Christian Leadership Foundations 6 - TeamSample

GROWING A TEAM

Leadership Devotion

I think this is my favorite passage of Scripture. Paul is describing the church at its best. Honest, loving, theologically mature, diverse, working together, supporting each other, growing to look like Christ. Isn’t that a beautiful picture? Isn’t that what you dream of? Isn’t that what our world needs to see? Maybe your church is not there yet, but your team could be.

Who is responsible for ensuring the team does what it is called to do, that the “body parts” minister productively together? Who makes this happen?

First, this passage explains that everyone in the team has a part in building the team’s strength. Actions like “speaking the truth in love” will contribute to the healthy growth and ministry of the team together. Every member has to contribute to the relational health of the team. We also have to all do our job. Because every team member has a contribution, only as “each part does its work” (4:16) will the most productive ministry occur.

Second, it’s the responsibility of the “Head” (4:16). Paul says “from him,” the body is enabled to grow in love and become all God intends it to be. The ultimate head of the body is Christ, and it is only through Christ and the work of his Spirit that the team reaches its full potential. We need Jesus desperately to forge us into teams he can powerfully use.

Third, there is one more support for the growth of the body mentioned in this passage. It’s the supporting ligaments (4:16). The whole body is “joined and held together” by these ligaments. What are the ligaments? Paul may have been thinking of supports like the truth of the gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit, but he certainly saw leadership as an important ligament.

We know this because, in 4:11-13, Paul emphasized the vital role of leaders in the growth of the body. It’s the equipping function of leaders he talked about, but Scripture makes it clear that leaders who act under Christ to govern/manage/shepherd the body are accountable to him for the whole health and functioning of the body. God invests significant authority and responsibility in his leaders. For example, Hebrews says, “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men that must give an account” (Heb. 13:17). So leaders are part of the “ligaments” that hold the body together and enable it to work effectively.

Leaders help facilitate, with and through Christ, the forging of the church (or team) into a functioning body that grows as each part contributes. While this passage refers to leaders of the church, similarly, the leader of a team (under Christ) has an important role to play in forming the team, developing the team, bringing unity to the team, and assisting the team to function effectively, so each member contributes effectively.

To Contemplate

What am I intentionally doing to help the group I work with become a real team that reflects the functioning of the Trinity?

Leadership Reflection

How can leaders facilitate the development of a team? Many Christian and secular authors have written helpful books and articles on building teams that you can access easily, but let me give you a taste.

One very popular and insightful author on the functioning of a real team is Patrick Lencioni. He is a Christian who writes for both the church and business worlds. Probably his most impacting book was entitled The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. It describes a hierarchy of five obstacles that prevent a working group from becoming a real team.

I will briefly summarize Lencioni’s challenges in building real team. Rather than discussing the dysfunctions of groups that prevent team forming, I will turn his ideas into five positive sequential steps necessary to turn a group of people who work together into a real team.

1. Vulnerable trust. The first step is to encourage vulnerability and honesty so team members can comfortably acknowledge the strengths of other members and their weaknesses, failures, shortcomings, and need for assistance. In most working groups, people compete for recognition and work to protect their reputations. This creates barriers and suspicion and diverts a lot of energy from productive collaboration. Trust involves being confident that team members want the best for each other and that there is no need to protect yourself. The team leader must lead the way in being open and vulnerable and readily admitting weaknesses. Without trust, real team will never emerge.

2. Healthy conflict. Conflict is often seen as a danger to team health. Conflict appears to stress relationships and produce dysfunction, but the opposite is the case. Once trust has been established, healthy conflict allows issues to surface and be dealt with, rather than festering and inhibiting productive relationships and consuming energy. Everyone can express their views and know they have been heard. Valuing conflict means the team can work through issues they disagree with rather than ignore them. Once team members experience healthy conflict and its productive outcomes, they will begin to embrace conflict with enthusiasm and expectation. This good conflict must focus on concepts and ideas, not personalities, and must be preceded by trust.

3. Unwavering commitment. Once everyone has had the opportunity to express their views (through robust debate and healthy conflict), and the team’s collective wisdom has been truly tapped, clear decisions need to be made. Generally, decisions should not be postponed (unless further information is necessary) because deferment produces paralysis in the team and wasted revisitation of the issue. Even though there will seldom be a perfect understanding of the issues or complete consensus, every member of a real team must then commit confidently and unwaveringly to the team’s final decision, knowing their perspective has been considered and the team together has spoken. Once the decision is made, everyone on the team must be totally committed. Trust and good conflict are necessary precedents to this kind of wholehearted commitment that is vital for the functioning of a real team.

4. Unapologetic accountability. As team members commit to values and decisions, they need to be willing to call their peers on performance or behaviors that might hurt the team or prevent it from achieving its vision successfully. In a working group, these concerns are relayed to the team leader or, even worse, only talked about behind members’ backs. But in a real team, each member takes responsibility for the health and success of the team and helps deal directly with any dysfunction. This type of accountability requires healthy friendships bolstered by honesty and openness. Peer accountability is the best way to maintain high team functioning standards and reduce the need for performance management.

5. Collective results. Finally, the measure of success of a real team is found in its collective results, not its individual achievements. It’s a vision of team success that drives the team’s functioning. In truth, most leaders (and team members) will naturally choose individual glory over team success when it comes to the crunch. This is deadly to team. The team needs to be completely intolerant of individually focused behavior and deeply committed to collective team achievements. Real teams are not working together to survive, maintain ministries, or benefit members personally. They are completely focused on meaningful collective results. If collective results are unclear or not rewarded, the team will splinter and pursue individual agendas.

You may not be in a position to apply all these ideas, but I hope you feel a sense of excitement about the possibility of building a real team.