The Danger of Outranking Your Team

by: Michael Warden

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I was enjoying a meal with a well-known Christian leader a few weeks ago. He is a brilliant man who leads a large team of great people. We were discussing a particularly entrenched dynamic on his team that he didn’t understand and didn’t like. It seemed every time he wanted the team to wrestle with a difficult challenge their organization was facing, the team would always haltingly poke around for the “right answer”–the solution that the team believed their leader had already thought of. To them, it wasn’t a discussion so much as a test to see if they could or would come up with the same answer the leader had already decided on.

Only, this really wasn’t the leader’s intent. He really did want them to wrestle together to find solutions to creative challenges, and he really didn’t already have an answer in mind. But no matter how often he would say that, the team didn’t seem to believe him. They would keep trying to uncover the “right answer” as he saw it rather than offering their own unvarnished opinions and ideas. All of this was doubly frustrating because this happened to be a team full of creative powerhouses!

So what was really going on here?

It’s difficult to unravel dynamics like this without first understanding the notion of “rank” on a team. Rank is a way of describing a person’s level of authority on the team within a particular arena. Every member of a team has some form of rank. The kind of rank we’re most familiar with is positional rank. The leader in this story, for example, is the boss over everyone on his team. So he has the highest positional rank.

But there are many other kinds of rank that exist on a team, and these often carry more weight than positional rank. For example:

• intellectual rank (who’s the one that the team holds as the smartest among them?),
• emotional rank (which team member’s emotional state matters most to the team?),
• spiritual rank (who is seen as the wisest spiritually?),
• social rank (who is the one who holds the group together as a relational community?)

…and so on.

There are as many types of rank as there are arenas of authority. Having a particular kind of rank in a team is not the same thing as playing a particular role; in fact, sometimes there can seem to be little connection between a person’s rank and their role on the team. The person taking the notes (a role) may be the one with the greatest emotional rank on the team (i.e. when he’s happy, everyone’s happy; when he’s upset, the group stops everything to “make it better” for him). Or the person with the lowest paid job may have the highest social rank (i.e. she’s the one who has the power to either include or exclude anyone on the team from the social community within the team or the organization).

So back to this leader’s story. His problem was that he was carrying too much rank in too many arenas within the team, and that was effectively shutting down the team’s capacity to function creatively. Besides having positional rank on the team, he also had the highest intellectual rank, and the highest emotional rank. He was the boss. He was seen as smarter than anyone else in the room. And everyone on the team was bent on keeping him emotionally happy. No wonder the team couldn’t have open creative discussions!

Now that he knows about his rank (most people are unaware of the rank they hold within a team), he is able to intentionally “give it away” it to others on the team. For example, he’s shifting the organizational structure so that others on the team have more positional authority. He’s also begun to consciously defer to the team’s collective intelligence in many key decisions as a way of transferring his own intellectual rank to others on the team. Finally, he’s learning to better manage his emotions to avoid inadvertently hijacking the team’s creative process when he feels frustrated or sad.

What about your team (or teams)? How do you notice “rank” impacting your team?

Read more from Michael here.

Tags: Michael Warden, Staff, Staff Leadership Roles, Team

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How to Survive – and Thrive – in a Crappy Culture

by: Build Network

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Everywhere you turn, you hear about the great cultures at Apple and Zappos and other organizations on those endless “best places to work” lists — and you’re urged to do what they do.

But what about organizational cultures that are irreparably poor? How are leaders supposed to function? A recent blog from Dan McCarthy, a former exec at Paychex and Eastman Kodak, addressed this common reality head-on.

“It’s easy to be a great leader in a company that values leadership, develops leaders, and is full of role model leaders to learn from,” he writes. “What about the rest of us? What about those aspiring wannabe leaders [who] happen to work at one of the other organizations that don’t make the leadership honor roll? Is it impossible to develop into a great leader, and to be a leader, in a bad organization with a crappy culture?”

His answer is no. He offers various tips to managers who find themselves in this situation, including:

1. Clarify your non-negotiable leadership principles and stick by them, no matter what. “In a tough economy, [it’s possible that you] just can’t afford to leave (at least for now),” McCarthy notes. “If you’re in a situation like this, you have to ask yourself, ‘How much are you willing to sacrifice when it comes to your leadership principles and values?’ …If you haven’t already, take the time to develop your own list of leadership principles, values, or rules. Then, given your current culture, ask yourself, ‘Which ones am I willing to be fired over?’”

