Source: Tendencies That Sabotage Team Building

The post Tendencies That Sabotage Team Building appeared first on Passion for Planting.

By unSeminary: Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Darrell Roland, from Rock Bridge Community Church. They have six locations in Georgia and Tennessee as well as a Spanish service.

One of the roles of the executive pastor is the management and leadership of the staff, and so today we’re talking about how to help our staff continue to grow as people in their own spiritual life and as a team.

Spiritual health first. // “If you take care of the people, they will take care of the mission.” When Darrell first joined the Rock Bridge staff in 2018, he had the opportunity to read “The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World” by Peter Scazzero and knew he needed to put the focus on the staff and getting them spiritually healthy first. So Darrell spent his time watching, evaluating, and talking with his staff to see what their greatest needs were.Pray about next steps. // At this same time, the church leadership started to hear rumblings from the staff about how the church missed the target in caring for people in the congregation – they didn’t feel like they were nurtured or heard when they reached out for prayer or help. After praying about these comments, the leadership team felt they needed to lead the staff into a time of repentance and prayer. They weekly spent time in chapel repenting, praying and seeking God for next steps. Pursuing emotionally healthy principles grew out of that. The whole staff read “The Emotionally Healthy Leader” and broke into groups to discuss it, plus Rock Bridge Church organized a staff retreat to talk about staff development and dig deeper into the book together.Coaching environments. // As you journey toward spiritual and emotional health with your staff, some members of your team may need professional counseling to help them walk through hurts in their lives. Help them receive the counseling or coaching that they need. Hold them accountable to the emotionally healthy principles the staff agrees to, such as maintaining a sabbath. Have conversations of care and prayer in monthly one-on-one meetings.Redesign your dashboard. // Rock Bridge no longer focuses on Sunday, but rather on the Monday through Thursday that lead into the Sunday. Instead of the executive team dashboard focusing on numbers like attendance, they focus on hours spent in prayer, number of people in prayer groups, and new people recruited and engaged in ministry and outreach. Look at engagement and participation in those areas. Attendance will be a by-product of those things.Put the person first. // The greatest responsibility that God has given us to steward is other people, and when we steward and prepare them well then our ministry will multiply. At Rock Bridge the leadership has regular 15five conversations with each of the staff. These meetings open up focusing on how everyone and their families are doing, and how a manager can pray for them. Really listen to your staff and be present when they share their hearts – don’t simply look at it as a box to check. Ask your team how they are doing with their sabbath. Darrell also recommends using an E4 conversation: enlist, equip, empower, and encourage. Talk with each staff about who they used E4 with that week and what they did. Make your meeting more conversational and relational rather than just a monthly document you put in your files.Changes in leading a team virtually. // These team building exercises and monthly check-ins can still happen with your staff in spite of COVID. Convert things over to a virtual environment to teach the team how to handle the changes. Be more intentional and careful in your planning for the church and development of the team. Make personal calls to the people who attend your church to help reconnect with them and find out the needs that they may not be sharing in the regular church environment. Do some listening tours at your campuses and talk about emotional health, prayer and care. Connectivity in a digital world. // Darrell has offered a free document on relaunching as a remote staff that can help you lead more intentionally and connect in a digital world. It also helps you develop trust in your people and not micromanage what you don’t see.

You can learn more about Rock Bridge Community Church at rockbridge.cc. You can also download some of the resources Rock Bridge uses for their staff onboarding process, 15five coaching and encouragement, annual review prep and annual review template.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Leadership Pathway

We all want millennials and GenZ on our team to reach the next generation. We need them like never before. But the first years of anything is tough.

Reduce turnover, stresses, avoid the pitfalls of quitting or termination with those who are just beginning their journey by engaging a coach for them. Avoid early departures on your team. Young leaders quitting too soon or getting fired is more than just a sunk cost. Don’t wait to get them a coach to help them face the unique challenges of starting in ministry. Visit Leadership Pathway to see how they can help.

Source: Increasing Prayer, Transparency and Accountability on Your Church Team with Darrell Roland

The post Increasing Prayer, Transparency and Accountability on Your Church Team with Darrell Roland appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Source: A Healthy Team Ratio

The post A Healthy Team Ratio appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by unSeminary: Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Steve Smith, Executive Pastor of High Point Church in Chicago, with us today.

As High Point Church grew and multiplied, it had to make some key shifts to the way it was structured. Listen in as Steve shares about some of the hurdles that came up as the church grew, as well as what the shifting to a multisite church has looked like.

