Dan Reiland is the Executive Pastor at 12Stone Church in Lawrenceville, Georgia. He previously partnered with John Maxwell for 20 years, first as Executive Pastor at Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego, then as Vice President of Leadership and Church Development at INJOY.

Dan is one of many outstanding mentors for our Leader Groups – leadership collaboratives for senior leaders of large churches, focused on helping leaders break through their toughest challenges and leadership lids.

THE ART OF HIRING GREAT LEADERS
by Dan Reiland

Hiring a staff member can be stressful.

It’s a big decision, and you never know for certain how it will work out.

Smart leaders will do everything possible to make a wise choice when hiring, not the fast choice. When it comes to hiring, fast seems expedient, but more often than not, it’s expensive in the end.

It’s been my responsibility as an Executive Pastor for many years to make good hires and to lead a team that makes good hiring choices. I’ll admit that on occasion, this process keeps me awake at night. It matters that much. Building a great team is an art. You will make mistakes, I have, but there is much you can do that will help you choose wisely.

Of course, there is much more to it, but if you are on the go today, here are eight Quick Tips that will help keep you out of hot water when hiring.

   1. Know what you want.

When I’m coaching leaders in hiring, I hear this phrase far too often. “I’ll know the right person when I meet them.” That may indicate good instincts, but it’s not a good strategy. Be very clear on what you are looking for before you begin your search. If you don’t know exactly what you want when hiring, you’ll be tempted to change your mind in the moment based on emotion.

Stick to your hiring criteria

When it come to hiring, never lower your standards. It’s easy to lower your standards when you are under pressure and need some help. But hold steady and wait for the right leader. It’s better to continue with an unfilled position, even with some extra work to do.

After you write a clear, concise bullet point job description, write a list of criteria (standards). Here’s an abbreviated example: 7 years experience, at least 2 years in a church of 500 or more, college degree, carried primary responsibility for a minimum of 40 volunteers, strong people skills, etc. Write down what you desire and stick to it.

Always make team-based hires.

Hiring staff was never meant to be a solo endeavor. We all have blind spots, personal biases, and favor certain personalities. We like who we like!

You can easily remedy personal bents and hiring biases by working with a team of 3-5 people who will do all the interviews. Each person then interviews the candidate with a specific set of questions.

Always interview more than one good candidate.

A good rule of thumb for smart hiring is make it a goal to have at least three viable candidates to interview. By viable, I mean leaders that you would seriously consider hiring. Not one sharp leader and two that you would never consider. This practice dramatically enhances your process because with three great candidates, you quickly see which one is best for your team.

Make your reference calls. I know not all reference calls are fruitful, but make them anyway — touch base with friends who might know the candidate. Sometimes that one call can seal the deal or save you from great heartache.

Use personality testing. There is no need to bombard your candidates with several tests, but one or two is a wise practice.

Invest maximum effort in matching people to your staff culture.

You can’t overestimate the significance of team culture when hiring a new staff member. The candidate may be a sharp leader and have an amazing track record, but that doesn’t mean they will be successful on your team. Take plenty of time to get to know them as a person and a human being, not just someone filling a position.

Don’t sell the virtues of your organization.

When hiring, don’t sell the virtues of your church team, just live them, the candidate will pick them up quickly. Of course, you can speak favorably about your staff team and the culture you enjoy, but you must be honest about the shortcomings that need improvement.

Be direct and very candid in your interviews.

When you interview a potential staff member, don’t hold back. Ask candid questions. Ask the tough questions. This isn’t the time to be polite and reserved. Kind and respectful, yes, but don’t take an easy and surface approach. As you consider hiring someone, you need to really know this person, and they need to know the real you.

Pray and trust the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

It’s OK to trust your gut, but as I mentioned earlier, that’s not enough. You need a process and a team. And equally, if not more so, you need to pray and seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

God cares about who you hire; it’s His church. Ask Him who He wants on your team!

More resources from Dan Reiland can be found on his website https://danreiland.com/

The post The Leader’s Dilemma appeared first on Leadership Network.

Source: The Leader’s Dilemma

The post The Leader’s Dilemma appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Rich Birch: Are you an executive pastor wondering where you should focus your time and energy?

Are you wondering exactly how things are really going at your church?

Are you a bit mystified about how to evaluate what’s really happening under the hood of your church?

Executive pastors are an incredible gift to growing churches. The best executive pastors sit at the intersection of vision and reality. That is to say, they spend their time balancing the bright future of the church on one hand and the facts of where the church is today on the other. In order to move a church from where you are to where you believe God is leading you as a community, you need a series of robust systems. Systems are simply repeatable processes that “Save You Stress, Time, Energy, and Money”.

Executive pastors need to think about how these systems are performing across all areas of the church. In a very real way, the executive pastor is like a farmer cultivating a garden of systems by balancing each of the varying needs and requirements of the church against each other. An executive pastor should spend a considerable amount of time evaluating how well each of these systems performs and adjusting them accordingly when they don’t function the way they should.

This is a perfect time of year, the season of change, to build a plan for evaluation and adjust the systems required to help your church move forward. Here are six systems you should consider when leading as an executive pastor:

…

Source: 6 Systems Every Executive Pastor Needs to Evaluate This Year – unSeminary

The post 6 Systems Every Executive Pastor Needs to Evaluate This Year – unSeminary appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Ron Edmondson: We were all stunned by the death of Lead Pastor Andrew Stoecklein from California. Pastor Stocklein’s wife wrote an incredible tribute to her husband on her blog and I posted it to my personal Facebook page. The response was overwhelming. I was encouraged by the compassion people shared.

I sensed, though, that Leadership Network needed to also have some sort of response. As an organization, we are all about leadership in the church and growing churches, but we consistently remind ourselves that if we aren’t growing healthy churches, and encouraging healthy church leaders, all of our work will be in vain.

I asked one of our board members, Mindy Caliguire, to put some thoughts together for us. Mindy has a long background serving the church. In 1998 Mindy founded Soul Care, a spiritual formation ministry that exists to increase “soul health” in the body of Christ. She works at the intersection of spiritual formation and leadership. Here are a few words from Mindy:

My passion for leader’s souls began many years ago as I emerged from my own confusing and ultimately life-giving journey of soul recovery amidst ten years planting a church in Boston. My husband suffered greatly as well, and in different ways. My symptoms presented physiologically, but his went deep into the mind as my “golden boy” high-achieving husband could no longer get out of bed, shake fear and paranoia, or control his anger…

The post Mental Health and Our Pastors: The Elephant in the Room appeared first on Leadership Network.

Source: Mental Health and Our Pastors: The Elephant in the Room

The post Mental Health and Our Pastors: The Elephant in the Room appeared first on Passion for Planting.