So how clearly are you seeing things as a leader?

Really?

Truthfully, there are important things in leadership that all of us miss. One of the toughest challenge for those of us who lead is that every leader develops blind spots.

A blind spot is simply defined as an area where your view is obstructed.

You just don’t see things that are there. All of us miss things that are clear to any other person, but not to us.

It’s why you turn around first to check beside you when making a lane change.

It’s why you crane your neck at a stadium so you can see the field unobstructed.

It’s why you trimmed that tree near your front window so you can see the view.

You want to see clearly.

It’s not that most leaders want to create problems, it’s that they don’t see the problems they’re creating. We’re blind to them.

I know I am.

Here are some blind spots I’ve identified in me over the years:

My personal style (which tends to land more on the truth side than the grace side) can unintentionally hurt or alienate people.

Casual comments I make can be mistaken as ‘directives’ by people around me, leading them to act on things I was simply asking questions about. (I’m the senior leader in our church and my words weigh more than I’d like them to sometimes.)

While being selective is important, I can sometimes be too picky about who I choose to move into senior leadership – sometimes backlogging the development of other leaders.

My attention to detail on matters I’m passionate about can be so minute that it becomes discouraging to some.

How did I learn about all these things?

I would love to say I was perceptive enough to figure them out on my own, or that the insight came as a result of enlightened thinking.

But that’s not the case.

I learned about all of these because someone told me. I wasn’t clever enough to see them on my own.  That’s why they’re called blind spots.

The longer you lead, the more important it is to develop a reliable, honest, accurate feedback loop. (This post from Jeff Brodie is a must read for those of you trying to help a leader see a blind spot).

Here’s the tension: the longer you lead and the larger your organization becomes, the less people will be naturally willing to tell you things you might not like to hear.

How do you overcome that?

Here are 3 questions you can ask as a leader that give other people permission to help you see your blind spots:

1. What am I doing that’s not helping our mission? I try to ask this question regularly to the people around me. Even if the answer is “I can’t see anything right now”, making a habit of asking the question creates a culture of openness and mutual support. It also signals to the team that the leader doesn’t think he or she is infallible.

2.  What do I need to do to make sure you feel comfortable telling me what you see? This second question is so necessary because often leaders won’t want to answer the first question truthfully. They’re too afraid. It takes a lot of nerve for someone to give ‘honest’ feedback to a leader. When a leader is defensive, dismissive or even indifferent, the leader makes it so easy for the staff member to never speak up again. By asking this second question, you show them you want feedback and you realize you might not always be easy to approach. And if you are easy to approach, you’ll find out soon enough. Either way, this question builds trust.

3.  How can I help make it better? Your job as a leader isn’t just to know something is wrong, it’s to leverage your influence or power to help make it right. When your team member knows you really care about a good solution and are willing to do what you can to make it better, it goes a long way.

Questions like this can create an open honest culture.

They will make you a better leader, and help your organization push past leadership lids.

What questions have helped you overcome blindspots? What are some tension points you continue to face?

Today’s post is a guest post from my friend and co-worker, Jeff Brodie. I think one of Jeff’s spiritual gifts is insight. Few leaders I know have the organizational or relational insight that Jeff does. This is good news for you. Jeff’s launching his brand new blog this week. Two things:

First, if you like the kinds of things you read here, you’ll love Jeff’s new blog (I promise).

Second, if you subscribe to Jeff’s blog via email, you can win a free signed copy of one of my books (Leading Change without Losing it or Parenting Beyond Your Capacity – your choice). Jeff will be drawing winners from among the first 50 subscribers to his blog. There are 5 books available to be won total.  So head on over and check out his blog (and subscribe).

_______________________

Leading a team member can be a challenge for people because it means leading from the sideline. You likely got to where you are by being a great player first.  Great players can struggle to be great coaches.

For many organizations an inability for staff to lead other team members well stunts progress.

Well led people lead people well.

Leading a team member well can involve a counter intuitive approach. Here are a few of the best practices I’ve seen:

1. Reward Failure Most church leaders I speak to want team members who are willing to take risks. However, they want people who they can count on to produce results.  This is a tension you have to recognize.  Leaders who make a significant impact take risks, but with risks comes the risk of failure itself.   If you don’t reward failure, your team won’t take risks.

Make great failed risks an element of your annual performance review, not just successes.

2.  Become someone you’re not. Don’t just be the leader you are, become the leader they need you to be for them to be successful. One size doesn’t fit all.  Every employee should be asked by their supervisor, “how do you like to be led?”

So often the frustrations a team member feels could be avoided if they had an opportunity to clearly communicate their expectations, preferences, and pet-peeves when it comes to the way their boss leads them.  It helps create the environment where they perform the best.  Rather than guessing over the coming months, just get them out on the table as early as possible.

3. Have more meetings and be more honest. Yup more meetings.  You need a regular weekly meeting that includes evaluation, but then touch base with them for a few minutes during the week from time to time.

In almost 100% of my experiences walking with frustrated church leaders, here’s one thing they have in common: their supervisor doesn’t meet with them regularly and doesn’t have a system for honest regular evaluation and feedback.

This creates two things:

(i) A feeling of isolation, and

(ii) a lack of understanding of where they stand or if they are doing a good job.