2. Establish and maintain your own standards of performance and behavior. “Sure, the company may have set the bar so low that any warm body can meet expectations. High performers can give up and poor performers can settle in. That doesn’t mean your standards can’t be higher — much higher. Assess your team using a performance and potential grid and put a plan in place to develop those with potential and gradually weed out the bad apples.”

3.  “Be the change you want to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi When it comes to developing and encouraging leadership, actions speak louder than words. Be a safe haven for other aspiring leaders to come out of the closet. In a crappy leadership culture, role model leaders are few and far between. If you’re being a leader, people will be lining up at your door looking for advice, coaching, and mentoring.

Read more here.

Tags: Leadership Development, Leadership Engine, Staff, Structure

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Invest in People

by: Steve Caton

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Tags: Leadership Development, Staff, Steve Caton

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Do You Trust Your Pilot?

by: Mark Driscoll

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Can you remember a time when you were flying in a plane and it made a sudden turn that made you feel scared, helpless, and wondering if you could trust the pilots to get you to your destination safely? Do you remember feeling out of control, as someone else was in charge and your fate was in their hands?

Working for an organization, including a church or ministry, is kind of like a plane in flight. The senior leaders are up front getting data from private channels and have a perspective out the windshield that no one else has. Most people on the proverbial plane are going about their lives without considering the competency of the pilots’ leading, until there is a hard turn and they feel it.

A commercial pilot in our church explained these turns as “bank angles” where one wing stoops down. He said that the response of the passengers directly correlates to the degree of the turn. For example:

• 25–30 degrees: 1.1–1.2 g-force on the body, most people won’t feel a thing.
• 45 degrees: 1.5 g-force, people start to feel it.
• 60 degrees: 2-2.5 g-force, people really feel it and start to freak out.
• 70–80 degrees: Around 5 g-force, people start getting tunnel vision as the blood rushes out of their eyes.

Ideally, an organization makes as many 25–30 degree turns as possible. If so, there can be ongoing changes and course corrections without people freaking out and panicking, running through the proverbial cabin. But, sometimes a really hard turn simply has to be made. Those on the plane usually don’t understand why, because they neither have the data nor see the reality that’s confronting the pilots flying the plane. Those on the plane have five basic options on how they will respond when the organizational plane makes a hard-banked angle turn:

1. JUMP OUT OF THE PLANE

Stand up, freak out, make a scene, grab a parachute, and jump out of the plane with your résumé in hand hoping to land a job somewhere else. If you are really freaked out and negative, you can try and take as many passengers with you as possible, which is in your mind some kind of heroic act.

Read the rest of Mark’s post here.

Read more from Mark here.

Tags: Leadership Development, Mark Driscoll, Staff, Structure

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10 Signs of a Healthy Team

by: Perry Noble

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Want a great list of things to discuss in your next team meeting?  Take a look at these…

#1 – You actually enjoy being around one another instead of trying to find ways to avoid one another.

#2 – Truth is spoken IN LOVE and not in a condescending or condemning way.

#3 – There is an atmosphere of freedom where differences of opinion can be shared without the immediate perception that the person who is disagreeing is somehow disloyal.

(BTW…if you are in a meeting and you disagree mentally then you have an obligation to disagree verbally!  If you do not feel that freedom then there IS a problem!)

#4 – People are willing to walk into the room and ask for help rather than put off the perception that they have it all together.

Tags: Perry Noble, Staff, Structure

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5 Things I Wish I Had Known as a Young Pastor

by: Rob Pochek

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I left my breakfast meeting with a young pastor and realized, with a measure of sadness, that I was no longer a “young pastor.” He was facing a number of ministry challenges that seemed very familiar to me.

