A while back, I was asked to give a talk on how to work with your staff. So I took my team out for dinner and asked, “What should I say?” Five main points came out of that conversation. They essentially wrote my whole talk for me and made me look really good. I’ll present one of those points each day this week here on my blog.
A woman came to our church as an intern working in our children’s ministry. She proved to be so helpful and valuable that we brought her on as director of children’s ministry. She did an excellent job overseeing and running that whole ministry area, and I was very affirming and appreciative of the quality of the work she did.
I also noticed that she had really strong gifts in the area of pastoral care and shepherding, so I began to give her opportunities to do pastoral care work outside of the children’s ministry area. Ultimately, we ended up changing her job description because she was even better suited in a pastoral role. Then instead of just having an excellent person handling the children’s program and getting the work done, I now had a staff person realizing her full potential… including her development of a new children’s director.
Excellent team leaders value their team members highly and develop them fully.
- respect colleagues and partners in ministry
- let staff function in area of strength and motivation
- release their God-given potential
- don’t exempt yourself from expectations you have of your team
- delegate authority in areas affecting their work
Action point: Think of each of your team members individually. What strengths can you draw out and develop in each of them?