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7 Things Your Team Wants You to Know

Pastor Appreciation During a Pandemic

Have you ever wondered what your team wishes they could tell you, but you were too scared to ask?

I know I’ve wondered that myself. Let me help you out. 

There are certain mistakes most leaders make at some point in their journey. As I’ve talked to all kinds of teams both in churches and businesses, the things they wish their bosses knew are often the same. 

So here you go…

7 things your team wishes you knew:

    1. Don’t micromanage. When you give an assignment or ask your team members to work on something, step back and let them do their thing. When you hover and keep coming back to give your input, you are sending the message that you don’t trust them. This straight-up demoralizes them and makes them feel insecure and devalued. That isn’t what you were going for, but when you keep trying to maintain control over everything instead of trusting your team, you devalue instead of empowering.
    2. Allow for mistakes and failure. Mistakes will happen, and you know as well as I do that you have made your fair share of mistakes. Many leaders are perfectionists and can’t stand when they make mistakes. It bleeds over into their leadership. Mistakes can be the catalyst for change, and failure often leads to a breakthrough. You do your team members a disservice when you look at a mistake as the end instead of an opportunity to learn and grow. Don’t hold people accountable for standards you can’t even measure up to.
    3. Be a team player. Don’t ask your team to do something you aren’t willing to do. You are leading, but you are also there to serve and support your team. The strongest leader is a servant leader. They need to know you have their backs. If your team knows that you are 100% behind them, they will do just about anything to help you and your vision be successful.
    4. Stay in your lane. This is similar to point #1 but needs to be said. As a leader you delegate, but then when you creep back over into someone else’s lane and do their job, you create confusion and frustration. Trust your team to do their jobs. You need to be taking things off your own plate so you can focus on doing what you do best. Let your team do what they do best.
    5. Grace is something we all need, so give it liberally. There will be times where you will need to redirect, encourage, and even have hard conversations. Lead with grace. You can never go wrong when you view the situation through the lens of grace first. Your team is much more likely to respond and follow you when they know you extend grace.
    6. Celebrate more than you critique or criticize. For some leaders, this does NOT come naturally, but be a cheerleader. Celebrate the big and small wins. Your team needs to know you are rooting for them. A word of encouragement and a fist bump go a long way.
    7. Allow for rest, both for you and your team. You may not like to admit that you need rest, but you do. And your team needs you to lead in making rest a priority and a part of the process. You work hard, you celebrate, and you rest. 

So there you have it. If you can step back and ask yourself if any of these are true of you, your team will appreciate it.

Most leaders will identify with at least 2 or 3 of these. And if you honestly think you don’t do any of the 7, you should probably sit down with some of your team members and really ask them if they agree. 

It will be worth it.

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