If you aren’t communicating how an employee is doing regularly, they are guessing. They are rarely guessing correctly.

4. Believe in them on their worst days. Ultimately, this is the thing every employee wants from their supervisor the most.  We all want someone to believe in us, not only on our good days, but on our bad.  When that “someone” who believes in you is your boss, it’s a powerful motivator.  You just can’t over encourage someone.

5. Choose trust over suspicion. We live in a suspicious world full of critics and armchair quarterbacks. Sadly, often the church is the best example of this.  As the boss, that’s not the culture you want to create, you don’t want to look back and see a legacy of skepticism and critique.  As church leaders, we’re called to be dealing out hope and trust.

So when you hear something about your team from someone, or you feel yourself suspicious without the facts, choose trust.
You may get hurt from time to time, but you’ll build a culture where people deal in hope, encouragement, and believing the best of people—that’s the long-term goal.  Andy Stanley has some great stuff on this if you are looking for resources.

What are some counter-intuitive ways you coach your players?

What are your learned behaviours or how has your perception changed on leading your team?

Jeff is currently the Executive Director at Connexus Community Church, a multi-campus church north of Toronto, and a strategic partner of North Point Ministries. He has been working with families and students for over a decade and is passionate about family and church coming together to reach this generation.  He invests his time in developing teams of leaders, discovering innovative and practical ways to partner with parents, and finding ways to inspire communities with timeless truths. You can follow him on Twitter.

You’ve had it happen before, people tell you they are leaving your church because ‘they’re not growing’ or they’re looking for ‘deeper teaching.’

They claim they need a place where where they can grow and mature more spiritually.

While I totally understand that people leave churches for legitimate reasons (I have left a denomination at one point), over time I’ve begun to sense a trend. While everyone might have one or two life-time changes in them, the kind of ‘this isn’t doing it for me’ movement that characterizes church today alarms me.

I’ve noticed that the people who often claimed to be the most spiritually ‘mature’ (or at least on that quest) are often people who are

Somewhat judgmental

Generally disinterested in reaching their unchurched friends

Self-focused

Serially dissatisfied

Often unwilling to actually commit long-term to any local church

Question: are these really the characteristics of maturity?

Maybe what poses as ‘maturity’ isn’t always maturity.

Here are three points of confusion I’ve noticed in the maturity discussion in the church today:

Depth of knowledge is seen as the goal of maturity. It’s wonderful that people understand what they believe, but knowledge in and of itself is not a hallmark of Christian maturity. As Paul says, knowledge puffs up. Love, by contrast, builds up. And some of the most biblically literate people in Jesus day got by-passed as disciples.

Clarity is mistaken for superficiality. Sometimes I think people assume a teaching is ‘deep’ because they can’t understand it. They walk out of church and you ask them what they learned. They say “I”m not sure, but wow, it was deep.” How helpful is that?

Preachers need to be clear, but often, there’s a pressure on us ‘to go deeper’ by offering information that’s confusing or even irrelevant in the name of ‘being deep’. I always shoot for clear, even though that’s sometimes more work. It’s easier to be confusing than it is to be clear. And I still shoot for clear even though I know my inbox will get messages from people who can’t understand why we’re not ‘deeper’.  But if you want to reach unchurched people (here are 9 signs you are ready to reach unchurched people) and truly help even Christians mature, you need to be clear (Paul, by the way, seems to agree).

Many Christians also appreciate clarity because, unlike complexity, clarity is helpful. If you really want to grow, clarity is of tremendous value.

People think the church is responsible for their spiritual growth. People leave churches because they’re not growing. But whose responsibility is growth? Theirs. Yours. Mine. Why is that people who say they are most passionate about maturity blame others for their lack of maturity? I just don’t get that. Isn’t responsibility a sign of maturity?

For sure, the church can help. In the same way a gym can help you get fit, a friend can help you through a tough time. But you are responsible getting in shape, for getting better and even for your personal and spiritual growth.

So what are some marks of a different kind of  ’maturity’ in the church today?  Here are five I see:

A passion for application. Biblical knowledge is ultimately designed for application. The kind of maturity that I think honour God most deeply is knowledge applied in love. Our lives should be different. Our marriages should be different. Our parenting should be different. Our love for our neighbours and community should be different. Our confession and repentance should be deep and authentic. Our transparency should be authentic. And we should be radically committed to living out our faith.

Humility. True Christian maturity has always been marked by humility.

A servant’s heart. True maturity comes in many things (including faith) when your quest becomes about others, not yourself.  Mature Christians live for Christ and live for others.

A love for unchurched people. If you consider the Apostle Paul to be a mature Christian,  consider his obsession with unchurched people. Eventually it got him killed. Real maturity is not a life lived in pursuit of self or even the ‘found’ – it’s a life lived pursuing others and the lost.

A deep investment. I’m going to go out on a limb here, but I do think one of the marks of mature faith is a deep investment in the Kingdom of God. Sometimes I wonder if you checked the giving records of people who complain most about being fed, and you will see scant evidence of a sacrificial investment in the Kingdom of God. Conversely, you will see many people deeply committed to quietly serving others who have a deep investment in the Kingdom. Think about that for a while.

What are you learning about maturity?

What do you think the future of the church would look like if we pursued application, humility, service, love for the unchurched and a deep investment in the Kingdom?