Recognize hurdles. // As High Point Church has grown, one of the key lessons the staff has learned is that there are many different ways to do church and reach people in a community. Where is God leading your church? For High Point this looked like scaling up and preparing to go multisite, so one of the first things they needed to address was the staffing, staff structure and the leadership of the staff in order to scale. Looking back Steve notes that it’s easy to idealize what has happened and overlook the hurdles that have come. But the reality is that it took a lot of work to get repositioned and reorganized for future scaling. High Point started with multiplying groups, leaders and ministries, and then moved to multiplying campuses and churches.Four team structures. // Larry Osborne talks about four different staff team structures: the track star, golfing buddies, basketball team, and football team. The ‘track star’ mentality wants to just get out there and run as fast as you can to make wins for the kingdom. This structure works when a church is young and doesn’t really have a staff. As the church grows, you hire your first few staff which often are a group of friends, your ‘golfing buddies’. As time goes on there’s a shift to a ‘basketball team’ mentality where the staff grows but the team can interchangeably play each other’s positions a bit. You may be watching from the bench, but you still know what each team member is doing. When a staff grows even larger, it shifts to a ‘football team’ structure where there are a lot of different groups on and off the field and you aren’t seeing everything that’s going on in the church. None of these team structures are better or worse than another, but rather these are a picture of the shift from a generalist position to specialist position in a certain area. Identify where your church’s staff structure is and what you are called to move to. Not every staff member will feel they are right for certain team structures.Different multisite strategies. // As High Point scaled up staff structures to support multiplication, they were then faced with different strategies of going multisite. In one case this looked like starting from scratch, developing a core group and sending them out to launch a campus. But in other cases declining or stuck churches reached out to talk about merging. Whether you pursue an organic launch or a church revitalization, there are opportunities in both.Alignment in mission. // Receiving a phone call from another church interested in merging can sound like a great opportunity, but Steve recommends caution in moving forward. First check whether you are aligned in motive and mission. Some churches may have just have lost their vision, or lost some leadership and don’t know what their next step is. There is opportunity to come together and relaunch with them. Other churches may not really understand or want the sort of changes that a merger will bring. On the backend, once you commit you will all have to do life and ministry together. Be sure that you’re unified in mission and vision. Bringing in a neutral third party can be helpful during merger conversations. Third parties can help determine if each church understands what the other is saying.

You can learn more about High Point Church at highpoint.church.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: House Right

From smart design, to impactful technology, House Right will help you engage with your audience more effectively.

Click here to learn more about audio, video and lighting systems that are tailored to your specific needs and budget.

Source: Insider View of the XP Role at a Fast Growing Church with Steve Smith

The post Insider View of the XP Role at a Fast Growing Church with Steve Smith appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Shawn Lovejoy: Meetings are used for many things. One missed opportunity I see in many meetings is failing to communicate, clarify or rally around vision. In my book Be Mean About The Vision: Preserving and Protecting What Matters, I reveal the most crucial vision questions; and I’m giving them to you here. Use these in your next meeting (or as the entire meeting) to re-infuse your team with a sense of purpose and direction!

Why are we here?

Vision is not WHAT we do, it’s WHY we do it. Use meeting time to remind your team of the WHY. Why do we exist? Why were we created? What is our mission? Use stories of success and wins to illustrate the reason everyone is putting so much effort into your organization’s endeavors.

Where are we going now?

Leadership begins by defining reality. Take time in meetings to own where you are and what will happen if you maintain the same course of direction. Answer questions like: If the current direction remained constant, where would we end up? Where is the organization currently headed? When everything is headed in the right direction, use this time to encourage and refuel the efforts of your team. In the moments when a course correction needs to be made, this is the chance to adjust and set a new path of execution.

Where do we want to go?

After you determine where you are and where you’re headed, there is space to adjust your aim. Asking questions like: “What is the desired destination? What is the win? What is our goal? How will we know if we have been successful?” all help define where you’re wanting to go next. As the leader, this provides you the opportunity to cast fresh vision or add life to what may have grown stale.

How do we take everyone there? 

Now that we know where we are and where we need to go, how will we get everyone aligned around it? During this time, logistics and planning matter. How and when will we communicate it? How will we make the leaders stakeholders of it? How will we get everyone else onboard? What meetings need to begin to happen, when, and with whom?

 Don’t overcomplicate this. Don’t procrastinate. Begin asking these questions in your meetings today with your team and watch the temperature begin to change rapidly! Don’t wander around in the wilderness. Where there is no vision, people cast off restraint and go their own way. Where there is vision, there is life, health, and growth! And meetings are a great way to lead through vision.

talk to a coach

order now

Source: How Meetings Can Clarify Vision

The post How Meetings Can Clarify Vision appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by NewChurches.com: In Episode 446 of the NewChurches Q&A Podcast, Daniel and Todd discuss leader to team member ratios.

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

Why the ratio of 1:4-6 is appropriate for the entire leadership pipeline
What to do if you are currently leading more than 6 people

Shareable Quotes (#NewChurches):

“There are teams of six for a reason. That’s the most effective team because of lines of communication.” – @toddadkins
“There’s additional research that says you can only have 6 to 7 meaningful relationships outside of your family.” – @toddadkins
“Am I dumping on people, am I delegating to people, or am I developing people?” – @toddadkins
“The reality is, if you have 20 leaders you can’t care for all of them. People will fall off the radar.” – @danielsangi
“You need to go from leading yourself, to leading others, to leading leaders.” – @danielsangi
“You need to figure out who the leaders are that you can lead, who can then lead the others.” – @danielsangi
“The leadership pipeline framework is so important whether you are a church of 50 or 50,000.” – @danielsangi

