Sydney Rae
For any of us in leadership, one of the best realizations we can ever have is that we can’t do everything ourselves.
But for many of us, this may have been something we have historically struggled with. We’ve followed the idea that things are better when we do them on our own, or that we can’t delegate for one reason or another, or that we might as well handle everything ourselves if we want it done right.
In the book of Exodus, not long after the Israelites fled Egypt, Moses was struggling with this very tension. He felt the weight of leading all of the children of Israel, and he was so involved in day-to-day issues of the young nation that it was keeping him busy literally all day long.
It was his father-in-law, Jethro, who provided the wise perspective necessary to help him solve his issue. He implored Moses to find other people full of wisdom who could be empowered to handle the nation’s challenges, and then only bring to him the most difficult dilemmas that he himself was best suited to address (full story in Exodus 18:9-27).
In essence, Moses had to learn the lesson that handling everything himself would lead to destruction, and instead, he needed a team around him to help him lead effectively.
This is a lesson that I have had to learn in my own ministry journey.
When I began in my current role in early 2009, I really struggled with the idea of delegating and empowering. But as the church continued to grow and the responsibilities of our team continued to increase, I became more keenly aware that I would drown if I kept insisting on keeping my hand involved in every aspect of the team’s operations. It just wasn’t sustainable.
So, I began a journey of learning how to hand off duties to others to both increase my own capacity and to invest in others.
The first filter was, "What are things that I’m currently doing even though I’m not gifted at them?"
As we were able to start adding staff members to our team, I began to process those decisions through two distinct filters.
Where do my gifts truly lie?
The first filter was, "What are things that I’m currently doing even though I’m not gifted at them?" Are there things that, if the right person was managing them, would improve exponentially?
For me, that was an easy answer. Even though I love being in ministry, I’m not naturally a great “people person.” I’m more task-focused and sometimes don’t get energized simply by talking with or interacting with people one-on-one.
The first chance I got, I made sure to add someone to our team who was very strong in this area, to offset my weakness there. I needed someone who was passionate about people. Someone who was willing to invest hours into personal training for new team members, and who would thrive on spending extra time each week on the phone with our volunteers to check in and provide encouragement.
By finding someone with offsetting strengths, it enabled me to step back from something I wasn’t inherently gifted at and allowed me to pour more energy into things that were naturally my strong areas, while at the same time providing the opportunity for someone else to thrive in that role.
Now, many churches may not be able to hire somebody for a role like that. But just because there might not be a staff role available doesn’t mean that the team is any less deserving of having someone fully invest in their growth.
In fact, there may be existing volunteers on the team right now who would love to have a greater role in helping develop and steer an atmosphere of community and fun amongst the team. Perhaps there are people who would love to organize team gatherings, or who could hand-write Thank You notes to volunteers, or who could give shoutouts on the team Facebook page.
I need the team to feel loved, appreciated, and encouraged, but there may be someone better skilled to do that than myself.
But in order to get to that place, I must first understand that even though my job as a leader is to ensure that everything gets done, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I have to do it all myself. I need the team to feel loved, appreciated, and encouraged, but there may be someone better skilled to do that than myself. And trying to carry that weight all on my own can eventually burn me out and will ultimately frustrate the team.
Where am I, as a leader, holding my team back?
As my team continued on its growth journey, the second filter I looked through during the hiring process was, "What is something that I’m only able to commit a small amount of energy to, but would improve greatly if someone else could make it a larger percentage of their job?" In essence, there’s something that will never reach its full potential as long as it’s just 5% of my overall job description, but it could become something really incredible if it was 40% of someone else’s workload.
Chances are, there’s something like that at every ministry. For me as the leader, it’s just one of 100 things I have to juggle and it will never get the attention it deserves until I find someone else that has more margin and energy to make it grow.
As a longtime friend of mine once said, “Sometimes my presence overshadows someone else’s greatness.”
By being present, and even trying to juggle that one small task, I’m dooming that thing to failure by insisting that I still try to do it. All the while, there may be someone else around who has the passion and margin to take that thing and make it truly excellent. But they just need an opportunity ... and I keep denying it.
All the while, there may be someone else around who has the passion and margin to take that thing and make it truly excellent. But they just need an opportunity ... and I keep denying it.
Again, it could be something team-related like scheduling team outings or improving the training process. Or it could be improving how inventory is cleaned, stored, and organized. Or streamlining the service flow information in Planning Center.
The point is, I need to become self-aware enough to realize the things that I will only strangle by insisting I hold onto them, and then I need to freely let them go.
Once I have an understanding of those areas in which I need to empower others, the next step is to actually develop a “job description” for a particular role so I know what I’m looking for, and so I know how to have a conversation with others.
For instance, if I know I need someone to help improve my training process, I may need to find someone that has the spiritual gift of teaching (side note: I had my entire team take a spiritual gifts assessment so I could already have an idea of who I could approach about certain roles that might intersect with their natural giftings), or at least had a personality that has the patience, grace, and communication ability to explain things to others. Then, I may want to list out some key bullet points of what I would need that person’s help doing each week and give a rough ballpark of the level of commitment I would be looking for.
Just like trying to fill an actual job, I have no idea who’s a viable candidate if I don’t know what I’m looking for in the first place, and a “candidate” would have no way of knowing if they are interested in an opportunity if the expectations weren’t clear.
It all starts with me, as the leader. I need to understand and embrace my own strengths and weaknesses and then have the humility to find people who bring gifts to the table that I don’t have myself.
So, I need clear expectations: I need to know who to look for, and my team members need to know what I might be asking of them.
This same concept can apply in many areas across the board. Maybe someone with a gift of craftsmanship or service could be part of a team that retools the set design or helps with preventative maintenance or organizes the storage room. Someone gifted in administration could help with scheduling, creating service flows, or developing a system of checklists and documents for the team to use. Someone gifted in hospitality or exhortation could lead the charge on team appreciation events or community gatherings.
But it all starts with me, as the leader. I need to understand and embrace my own strengths and weaknesses and then have the humility to find people who bring gifts to the table that I don’t have myself. That helps me create a well-rounded and effective team, and it also keeps me from burning out on things I’m not gifted to do.
As Jethro told Moses, empowering other leaders “... will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you” (Ex. 18:22 NIV).
Building a leadership team is one of the best, and most rewarding, decisions I’ll ever make in ministry.
