“…If you get a group of people together who are like-minded, who know they can take a risk and you have their back, you can pretty much make anything happen.”
The authors said this best. I hardly feel like I need to comment. But this is my blog, so I will say something.
Know Yourself
Leading a great team begins with leading yourself. You need to know who you are, how you lead, and where you struggle.
Spend the $20 to take a Strengths Finder assessment ($10 on the Kindle). It may seem like a waste of money, but I promise, going through the process of either discovering or confirming what you knew about yourself and your leadership tendencies will help you propel your ministry forward.
You only have so many seats on the bus. Knowing yourself will help you understand who you need filling those seats. Once you know your strengths, you can lead from them and hire people who will compensate for your weaknesses.
People with grand vision aren’t always the best people to implement that vision. They need to find people who can turn their dreams into reality.
Someone maybe a great on-stage communicator, but their organizational skill lack quality. They need an assistant to handle the daily operations ministry – or at least keep reminding them of their to-do list.
Even people who are amazing maximizers, working MacGyver-like magic with limited resources, need other people with various strengths to implement their plan.
Like-Minded
The key in filling the spots on the bus is that term “like-minded.” By the way, “like-minded” doesn’t mean you have to agree all the time. You won’t, and in fact you shouldn’t. Disagreements are often what help solidify the best plan of action. Being like-minded means that you’re all on the same train heading down the same track shipping the same “product” to the station.
Cultivating and sustaining an organization where people understand the vision and mission takes effort and determination. Vision-drift happens all too easily.
Keep the wins before your team.
Take time each month to talk about vision and why you serve.
Solidify your action steps and cross-pollinate. Know what you’re doing and when.
Celebrate Risk
Finally, create an environment where risk is celebrated. Think about the calculated endeavors that will have a huge return on investment. Risk is faith in your team to pull off the impossible. Sometimes it’ll turn out to be impossible, but not trying would have been worse than failing. Sometimes you’ll need to fail several times before all the pieces come together to create an event or ministry opportunity that strikes gold.
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How do you build a team, cast vision, and celebrate risk? I’d love to hear some of your best practices.