Additional Resources:

Watch 90 Second Leadership – The Complexity of Leading Large Teams
Read Team of Teams by Gen. Stanley McChrystal
Read No Silver Bullets by Daniel Im
Check out Leadership Pipeline
Listen to 5 Leadership Questions Podcast

Help us Multiply the Mission:

Please subscribe
Leave a rating and review on iTunes
Ask a question by clicking Send Voicemail on the right hand side of NewChurches.com
If you’re on a phone or a tablet, then go to www.speakpipe.com/newchurches to download the app and record your message
When you’re recording, introduce yourself and your context in about 15 seconds and then record your question for 30 seconds

This Episode’s Sponsor: Blackbaud Church Management connects your staff and congregation, ensuring deeper relationships and effective ministry. To see how to connect your church community with one holistic system, visit hello.blackbaud.com/blackbaudchurchmanagement.

The post Episode 446: What is the Best Leader to Team Member Ratio? appeared first on NewChurches.com – Church Planting, Multisite, and Multiplication.

Source: Episode 446: What is the Best Leader to Team Member Ratio?

The post Episode 446: What is the Best Leader to Team Member Ratio? appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Carey Nieuwhof: My guess is that as a leader you hate it when your team messes up.

Who doesn’t?

The real test of your leadership and character comes not when your team gets it right, but when you or they screw up. Your team will absolutely make mistakes. And so will you.

All the time, I hear people talk about how frustrated they are with their team.

How do you handle that?

I’ve seen way too many leaders throw their team under the bus when they blow it or their team makes mistakes. Why? They want to make themselves look good.

I saw it again recently. A leader I know was going to miss a meeting with me.

In his text, he said, “Sorry. My team messed up my schedule.”

On the one hand, I’m sure that’s true…his team did mess up.

And I felt some empathy for him. I feel the instinct to cover up my mistakes too. I feel the urge to blame anything or anyone and avoid responsibility as well:

Nobody told me about that!

He always forgets that!

Just so you know, that’s not my fault.

Wow, I can’t believe she missed that. 

Hey I’m so busy I don’t get involved in the details and clearly my team bungled that. 

All of that is natural. And all of that is a mistake. 100% a mistake.

My respect for that leader went down that day. His excuse was a classic bad move.

Imagine how his assistant would feel if she read that text.

When you throw your team under the bus, not only do they lose, so do you.

I promise you, leaders, making others look bad never makes you look good.

Making others look bad never makes you look good.Click To Tweet

So how do you stop throwing your team under the bus?

1. Stop Assigning Blame. Admit It Was Your Bad

You know what great leaders do when they make a mistake or their team does?

They take responsibility for it.

Here’s what you say if you miss a meeting, no matter who’s fault it is:

Hey, I am so sorry I missed that we were supposed to meet. That’s my bad. 

I don’t care if your assistant forgot to tell you, or your calendar malfunctioned.

If you’re the leader, you’re responsible.

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges of leadership is realizing that while everything may not be your direct fault, it is your responsibility.

So stop assigning blame and start assuming responsibility.

Don’t like assuming that kind of responsibility? That’s easy to fix. Stop being the leader.

While everything may not be your direct fault, it is your responsibility. If you’re the leader, you’re responsible. Click To Tweet

2. ReAssign the Stupid

I’ve heard more than a few leaders vent about how many stupid mistakes their team makes. I’ve heard a few leaders call members of their team stupid.

Well, if your team is making stupid mistakes, guess whose fault that is?

Yours.

You recruited them.

If your team isn’t performing at the level you want them to, that’s on you. You haven’t led them beyond their current performance.

If your team is making stupid mistakes, guess whose fault that is? Yours. You recruited them.Click To Tweet

3. Decide You’ll Cover For Them

In battle, soldiers owe their lives to people who cover for them.

Leadership is not that different.

Your job as a leader is to lead and protect your team. Covering for the team is actually what a great leader does.

Think about people who covered for you. My guess is you feel both deeply grateful for them and deeply loyal to them.

Your team will feel the same way about you if you cover for them.

4. Affirm Publicly, Correct Privately

Covering for them doesn’t mean you avoid the issue, far from it.

Instead, affirm your team publicly and then correct privately. Have an honest conversation. Address the issues that need to be addressed.

Perhaps it’s them. Sometimes it’s a systems issue…the process you’ve set up doesn’t work anymore. When your team is messing up regularly, it’s almost a systems issue.

If you want to fix the problem, fix the system.

5. Admit Your Own Mistakes

One of the best ways to get your team to quickly own up to their shortcomings is to admit your own.

While this is hard, the leader should be the first to apologize, the first to admit they blew it, the first to draw attention to their own issues.

One of the best ways to get your team to quickly own up to their shortcomings is to admit your own. Click To Tweet

The vulnerability of the team rarely exceeds the vulnerability of the leader.

If you want your team to be more honest, start by being more honest yourself.

And if this is difficult for you (it was and sometimes still is for me), see a good counselor or therapist. Healthy leaders are the best leaders.

