Chances are that you were hired for your technical ability.
The challenge is that as your church grows, the skills that got you where you are now, are not the skills that will get you to the next level. And while some of those next-level skills might be technical, the one you need the most will be in leadership so that you can build and manage a base of volunteers.
Here are three leadership myths that keep you doing everything yourself:
Myth #1: It has to be done right.
Often as leaders, we will wind up doing things ourselves so that they are done well and they are done right. In fact, it is often faster in the moment to take care of a task without involving others. The problem is that it isn't a sustainable model. As a church grows, it often leads to burnout.
It is hard to take the time to train someone to do a task--especially when it won't be done to the level that we could do it ourselves.
Part of becoming a good leader is learning to release the outcomes in favor of building a team.
The more time you spend head down working, the less time you have to recruit and train the people who will support you. But if someone is willing to help you, then you can give them the grace to start entry-level and gain skills over time. In the meantime as they grow, you are going to have to be both coach and cheerleader. Just accept that some things will be done to a lower standard as they learn. It's okay. You are building something.
Myth #2: People will do what you tell them to do because you are in charge.
There is nothing more frustrating than asking someone to do something that really needs to be done and having them not do it.
All of us have that little 4-year-old “you are not the boss of me” inside our heads, and every once in awhile as leaders, we trip a volunteer's inner 4-year-old without meaning to.
Leadership requires us to shift our focus from the task to the person when we are asking them to do things
When we are task-focused, we ask people to do things in a way that meets our objectives, but when we pause and take time to be volunteer-focused, then we ask people to do things in a way that meets their objectives. The shift in focus, changes our language. John Maxwell is famous for saying, “People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.” When we legitimately care more for the people we are leading than the task, it leaks. And that care gets infused in our requests making them way more effective.
Myth #3: That the title makes you a leader.
By definition, leaders have followers.
Sometimes, the biggest clue that we need to up our leadership game is that there is no one around to help us get the job done. If as a leader, we have no followers, then we have some skills to build.
This has nothing to do with charisma, strategy, technical ability or vision.
The most important skill is building a team, and we can't do that without learning to become a top-level encourager.
Leadership strategist, Tim Sanders, shares this about interactions with people on our teams: “Validation is one of the most powerful psychological gifts we can give to another person. It starts with listening to your conversational partner talk about his/her most important project, and prodding him/her to share details about strategy, efforts and goals. Listen like the person who is on the receiving end of his/her efforts, which will turn up your noticing knob. Point out the effective or creative things he/she is doing, and then expand on why that's either important to the project or inspires you. By being sincere, you'll find that your gift of encouragement provides a real shot in the arm, which only fuels the energy level of the entire encounter.”
This ability to energize people with encouragement is the fuel which makes teams flourish. It isn't the random pat on the back; it's about noticing what matters to the people you lead. Of course this level of attention takes time, but that time is an investment. Putting that same time on a technical task has no return beyond a given Sunday, but honing your encouragement skills to build a team is scalable as your church grows. Best of all? It is an investment in yourself as a leader.
