2. Listen…Even if You Hate What They Have to Say
Look, you’re going to hate what some people have to say. You’re human. They’re human. You’re just not always going to agree. And sometimes they won’t say it in a nice way.
You may be tempted to dismiss or ignore what someone has to say when you don’t agree with them.
Wisdom would suggest that you should listen.
There’s almost always a kernel of truth in what someone is saying. And even if they’re wrong, you can still learn.
I remember congregational meetings in my early days of ministry where people were angry at the changes we were making.
It was hard to hear them disagree, and hard not to try to shut them down or rebut what they were saying.
But I can’t tell you how many times people would come up to me after someone ‘ranted’ at a meeting and told me that the angry person lost credibility and I gained credibility by not shutting them down.
And even when the criticism doesn’t come at your publicly, listening can provide valuable insight into how other people are thinking, the insight you need to do a better job moving everyone into the future.
We took all the feedback—positive and negative—and threw it into better designs.
As a leader, the truth is your friend. Even if you don’t like the truth.
3. Consider the Source
So what about the ranting, toxic person who loves to clog up your inbox?
That’s where the job of discernment gets easier.
In the anonymous survey I did for my cover, I had no idea who held what opinion. So it was impossible to consider the source. That’s what can easily happen in a large organization or when processing information online.
But in much of your decision making, the input isn’t anonymous. You know exactly who said what, which helps.
If the person in question has a history of being toxic, well, that tells you something. And you likely don’t need to spend a lot of time changing the future because of what he or she has to say. In fact, you should try to limit their influence everywhere (here are six signs you’re dealing with a toxic person).
That said, only a small percentage of people are toxic. Most aren’t.
So how do you know you should weigh their opinion?
Here’s a question that has helped me a lot: Ask yourself, Is this the kind of person I can build the future of the church (or my organization) on?
For some reason, that has served as an extremely filter for figuring out how to weigh differing voices.
To drill down further, I ask myself three questions:
- Are they aligned with our mission?
- What are their friends like?
- What’s their trajectory?
I wrote a full post about using those three questions to filter leadership here.
If you listen most closely to the voices that will help you build the future, you’ll have a better future.