The vulnerability of the team rarely exceeds the vulnerability of the leader.Click To Tweet

Ready to Lead Better?

So maybe you’re one of the leaders who’s so busy working in your business that you don’t have time to work on your business. There’s just no margin. You can’t breathe, and as a result, you’re not really thinking.

Ready to change that?

I can help. I’ve helped over 3000 leaders free up hundreds of hours each year and often 3 hours a day to do what they feel they never have time for.

My High Impact Leader course, is my online, on-demand course designed to help you get time, energy and priorities working in your favour.

It’s perfect for leaders who feel like they never have enough time in the day to get it all done.

Many leaders who have taken it are recovering 3 productive hours a day.  That’s about 1000 hours of found time each year. That’s a lot of time for what matters most.

Here are what some alumni are saying about The High Impact Leader Course”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you for providing the course again. It has absolutely made an impact in my life and family already that I can’t even describe.” – Joel Rowland, Clayton County, North Carolina

“Just wow.  Thank you, thank you.” Dave Campbell,  Sioux Falls South Dakota

“A game-changer.” Pam Perkins,  Colorado Springs, Colorado

Curious? Want to beat overwhelm and have the time to reflect, rest and reinvent yourself?

Click here to learn more or get instant access.

What Do You Think?

Leaders who refuse to throw their teams under the bus always have better teams. Cover for them.

What’s been your experience with this?

Scroll down and leave a comment.

Leaders who refuse to throw their teams under the bus always have better teams. Click To Tweet

The post How to Stop Throwing Your Team Under the Bus (Even If They Keep Messing Up) appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: How to Stop Throwing Your Team Under the Bus (Even If They Keep Messing Up)

The post How to Stop Throwing Your Team Under the Bus (Even If They Keep Messing Up) appeared first on Passion for Planting.

This is a guest blog post by Jenni Catron. Jenni is Founder and CEO of The 4Sight Group and is a member of my new Speaking Team. You can book Jenni to consult with your team or speak at your next event here.

By Jenni Catron

Someone may be holding back your team.

Someone may be impeding your growth.

Someone may be frustrating and demotivating your staff.

And quite possibly that someone is you.

Most leaders that I meet today intend to be good leaders. You value the importance of leadership, and you recognize the tremendous stewardship opportunity to pour into others, develop them, and rally them around a unified goal.

You work hard to recruit and assemble a great team of people that you enjoy doing life and work with.

The trouble is that for all your efforts to support, direct, inspire and lead, you may actually be doing the opposite of what you hope.

I learned this lesson in a very intense and demanding season. I was leading a large, fast-growing church.  We had an amazing team, and I had an even better Executive Team.

We should have been crushing it, and instead everyone, including me, was frustrated.

No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t seem to get momentum. We had constant communication breakdowns. Our staff and volunteers were apathetic, and morale was low.

While the external metrics looked good, behind the scenes there was tension and continual frustration. We all felt like we were spinning our wheels.

As the leader of the team, I knew I needed to get us together to figure out what was going on. We were better than this and I was committed to getting to the bottom of it.

I was so committed that I opened the meeting by saying, “Something isn’t working. We all feel it. It seems we don’t know what to do about it, and so we’re going to start with me. As the leader of this team, I need to take responsibility for our ineffectiveness. For the next hour, I want you to tell me where I am creating the confusion that is hindering our momentum.”

As you can imagine, it was dead quiet for a few minutes.  Eyes darting from person to person silently asking, “Is she serious or is this a trap?”

But I was serious and, with a little bit of coaxing, they began to share their frustrations and observations.  Their feedback was simple. “We need you to define what we need to do and clarify why we need to do it, then release us to figure out how.

That’s it? They actually needed less from me?

What they weren’t saying directly but they were clearly implying is that I was micro-managing details that I didn’t need to be a part of.

At first, I wanted to argue.  I wasn’t a micro-manager! I just cared deeply about the work we were doing and wanted to make sure everyone understood what we’ve done in the past and how we did it so they could more efficiently keep it moving.

That sounded great in my head,  but once I started to say it out loud, I realized the frustration I was creating.

I had unintentionally become a bottleneck in the organization.  Out of a desire to be helpful, thorough, efficient, and if I’m honest…to be right, I had neutered my team of the autonomy to figure out how to best accomplish the work.

The lesson for me that day was simple: Define the What.  Release the How.

I needed to release the How of our work so that our team could take the ideas further than I could by myself.

As leaders, we will find ourselves in similar moments throughout the different stages of organizational growth.  Before you create a bottleneck in your organization, consider these four reasons that you need to be continually releasing your team to do the How.

1) You may not actually know the best way to do it anymore.

If you’re the founding leader or long-tenured staff member, this will be extremely challenging.  Many leaders rise to responsibilities of leadership after having served in numerous different roles throughout the organization.

Your competence and experience got you to the position of leadership, but overly relying on that experience may be the thing that inhibits your continued growth.

Your competence and experience got you to the position of leadership, but overly relying on that experience may be the thing that inhibits your continued growth.Click To Tweet

The people closest to the challenge often have the most perspective on how to navigate it.