As I shared with him some of the lessons I had learned, he remarked, “I wish I had known this three years ago.” It occurred to me that the lessons I shared with him were ones that I wish I had been told when a small country church that allowed a rough, unrefined college student to get his feet wet in ministry. As I look back, there are (at least) five things I wish I had been aware of when I was just starting out:

1. You are pastoring a parade. The first time I had a family leave the church I was leading, I was personally hurt. I thought that I had really messed up as a pastor, or in my more frustrated moments, I thought that they “just didn’t get it.” What I failed to realize is that, sometimes, God removes people from your ministry for your benefit. And, I am sure, sometimes he moves them for their benefit! It was John Maxwell I first heard say, “every pastor pastors a parade … people are always coming and going.” As I have watched people “come and go” over the years, I have learned to trust solely in the Lord to bring people that would add benefit to the church. It is, after all, his church to build. Indeed, God often removes someone in order to drive us to Him, and then blesses us with someone else who adds tremendous value to the church. So, as a young pastor, be prepared for the fact that people will come and go, and trust that God is doing so for your benefit and for the good of the body.

2. The people who demand the most serve the least. As a young pastor, my assumption was that the people who gave and served most faithfully would demand most of my attention. The truth was the exact opposite. The people who demand the most are typically those who give the least and serve the least. And, upon reflection, that makes sense. When people are faithful and obedient to give of themselves and their resources to advance God’s Kingdom, they are far less inclined to believe they should have a pastor’s undivided attention. So, don’t be surprised when those most disappointed in you and who criticize you the harshest are those who have the least invested in the ministry of the local church.

3. You will see ugly behavior. I have to be honest; this lesson comes from my wife. I asked her what she wished she would have known when we first started out. Her comment was, “you will see the ugliest behavior you can imagine in the church.” Now, please don’t think of my wife as a bitter crank. She is not. Rather, as the wife of a young pastor, she was not prepared for the ugly behavior that she saw. As a young pastor it is important to remember that you are not the only one who hears the criticism of others. You need to be sure to help your family understand that such behavior is sin and we ought not return sinful behavior with sinful behavior. Instead, let the Lord defend you as you exhibit Christlikeness in the face of criticism.

4. You are irreplaceable (but not at church). A lot of pastors act as if they are irreplaceable at the church they are serving. That is why they cancel or postpone family outings and activities to attend to the latest need of a church member. But, being irreplaceable at the church is not what is intended here. Rather, you are irreplaceable at home. Think about it: You likely were not the first pastor of the church you are serving and hopefully you won’t be the last. But your role as husband and father are the only truly unique roles you will have in life. I first heard this idea from Andy Stanley at a critical time in my life. I spent nearly half of my pastoral ministry taking my family for granted as I tried to be the pastor everyone else wanted me to be. Thankfully, I have learned that it does not profit us to grow a “successful” church and lose our family. A careful examination of 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 2:6 illustrates the importance the Lord places on you faithfully discharging your duties as husband and father as a prerequisite to serving as a pastor.

5. Preach the Word. Every year the market is filled with the latest books on how to grow a church. Some of that advice is really good, being based on solid research into churches that are growing. Others are not so good. The temptation for young pastors is to find a concept or idea that they resonate with and decide to run with it. Or, worse, they simply attempt to copy what is working somewhere else. However, while there is much to gain from missiologists and church growth practitioners, there is one thing that must not be forgotten. The only thing we have to say that is of any value to our people is found in the Word of God. No church growth gimmicks, slick presentations, or changes in style can replace the power of the man of God, hidden behind the cross, preaching Christ from all of Scripture.

When I was a younger pastor, I wish I had been warned about these things. As a more experienced pastor, I have to remind myself of them constantly. Regardless of which describes you, may we all be mindful to “not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).

Tags: Leadership Development, Leadership Engine, Rob Pochek, Staff

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A Talent Development Quick Win

by: Center for Creative Leadership

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What can you do right away to improve your talent development process?

“Help your leaders so they don’t screw up performance reviews,” advises CCL’s Roland Smith. “Teach them how to hold talent conversations with employees.”

Individual leaders are in the best position to influence and develop talent — or shut it down. By having talent conversations, managers can give employees good reasons to be engaged, work effectively and build their skills.

Importantly, a talent conversation is not done to someone but with someone. It is about building a relationship that allows managers to influence employees toward improved performance, development and positive outcomes.

Talent conversations can happen at any time, but one of the most critical moments for getting them right is during your organization’s regular performance review process.

