4. DELEGATING TASKS INSTEAD OF RESPONSIBILITY. In my humble opinion, the most overused and overrated buzzword in
ministry today is “excellence.” As a pastor
of a thriving urban church, I am committed to excellence in my life and the
life of Mars Hill.
Because of my commitment to excellence, I can become obsessed about every
detail. I’ve noticed how I’ve made my expectations clear to our team and now they tend to obsess about every detail. However, it
didn’t take long for the team to realize that their interpretation of
excellence might not be the same as mine. Consequently, the team began to bring every decision about every detail
to me, their leader. They didn’t want to run the risk that they might not “get
it right.” Over time, I found myself in a challenging predicament. I became overwhelmed
because I had to touch everything. Furthermore, what’s frustrating is how I
became responsible for generating every new idea.
"If you try to control things, that’s self-limiting,” said Michael
Dell, chief executive officer of Dell. “The easiest way to think about this is
that if all the decisions inside an organization had to roll up to the center
of the company or to one person, it’s a massive bottleneck to progress.” (Check
out the
rest of the interview.)
In the end, I learned that sometimes values collide. My commitment to excellence wasn’t the
problem. Control was the problem. My obsession
with getting it right became a roadblock to progress. I discovered the need to empower the team with
broad responsibilities to fulfill Mars Hill’s mission while still holding them
accountable to the overall vision and values. I needed to let the team take risks…and
sometimes fail.
Ahhh, stated like a true leader.
I find that it’s so important to communicate simple vision, and allow key leaders to create the realities while I stop and provide support and guidance. But you’re so right, if all details have to come back to you then progress can become super stagnated!
This isn’t easy to realize either! But once you do realize what’s happening, the analysis is worth it’s weight in gold.
Letting go and trusting someone else’s competence has been one of the hardest things to deal with for me. Being someone that has always been driven to excell at all tasks, I’ve struggled to learn to let my guard down and trust. It’s always been just easier to do things myself because things would then be done correctly, so I thought. What’s often been harder to do is accept difference. I have to remind myself often that my way can’t be the only way or the right way.
Peace and Blessings