While you might have led a specific ministry or department in the past, it’s likely that you don’t know the best practices that will allow it to flourish today.

Your past experience doesn’t necessarily make you an expert today.

Your past experience doesn’t necessarily make you an expert today.Click To Tweet

2) It will challenge your team to bring fresh ideas.

When you direct every detail, you train your team to wait to be told what to do.  This creates passive team members that are reactive rather than proactive.

When you stop dictating the details, your team will be encouraged to think for themselves.  They will begin to have more ownership in their responsibilities.

The best ideas emerge from the people closest to the problem. Make sure you’re creating a culture that values problem-solving rather than problem-reacting.

The best ideas emerge from the people closest to the problem.Click To Tweet

3) It will stretch your team to do more.

Do you ever get frustrated with team members who do the bare minimum?

When team members lack the agency to direct their work, they become bored and complacent. They lack the energy and motivation to do more.

When team members feel empowered to make decisions and are valued for their ideas and initiative, their motivation grows.

When we release the How we release our teams to dream bigger. Rather than see the specific task, they see opportunity. If they see opportunity and believe they have an influence in making that opportunity happen, they will engage more deeply.

When team members feel empowered to make decisions and are valued for their ideas and initiative, their motivation grows.Click To Tweet

4) It will free you up to be focused on the future.

As the leader, we need you out ahead of the team planning the future direction. When you’re too busy directing How you don’t have the margin to be dreaming up the next What.

A good way to gauge whether you are focused on the What versus the How is to evaluate where you spend the bulk of your time. Is most of your time each week spent on responding to immediate issues or are you spending time planning out the months ahead?

I believe that senior leaders should spend the majority of their time on projects and plans at least three to six months in the future. If you’re not dedicating time to planning for the future, you’re likely spending too much time directing the how of the day-to-day.

When you spend your time and energy operating at the right altitude, you get to focus on the vision and direction for the future and your team has the freedom to make the day-to-day decisions they can and should make. Both of you win and both of you grow!

Define the What.  Release the How.  In doing so, you’ll elevate your leadership and empower your team.

When you’re too busy directing How, you don’t have the margin to be dreaming up the next What.Click To Tweet

Growth Is Hard, Here Is Everything I know: 

Getting a stuck church growing or helping a church that’s reaching new people grow even further can seem daunting.

It doesn’t have to be.

Whether you’re a church that isn’t growing, has plateaued, or whether you wish your church was growing faster than it is, I’d love to help you break through. That’s why I created the Church Growth Masterclass.

The Church Growth Masterclass is everything I wish I knew about church growth when I got into ministry more than 20 years ago.

Naturally, I can’t make a church grow. You can’t make a church grow. Only God can do that.

But I believe you can position your church to grow.

You can knock down the barriers that keep you from growing. You can eliminate the things that keep your church from growing and implement some strategies that will help you reach far more people. That’s what I’d love to help you do in the Church Growth Masterclass.

In the Church Growth Masterclass I’ll show you:

The 10 reasons your church isn’t growing
Why even committed church-goers aren’t attending as often as before
How to tell if your church leaders are getting burned out
The 5 keys to your church better impacting millennials.
What to do when a church wants to grow … but not change
5 essentials for church growth
5 disruptive church trends to watch—and how to respond
How to increase church attendance by increasing engagement.

The Masterclass includes a complete set of videos that you can play with your team, board or staff, PDF workbooks that will help you tackle the issues you’re facing, and bonus materials that will help you navigate the most pressing issues facing churches that want to reach their cities today.

You can learn more and gain instant access to the course today.

What about your team?

Where are you dictating too many details? Where do you need to define the What, but release the How?  Scroll down and share with us in the comments!

The post How You’re Holding Back Your Team & 4 Reasons to Release Them appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: How You’re Holding Back Your Team & 4 Reasons to Release Them

The post How You’re Holding Back Your Team & 4 Reasons to Release Them appeared first on Passion for Planting.

By Carey Nieuwhof

If you’re a driven leader, want to know how to really frustrate your team?

Just utter some of the phrases that naturally flow from your mouth.

I’ve driven my team crazy over the years by saying things and sharing expectations that seem logical to me but crushing to them.

As a driven leader myself, I’ve learned that I see the world through a lens that has both an upside and a real downside. As a young leader, I only saw the upside of the way I saw things and thought everybody should see the world that way I see it.

Big mistake.

The older I get and the more experience I gain, the more I realize that the unique lens through which I see the world as a driven leader has to be tempered.

Okay let me qualify that.  You should only temper your words and approach if you want to keep high quality team members around for a long time. If not, no worries. Carry on.

Two things can really help you become a better leaders; self-awareness and self-regulation. To be self-aware is one thing. Self-aware leaders know that what they’re going to say or do is a problem.

To know what you’re about to do is counter-productive is only part of the challenge.

Even better is a leader who decides to self-regulate…to stop, reflect and change before the damage is done. I’m working hard at self-regulation because, of course, self-aware, self-regulated leaders make far better leaders.

So, in the hopes of becoming more self-aware and more self-regulated, here are 7 things driven leaders say that really frustrate their team.