The first step is for the manager to clarify what type of talent conversation he or she will have with each employee:

1. The Top Talent Conversation. The message: future investment. Individuals who clearly meet or exceed expectations and deliver superior results are top talent. These are the individuals who are seen as the future leaders in the organization.
2. The Solid Performer Conversation. The message: maintaining or building value. Solid performers are typically individual contributors who are valued by the organization, but could take on more responsibility.
3. The Potential Performer Conversation. The message: short-term success. Potential performers are individuals who may not have had enough time in their role to show significant results, but are expected to bring a lot to the role they are in.
4. The Underperformer Conversation. The message: improve performance. Underperformers are people who are not meeting expectations. The talent conversation should remain focused on the here and now, rather than future options, new tasks or additional responsibilities.

The conversation itself should have a structure, too. It helps for the manager to follow six steps:

1. Clarify the goal. What is the purpose of the conversation? What exactly does each of us want to accomplish?
2. Explore the issues. Assess strengths, vulnerabilities, development needs and performance enhancement. Identify motivation and career aspirations.
3. Identify the options. Generate ideas and opportunities for learning and improvement.
4. Set expectations. What do we want to do first? Next? What are the obstacles?
5. Motivate. Are the goals meaningful? What support is needed? How can I help and what other sources are needed?
6. Identify the plan. How will we know you are on target? How will we track outcomes?

Finally, be sure managers know that whatever other formal talent management or leadership development systems are in place, the talent conversation is where development becomes real. It is the time to build commitment to the organization and engagement in the work. It’s where you have the opportunity to accelerate development and results.

When talent conversations are done right, they are one of the simplest, most effective ways to develop others.

For details of how to prepare managers to hold talent conversations, read “Talent Conversations: What They Are, Why They’re Crucial and How to Do Them Right” by CCL’s Roland Smith and Michael Campbell. Or register for a CCL On-Demand Webinar with the authors.

Tags: Center for Creative Leadership, Leadership Development, Staff

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Laypeople and the Mission of God, Part 2

by: Ed Stetzer

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Today I continue my series about laypeople and the mission of God. If you missed the first post in the series about killing the clergy-laity caste system, you can find it here.

In the first church I planted we did something strange, but we were tying to communicate something important. In the Sunday program, normally you would print the name of the church, phone number, and the obligatory: “Ed Stetzer, Pastor.” Instead we listed everybody. I was listed as the pastor but we included the greeters, the children’s ministry coordinator and a host of other ministers– since all God’s people are the ministers. What I learned was that was a nice thought, but it takes much more than an announcement.

Every church must have a strategy and a process to equip people for ministry and mission. Thus, they create an environment where people are empowered and enabled to do ministry. Yet, and perhaps this is the greatest challenge in many churches, you have to recognize that there are many factors working AGAINST engaging all God’s people in ministry.

There is a role for leadership, but we cannot miss the reality that, in most churches, there are many more passive spectators than there are active participants in the mission of God.

The question: why?

Well, there are many reasons, but one is this: pastors and attendees want it that way. They may bemoan passivity, but they empower it personally.

Let me start with the attendees.

Anthropologists tell us that “religion” is a universal cultural reality. Every culture creates a religion. We find religion all around the world, in every culture.

The religions they create have at least two characteristics:

• people create religious rituals to ceremonialize their devotion
• people create a religious hierarchy to outsource their religious obligations

So, the default mode of culture and people is toward ceremony and hierarchy, rather than devotion and ministry engagement.

(Note: I am not addressing liturgy here, but rather cermonialization– where the rituals replace the relationship.)

Christianity is not another created religion, but we should note the fact that every created religion has these characteristics in common. In other words, these forces are so powerful that they are, well, everywhere. But, Christianity is so radically different– or at least it is supposed to be– that it would show another way.

Yet, it is important that we recognize the nature of people and the constructs of culture both push away from the idea of all of God’s people are priests (1 Peter 2:9) and ministers (1 Peter 4:10). We don’t want a priesthood and ministry of all believers. Instead, we want people to go to God for us and leaders to do the ministry to us– that is the default condition of the heart. It is the religion that we seem to crave– yet it is not Christianity, at least not biblical Christianity.

So, my point is this. To deal with the issue you have to fight against the causes. Biblical leadership (and, as I will address later, church offices) are put in place by God for the purpose of “for the training of the saints in the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:12). Yet, too often they (we) are perpetuating the system they bemoan.

