results and do not exercised the discipline which teams in the marketplace must exercise in order to stay viable. It is sad, however, because the mission of the church and other ministries has eternal implications not just quarterly returns. Thus results matter, quality matters, discipline matters and measurement of how well we are doing matters.

Where there is no accountability for results, there cannot be healthy team. Nor will you attract or keep high quality ministry personnel who want their lives to count.

How healthy is the team you lead or the one you serve on? What could you be doing differently to raise the level of its healthy and effectiveness?

Nine Leadership Essentials

EQ matters a lot!

Emotional intelligence is one of the most overlooked issues when hiring or building a team. Those with poor EQ leave relational havoc in their wake while those with good EQ are able to maintain good relationships, are generally not defensive or arrogant and can play well on a team.

Clarity is critical

The first job of a leader is to provide maximum clarity to their team on what the organization is about, how the organization will achieve its ends, the values it espouses and the culture that it is committed to create. Clarity is job one.

Coaching is necessary

The intentional developing of staff cannot be taken for granted and is the job of its leader. Monthly check ins with a mentor/coach mentality focused on helping staff become all they can be is a non-negotiable for good leaders. Leaders who do this develop a world class staff.

Feedback is essential

Leaders both provide honest feedback to their staff and want it themselves. They are honest with what they see in their staff, and want their staff to be honest with them on issues they see.

Mission drift easily happens

Mission drift happens all the time and it is the leader's role to keep the team focused on what is most important. Leaders never take their eye off the ball and are always pushing the missional agenda and asking the questions that will keep the team on that agenda

Activity does not equal results

Leaders are not fooled by activity. Everyone is busy but not everyone sees the same results. Leaders ensure that they and their team are focused on the right kinds of activity that will bring maximum missional results.

Wiring must be understood

Leaders are students of the wiring of their staff and work to ensure that staff are in their sweet spot where gifts and strengths converge for the best results. Leaders don't fill slots with people. They put people in the place where they will be the most productive and successful.

Empowerment and accountability both

matter

Leaders empower their staff to do what they are responsible to do in ways that align with their gifts and strengths. They do not micromanage! But they also hold staff accountable for measurable results. They know that empowerment and accountability are two sides of the same coin.

Consistency is key

Leaders are predictable. They treat people consistently, have predictable and consistent behaviors and stay the course they have chosen. Their consistency becomes an anchor to the rest of the team. They are seen as trustworthy