Self-aware, self-regulated leaders make far better leaders. Click To Tweet

1. These numbers can’t be right

So what do you do when you don’t like the numbers?

Too many times, here’s what I’ve done: dismissively said These numbers can’t be right.

Occasionally—very occassoinally—I’m right. Someone miscounted, or the there’s an error in the formula in the spreadsheet.

But usually, I’m wrong. I just don’t like what I see.

Just because you don’t like the numbers you see as a leader doesn’t mean the numbers are inaccurate.

Just because you don’t like the numbers you see as a leader doesn’t mean the numbers are inaccurate.Click To Tweet

When you don’t like what you see, stop questioning what you see. Change whatever you need to change to make things better.

Great leaders stop complaining about results they don’t like and start working on the problems that produce the results.

Great leaders stop complaining about results they don’t like and start working on the problems that produce the results.Click To Tweet

2. How hard can that be?

Many—not all—but many driven leaders are visionaries. (To find out whether you are, listen to Les McKeown here.)

I am, which means I often see things from a 30,000 feet perspective.

And at 30,000 feet, everything looks easy.

Launch a new location? Simple.

Change everything? Start right now.

Write a book? Piece of cake.

After all, how hard can it be?

Well, apparently, quite hard.

Doing anything significant is hard work. Anything significant I’ve done (including launching a new location, changing everything and writing books) has been hard. But visionaries easily forget how hard things are.

Visionaries see the opportunity when everyone else sees the obstacles. Usually that’s a good thing.

Except when you’re trying to motivate your team. They see how hard it is. They’re living it.

Visionaries see the opportunity when everyone else sees the obstacles.Click To Tweet

The best thing you can do is acknowledge how hard it is, empathize with them, ask what barriers you can help remove and let them know you see how hard they’re working.

Then keep seeing opportunities when it’s so easy to let the obstacles defeat you.

When your team knows you see how hard it is, they’re far more motivated to work hard.

When your team knows you see how hard it is, they’re far more motivated to work hard.Click To Tweet

3. That won’t take much time at all

Another chronic trap driven leaders fall into is underestimating how long it will take to complete a task or project.

Doing that with your own work is one thing, but undervaluing the time it takes your team to do something is demotivating.

For example, you might think asking your assistant to change a flight is easy. But when was the last time you rebooked a flight? I know last time I did it, I messed it up royally and someone else had to swoop into fix it. But I almost forget that.

With any project, it’s a great idea to ask a team member how long they estimate it might take. Don’t assume. Ask.

Then check in and ask how it’s going.

Do they need more time?

Is their workload still realistic?

Is there anything you can to help?

Minimizing the workload your team is facing maximizes their frustration with you.

Minimizing the workload your team is facing maximizes their frustration with you.Click To Tweet

4. Didn’t I just say that?

You love to be the one with all the ideas. Except you’re not.

It’s easy as a leader to want to take the credit, to remind your team that you had the idea first, or that they’re echoing something you said.

Don’t.

Just don’t.

The fact that your team may be repeating something you said is a sign that the vision and ideas are catching on. That they’re owning the ideas you may have crafted.

Let it happen. Don’t steal back any credit. Let the ideas circulate in them.

Not only will they own them, they’ll make all your ideas and concepts better.

Celebrate it when ideas vest in your team and come from your team.

The leader who tries to steal someone else’s thunder ends up creating a whole new set of storms.

The leader who tries to steal someone else’s thunder ends up creating a whole new set of storms.Click To Tweet

5. That’s exactly what I was thinking

This isn’t one of my pet phrases, but when I’ve had others say this in response to something I’ve shared, it’s often deflating.

Sure…if you’ve truly been thinking something that someone else articulated, that can be a fun moment.

But often I’ve sense that people say this when they want to take some credit for your idea or they want to devalue what you’re saying to make them look good.

As a leader, I have to remind myself to celebrate whenever someone articulates something I was thinking about, says something I’ve said or communicated an important idea.

Just shut up. Swallow your insecurity. And celebrate the other person’s idea sincerely and deeply.

When you celebrate your team’s ideas, you’ll discover that your team tends to generate more ideas.

When you celebrate your team’s ideas, you’ll discover that your team tends to generate more ideas.Click To Tweet

6. I thought you just got back from vacation

It can be easy as a boss to think everybody should be at work every day, 52 weeks a year.

Bad idea.

People need a break and should have meaningful time off.

Don’t disparage days off and vacation. Applaud them.

As much as there’s a part of me wish everyone on my team was available all the time, I’ve found that when I ask them whether they’re getting time off, whether they’re enjoying the time off, and whether work is making unfair demands on them, you get team members who show up and give you far more than if you’re always driving them.

Remember, you bring who you are into everything you do. And a rested you is a better you.

So make sure you create a culture in which it’s easy to rest, take time off and then come back ready to engage powerfully and meaningfully in work.

You bring who you are into everything you do. Don’t disparage days off and vacation. Applaud them. A rested you is a better you. Click To Tweet

7. You Have To…

Guess what? Nobody has to do anything.