Which leads to addressing the reasons pastors often disempower the priests.

Many pastoral leaders enjoy (and take their identity from) doing the work of the ministry more than training and equipping all God’s people to do that ministry– that hurts the pastors and the people. Some pastors are concerned about their employment, wondering, “If I train them for the ministry then why would they need me.” Others are concerned about their identity asking, “What do they need me for if they do the ministry?”

This is a tricky topic and, to be honest, many of the commenters on the last post seemed upset at pastors. So, lest I be misunderstood, let me be clear: I love pastors. But, I love pastors enough to say, “You are to equip God’s people for ministry, not be the shopkeeper of the religious store providing religious rituals to ceremonialize devotion a religious hierarchy to outsource people’s religious obligations.”

That requires some shifts in how we do ministry.

More on that in Part 3.

Read Part 1 from this series here.

Read more from Ed here.

Tags: Clergy-Laity, Ed Stetzer, Serve, Staff, Structure

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15 Assessment Questions for Potential Leaders

by: Build Network

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You know who they are: the young talents everyone eyes as executive material.

But sometimes these high-potential stars derail on their way to the top. “If they have strong results, but they sacrifice team members or the bigger picture, or are too self-serving, they would no longer be considered high-potential,” is what one executive told Jim Bolt in Fast Company.

Expert David Peterson, speaking in Talent Management magazine, concurs: “Someone who is hard-charging, smart and aggressive, is much more likely to get great results, but if they don’t learn to temper that to include other people, to get buy-in, to build alignment with other folks, they may alienate people or cause additional friction down the road.”

Okay — so how can you anticipate and prevent derailment in your leadership-development pipeline? Spencer Stuart, the global executive search consulting firm, compiled a list of 15 questions to judge leadership potential outside the realm of individual performance:

Leaving the comfort zone

1. Do I trust this person’s judgment in complex, ambiguous situations?

2. Has their decision-making been tested when leading a team outside of their area of expertise and in situations of great complexity and ambiguity?

Emotional intelligence and political savvy

3. How effectively does the executive read and respond to interpersonal dynamics in sensitive, high-stakes and complex situations?

4. Does the individual understand the power of his or her words and actions on others and quickly create alignment among stakeholders with divergent interests?

5. Can he or she successfully navigate politicized situations where personal relationships and a cooperative style are not sufficient?

Motivating and monitoring others

6. Does this person have a track record of building high-performing teams?

7. Is he or she willing to hold people accountable when they fail to meet objectives?

8. Does this person create an environment where people feel motivated to contribute, while also holding others to high standards?

Humility and flexibility

9. Does the individual show the mental flexibility to quickly evolve their thinking based on others’ inputs?

10. How does he or she react to feedback or criticism of their ideas?

11. Does he or she really listen to substantive input from people who know? Does he or she seek it out?

Molding others

12. Is talent development a priority for this executive? How has he or she demonstrated that it is a priority?

13. Are there a number of individuals in the organization whose careers have been shaped through their relationship with this executive?

Big-picture visions and leading through change

14. What are this person’s strengths? Does he or she come up with the big ideas? Are they most skilled at executing an idea from elsewhere?

15. In past situations of change, what was the individual’s role in developing the vision, influencing and motivating others to embrace the idea, and driving to a result?

Read more here.

Tags: Build Network, Leadership Development, Staff, Structure

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Are You Investing Your Best Resources in the Wrong People?

by: Michael Hyatt

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It is easy to see other people making this mistake. It is more difficult to catch yourself doing it. I’ve been guilty plenty of times.

Leaders often make this same mistake in various areas of their lives.

What can you do if you are in this situation?

Make sure you are investing your best resources—including your time and energy—in your best people. Here’s how:

1. Acknowledge that your resources are limited. Your time, money, and energy are finite resources. It’s easy to forget this and overcommit. But it’s a zero-sum game. Every time you say “yes” to one person, you are saying “no” to others.
2. Become aware of where your resources are going. It’s easy to think the situation is temporary or an exception. But is it? This is the little lie that keeps us stuck if we aren’t careful. Look back over your calendar and make an honest assessment. It will reveal the truth.

Read the rest of the article from Michael here.

Tags: Michael Hyatt, Staff, Structure

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