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Friends and
Colleagues,
I write this as
members of Congress engage in partisan food fights over President Obama's
Supreme Court nomination, health care proposals, the economy, etc. Talk about a dysfunctional leadership team! Effective leadership teams know how to have good fights. Does your team know how? See my article below.
Presbyterian Outlook magazine recently published my interview
form for pastors entering a new church.
Check it out at: http://www.pres-outlook.com/reports-a-resources/presbyterian-heritage-articles/9001-entering-that-new-pastorate-carefully-and-effectively.html
My goal is to help
pastors be better leaders. If you find
something here that's helpful, great!
Please forward it to a friend.
(and if you do so, please do it with the "Forward this email" line at the bottom of this
newsletter - that helps reduce spam!).
I hope you're having
a good summer.
Peace,
Bob
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Building an Effective Leadership Team:
Step 2 - Good
Fights
To what
extent is your governing board and/or staff really a leadership team? Patrick Lencioni, in his book The Five
Dysfunctions of a Team identifies characteristics of dysfunctional teams:
- Lack
of personal commitment
Ever
use phrases like these to describe your board or staff? I sure have.
I went over these dysfunctions with the board of one church with whom I
worked. They laughed and said "that's
exactly the way we were!"
For
a full description of these dysfunctions, read Lencioni's book. See his website for a graphic summary. http://www.tablegroup.com/our_books/pdfs/the_five_dysfunctions.pdf
Trust
The
basis for good teamwork is trust. I
addressed the importance of building trust in my last newsletter. (For a copy, please email me.)
Lencioni's
companion Five Dysfunctions workbook suggests
other trust building activities. I can
help you generate other ideas.
Constructive Conflict
Once
trust is built (or at least begun), then leaders need to learn how to fight
effectively. Dysfunctional teams are
characterized by back-stabbing, parking lot gossip sessions, manipulative
politics, turf battles, etc. They fight
dirty.
Members
of any team will have differences with each other. The question isn't whether they have differences, but how they deal with them. Effective teams handle differences constructively, seeking
the best solution for the organization, consistent with the organization's
goals. They fight for the good of the
organization, not against each other.
It
is likely there are competing commitments.
Church leaders might be wrestling with whether to pay for a youth worker
or someone to build a praise music group.
Perhaps the roof needs fixing and so they wonder if mission giving
should be cut to pay for the repairs. You
are being pulled first one way and then another. And you become anxious about losing
control. (if you ever had it to begin
with!)
A key is how you as the leader
handle your own anxiety. To the extent
that you become anxious and reactive, you feed the group's anxiety and conflict
will build. Conversely, even though you
are anxious inside, when you portray a non-anxious presence and lead with
curiosity and imagination, then the group's anxiety and conflict will begin to
subside.
First, ground yourself spiritually
so that you still the anxiety within. I
find that the Taize' chant Come and Fill
Our Hearts with Your Peace helps me ground myself in God's peace when I am
in an anxious situation. Then you can
help people fight effectively and fairly.
Fighting
fair involves such things as:
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Listening carefully to each other and making
sure that each demonstrates an understanding of the other's position before
making a rejoinder.
-
Being candid about personal motives for
advocating a position.
-
Generating alternatives so that a mutually
satisfactory solution might be found.
-
Avoiding name calling, labeling, or
psychoanalyzing.
-
Respect, respect, respect.
A helpful resource is: Guidelines for
Presbyterians in Times of Disagreement. See: http://www.pcusa.org/peacemaking/guidelines.pdf
Having a sense of purpose and call
is also a critical part of dealing with anxiety and building a team. If your leaders don't have a sense of who God
is calling them to be as a church and what the priorities are, then they'll go
in every direction - a recipe for anxiety and frustration!
The bottom line is that without
trust and a commitment to fight fairly and constructively the leadership of a
church won't function very well.
So how are things going in your
church? To what extent do leaders trust
one another and know how to disagree without being disagreeable? How unified and effective is your leadership
team? If you're saying to yourself:
"Whew! Mine's a mess" or "Fair, but we could sure be better", then you might
benefit from coaching.
Here's to building an effective
leadership team - of laity and paid staff!
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Help for Parishioners Trying to Figure Out What's Next
Chances are you have some parishioners who are in mid-career
and trying to plan a new stage in their lives. Perhaps the organization for which they are working is in some financial difficulty; perhaps they're just bored.
They don't need counseling, but are a bit at sea. You aren't quite sure what to do or to whom
to refer them.
I have been coaching several such clients lately - one woman
is working for a major newspaper and sees the ongoing chaos in the news
industry. I'm helping her focus on what
she really wants to do and find a professional resume' writer. A man simply needed help in balancing work
and family expectations. Another man
found his investment income significantly less than he expected and so I'm helping
him develop a coherent approach to finding some part-time work he's passionate
about.
I like Bolles' What
Color is Your Parachute. His 2009
edition is slanted towards those dealing with our difficult economic times.
If you have parishioners you think I might help, please call me to
discuss possibilities or have them get in touch with me.
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Future Issues (monthly)
- Building a Leadership Team - Ownership
- Mutual Accountability and Results
- Personnel Appraisals
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I hope you have found this newsletter informative and helpful. Please subscribe to continue receiving it (or unsubscribe to stop). If you'd like to explore coaching, please email or call me.
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Bob
Robert Harris
Harris Coaching and Consulting
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