Sure…you’re staff get paid, but they don’t have to work with you. They can quit and find meaningful work somewhere else. And along the way they’ll find a better boss.

Volunteers can quietly walk out the door at any moment.

Nobody has to do anything.

And, as resentful as you might feel, you don’t have to do anything either for that matter.

You get to do things. I get to do things. And if you really feel like everything’s a horrible burden and obligation, maybe you’re in the wrong job or at least in the wrong headspace.

What I find is that if I ask people to do something, they almost always do it, and with greater enthusiasm than if I told them to do it.

Sometimes I’ll even ask my team “Hey, would it be possible for you to do X? If not, I completely understand.”

I almost never have anyone who says no. And on the rare occasion they do, we can drill down and see why something is difficult for them to do in the moment.

The principle under this? When you give people an out, they lean in.

When you give people an out, they lean in. Click To Tweet

Become a Better Leader..This Week

One of the reasons leaders struggle to improve their leadership is, quite honestly, they feel like they just don’t have the time to do it.

Change that.

My approach to life and leadership changed radically for me over ten years ago when I figured out how to get time, energy and priorities working in my favour.

I’d love to help you free up hours each day to do the same thing. And I’ve helped over 5000 leaders do just that.

If you’re trying to find the time for what matters most in life, my High Impact Leader course, is my online, on-demand course designed to help you get time, energy and priorities working in your favour.

Many leaders who have taken it are recovering 3 productive hours a day.  That’s about 1000 hours of found time each year. That’s a lot of time for what matters most.

Here are what some alumni are saying about The High Impact Leader Course”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you for providing the course again. It has absolutely made an impact in my life and family already that I can’t even describe.” – Joel Rowland, Clayton County, North Carolina

“Just wow.  Thank you, thank you.” Dave Campbell,  Sioux Falls South Dakota

“A game changer.” Pam Perkins,  Colorado Springs, Colorado

Curious? Want to beat overwhelm and have the time to reflect, rest and reinvent yourself?

Click here to learn more or get instant access.

Anything Else?

What phrases have you said or heart that frustrate your team?

Scroll down and leave a comment!

The post 7 Phrases Driven Leaders Use (That Really Frustrate Their Team) appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: 7 Phrases Driven Leaders Use (That Really Frustrate Their Team)

The post 7 Phrases Driven Leaders Use (That Really Frustrate Their Team) appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Carey Nieuwhof: How do you retain your best team members when you can’t pay them more?

That’s an easier question to answer than you might imagine.

First, I believe every employer should pay their team members well. I’ve always tried to pay my staff a living wage—well enough that your team doesn’t have to worry about whether they can make rent or the mortgage payment, can eat well and provide for at least a normal standard of living.

Not only is that the right thing to do, but being cheap is more expensive in the long run.

Stressing out your employees by paying them poorly not only makes their life hard, but it dramatically increases turnover and makes it hard to attract and keep great people.

But that said, is pay the only want to motivate people?

When I was starting out in leadership, I thought it was. Apparently not. As studies increasingly show, money isn’t the motivator most of us think it is. Once you have your needs met, and especially if you make $75,000 a year or more, money stops being a powerful incentive.

So what really motivates people?

There are at least five other ways you can and should motivate your team that don’t involve money. Here are 5 things that can increase motivation and deepen engagement.

It’s a little like being able to give someone on your team a raise without paying them more.

Cheap is more expensive in the long run.Click To Tweet

1. Freedom and Autonomy

You know what most workers want more than anything? Freedom and autonomy.

Talk to most workers under 40 and what they deeply desire is freedom.

Freedom from the 9-5.

The autonomy to set their own work hours and locations (coffee shop, home, the back porch, a beach).

The desire to be evaluated not on process (did you stay till 5?) but on outcome (did you crush that project?).

Guess what? It’s 2019. You can give that kind of freedom.

Sure…there are common meetings and moments where everyone needs to be physically present at the same time. But the idea that everyone has to work at the same place at the same time 40 hours a week becomes more outdated by the month.

Many white collar organizations, businesses and non-profits operate as though the internet never happened.

15 years ago you had to go to the office because everything you needed to do your job was at the office—the computer, filing cabinets, the database, and even the office phone system.

Now, all of that is sitting in your hand or on your laptop. Smart employers realize that.

You used to go to the office. Now the office goes to you.

Many white collar organizations, businesses and non-profits operate as though the internet never happened. You used to go to the office. Now the office goes to you.Click To Tweet

Younger leaders understand that and want the freedom and trust to be able to flex in their work schedule.

When you give great leaders freedom, most will give you back far more than you expected in return.

Control them, and not only do you stifle them. They eventually just leave.

Want to motivate your team? Give them some freedom and flexibility.

When you give great leaders freedom, most will give you back far more than you expected in return.Click To Tweet

2. Gratitude

Most people feel under-appreciated at work.

There’s an actual debate online about whether bosses should thank their employees for doing their job. Personally, I don’t even know how that’s a debate.

