Team Leadership

A couple of young guys made an appointment and came to my office recently to pitch me an idea for a new ministry they hope to start. They had been told I have a passion to empower people to follow their dreams and callings. I instantly loved their heart and the new ministry, but what intrigued me was how nervous they were making the presentation. I understand, because any kind of presentation like can be nerve-racking, and we are a large church, but I’m also their pastor. It made me wonder if I had ever done anything to make them nervous about approaching me. I concluded that it was just the situation, and not our relationship, but it caused a healthy reflection for me for other areas of my leadership.

It forced me to ask how the people on our staff…the people I work with everyday…the ones I call a “team” feel about approaching me with an idea, an issue, or even a criticism or concern. That’s one reason I periodically ask our team this question as part of an annual evaluation process. (Read about that HERE.)

In my opinion, if you are a leader, the way the people you lead approach you says much about the quality of that leadership.

Here are 7 questions to consider about the way people approach you as a leader:

Tweet Recently I gave our staff this exercise. This is a preference assessment. Basically, if you could only choose one option, which would you choose from the four figures shown?…

Tweet (Update: You can read the results of this post HERE.) If you have read my blog for more than a year, then you know that one of the personal…

A team…at least a healthy team…is not just a group of people who perform a common task. That may be a group, but it shouldn’t be called a team. I’ve written on healthy teams before:

10 Characteristics of a Healthy Team

Signs of an Emotionally Healthy Team

You can tell a healthy team by how it responds to each other and how it performs as a team.

A healthy team:

I love the Whiteboard application on my iPad. I find myself using it to teach, when sitting with someone, think in pictures, and recently, just to scribble out a quick thought. I decided to periodically share some of them with you here:

Recently I was asked a question regarding how we handle set-up on Sunday mornings. Grace Community Church meets in a school and so every Sunday morning staff and volunteers start arriving about 5:30 AM to prepare for the day. The specific question was whether we have one person who oversees all the set-up. The answer is no. We actually have a team of people responsible; with different people in each area of ministry.

Answering the question reminded me of the value of teamwork. I personally believe that the way we are doing this is best. I’m not opposed to one central leader, and in some situations that may be better, but with this task, I think the team approach is more efficient than one individual being in charge.

Here are 3 reasons I personally prefer a team approach for this function of our church: