A couple of years ago, I was working with one of our leaders on a big project. It was a new situation for both of us, and I was admittedly a little extra high-strung and very attentive to all the details. I felt a tremendous weight of responsibility for the project and as a result asked numerous questions about details that I normally wouldn’t be as involved in.
After a few weeks of my intensity, he came to me to express his frustration with the way he felt I was micromanaging the project. His concerns were fair, but so was the level of my involvement. I explained to him how my questions and attention to detail were not a question of his ability but part of my responsibility and accountability to our senior pastor and board of directors. That conversation did a number of things for our relationship:
• It reminded me that I needed to be more intentional to explain myself when I’m more involved in a project than normal. The unusual engagement from me led him to believe that I didn’t trust him to do the job well. When I explained why I was more involved than usual, he fully respected my leadership.
• It gave him greater perspective for my role and responsibility, and as a result, he had much more respect for my leadership and the decisions I was making.
• It opened the door for more candid conversations in the future.
This leader and I now have more honest conversations about how we work together and as a result have much greater respect for how we each play our part on the team.
In this situation and others, I have learned that it’s important for me to verbalize my respect for the men I lead. Many times I assume they know I respect them, but it’s an unfair and naïve assumption for me to believe they would know this information without my telling them. I’ve learned to verbalize respect to the men I lead by frequently identifying their strengths—both their personality strengths and their performance strengths. I make sure this affirmation is part of our biannual performance reviews, as well as part of my weekly meeting time with them.
Another important way to show respect to the men you lead is to include them on key information, perhaps even more information than they necessarily need for their role. When I take time to share the bigger picture behind a request or directive, they feel much more respected and are willing to engage it with more ownership. Many of the men I lead get bogged down by the details, but when I share the bigger purpose and the expected outcome of a project, they are much more willing to dive in fully. They can respect the process and their leader when they fully understand the purpose.
They Need to Feel Honored
We love the way God lays out what it looks like to honor another person in Romans 12:10: “Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.” I (Sherry) learned the power of this when I had the opportunity to lead a sharp young man who had been working in the organization for several years when I joined the team as his supervisor. He was energetic, enthusiastic, and hungry for more responsibility, and I knew I needed to invest some time learning about him.
I spent the first months observing and assessing. He was a gregarious leader who liked to process things aloud and felt honored that I took time to get to know him. I relied on several assessment tools to gain more information and requested the whole team share their results from the StrengthFinders Assessment as well as the DISC Profile. Both tools helped me relate to his areas of strength and also the best way to communicate with him and the whole team. I learned he needed easy access to me throughout the day to bounce ideas off of, but also needed freedom to move forward on his own. He needed to know that I had made the effort to get to know him, so I coupled this with an early conversation, asking him, “How can I best support you and help you succeed?”
This conversation served both of us well. He knew I was on his side and appreciated that I took the time to learn and hear directly from him what he needed and what his particular work style was. I also made a concerted effort to honor his wife. I communicated what a privilege it was to work with her husband and that I would always be the biggest champion of their family. I encouraged her to feel free to come to me with any concerns she might have about our working relationship, and I asked her, “How can I best support and serve your family?” This conversation went a long way toward removing any sense of suspicion or mistrust and let her know something critical: I honored and respected not only her husband but their family. This has been one of the best working relationships I’ve ever had with a team member, and I’m so thankful that my actions were perceived as honoring.
They Need to See Our Trust
One of the ways my (Jenni’s) staff at Cross Point has tried to put the importance of trust first within our culture is by creating an axiom, “Believe the best.” The idea is that before we jump to conclusions about someone, we choose to first believe the best. We will assume the best about his or her character and intentions and then we’ll immediately go to this person to clarify. Essentially we are starting from a positive point of view and saying, “I choose to trust you.” We believe that choosing this perspective is an essential foundation for healthy relationships among our team.
The same is true with leading men on your team. When trust is given, trust is reciprocated. You can choose to trust rather than make assumptions based on misunderstanding, miscommunication, or misgivings. Take a minute to ask yourself these questions to see how you are doing in trusting the men on your team:
• Am I micromanaging any of the men on my team, giving the impression I don’t trust them to make decision on their own?
• Am I nagging or reminding too often, coming across as bossy or autocratic?
• Am I verbally conveying my trust to the men on my team and then backing it up with my actions?
If you answered the first two questions yes, today is the day to begin conveying a new level of trust to everyone on your team. Start by telling them why you trust them and their abilities, and then make sure your actions prove your words.