Of course you should thank people for doing a job well. Sure, you don’t want to be syrupy sweet or reward under-performers, but if someone showed up, tried hard or is doing a good job—thank them.

It’s a good idea to think about how people like to be appreciated.  In this interview, Gary Chapman makes a strong case that the five love languages actually apply at work.

While you have to be (very) careful with physical touch, verbally thanking people whose love language is words of affirmation, buying a gift for someone who loves gifts, making more time for a team member who appreciates quality time or doing something meaningful for someone who’s love language is acts of service can really go a long way toward increasing employee loyalty and performance.

Gratitude from a leader improves the attitude of the team.

Gratitude from a leader improves the attitude of the team. Click To Tweet

3. Empowerment

Empowering your team is one of the best ways to motivate your team AND reduce your stress as a leader at the same time.

One of the reasons leaders struggle is because too many decisions still cross their desk. If that’s happening to you, it’s a sure sign your team isn’t empowered enough.

At the same time, one of the great demotivating factors for team members is the feeling that they aren’t empowered enough to do their jobs.

Releasing the team to do more actually not only deepens their engagement, it increases the likelihood they’l stay. It moves them from thinking like renters to thinking like an owner.

Owners tend to stay. Renters leave.

Empowering your team is one of the best ways to motivate your team and reduce your stress as a leader at the same time. Click To Tweet

4. Clarity

Strangely, clarity can also be a gift to your team.

Often, if you’re a founder or the CEO, far too much of the mission and vision lives in your head and not in the minds and hearts of your team members.

And guess what happens when your team doesn’t have clarity? They end up doing things you don’t want, not because they’re bad people, but because you weren’t clear.

When that happens, it’s easy to try to become a control freak, which demotivates your team even more.

Poor leaders substitute control for clarity.

Here’s why. If you don’t know with absolute clarity what your organization is, where it’s going and how it’s going to get there (in other words, if you’re fuzzy about your mission, vision and strategy), you can never truly align a team. And as a result, you will always want to control it.

You will default to control because, in the absence of clarity, you worry that leaders will take your church or organization to places you don’t believe it should go. And the truth is, they will. Because you haven’t been clear.

In so many cases, the real reason you can’t ‘trust’ people of even stellar character is not because they aren’t trustworthy, it’s because you haven’t stated the mission, vision and strategy clearly enough that it’s repeatable and reproducible for anybody other than you. In the absence of clarity, well-intentioned team members end up going rogue, not because they’re trying to be disloyal, but because you never clearly defined the destination.

Healthy people usually only run in the wrong direction when their leader never made it clear what the right direction is.

The more clarity you have as a leader, the less you will feel a need to control anything, and the more grateful your team will be.

5. Listen

Think about the bosses you’ve had. Chances are, the people you think are the best bosses are the people who cared the most about you personally.

That goes a long way.

Years ago my friend Jeff Henderson shared a brilliant idea with me that I implemented right away. When you meet with one of your team members, spend the first part of your time together asking how they’re doing before you ask what they’re doing.

This makes such a big difference.

Imagine if work was a safe place not just to talk about work, but to talk about life? I’ve helped so many staff get clarity around personal issues, life issues, relational issues and so much more. And no, I’m not a trained counsellor.

Mostly what I do is just listen. In a noisy world, listening is becoming a spiritual discipline. And being listened to is rare enough now to make it valuable.

Leaders who value their team listen to their team.

By the way, if you listen to more of their personal story, you’ll be listening to a lot fewer complaints about work. Try it. You’ll be amazed at how true that is.

Leaders who value their team listen to their team.Click To Tweet

Free Up the Time You Need To Be a Better Boss

Find posts like this overwhelming because it leaves you wondering how on earth you’ll find time to do any of this?

Let me help.

My approach to life and leadership changed radically for me over ten years ago when I figured out how to get time, energy and priorities working in my favour.

I’d love to help you free up hours each day to do the same thing. And I’ve helped over 5000 leaders do just that.

If you’re trying to find the time for what matters most in life, my High Impact Leader course, is my online, on-demand course designed to help you get time, energy and priorities working in your favour.

Many leaders who have taken it are recovering 3 productive hours a day.  That’s about 1000 hours of found time each year. That’s a lot of time for what matters most.

Here are what some alumni are saying about The High Impact Leader Course”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you for providing the course again. It has absolutely made an impact in my life and family already that I can’t even describe.” – First Priority, Clayton County, North Carolina

“Just wow.  Thank you, thank you.” Dave Campbell, Invitation Church, Sioux Falls South Dakota

“A game changer.” Pam Perkins, Red Rock Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Curious? Want to beat overwhelm and have the time to reflect, rest and reinvent yourself?

Click here to learn more or get instant access.

Any Other Free Raises?

So please…pay well, and value your team.

But you can also do other things that really make work a far better experience for the people on your team.

What are some other things you’ve done to help give your team a raise, even without paying them?

The post 5 Ways to Give Your Team a Raise Without Paying Them More appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: 5 Ways to Give Your Team a Raise Without Paying Them More

The post 5 Ways to Give Your Team a Raise Without Paying Them More appeared first on Passion for Planting.