Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash
Over the past year, I’ve been part of a team leading an organisation through some big change. We’ve had some incredible, Holy Spirit high moments, and we’ve also known the valleys, with some tougher moments. Although it’s been hard at times for each of us, I wouldn’t exchange this year’s experience for anything. Here are five of the big lessons I’ve learnt:
- Nothing beats the unity of a team. There’s a theory that as teams form they move through different phases: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing. Over the year, our team moved through an incredible breakthrough moment into a place of high-level trust. Through praying with each person individually every time we met, and through some incredible ways that God spoke to us, the depth of trust, bondedness and unity was quite extraordinary. We were able to disagree with each other in healthy and dynamic ways. Our day-long strategy meetings were full of (good!) drama and never boring. As Simon Sinek says, “A team is not a group of people who work together. A team is a group of people who trust each other.” We’ve found the joy associated with this, and it’s 100 times better than just “getting stuff done.” (Here’s a great article on trust in teams.)
- Truly leading out a team is always going to get messy. I suppose it’s like any close relationship. You think you’re a happily well-rounded, balanced, emotionally stable person… and then you get stuck into a close-knit team. The truth is that when you work closely with people in a deeply trusting way, each person’s weaknesses, insecurities, blind spots rear their heads at some point. No one is sinless, so no one is excused! We shouldn’t really be surprised at this, and the beauty of a trust-filled team is that our team members know our imbalances and weaknesses, and love us anyway. You know you’re working in a great team when they will call you out on unhealthy behaviour, forgive you, and still love you.
- “Other people’s saltiness will heal your wounds.” I recently heard a woman share this line in her testimony, and it has stayed with me. How true it is. The messiness mentioned above can be hard because it reveals our vulnerabilities. Maybe I always react to a certain behaviour in a certain way because of a coping mechanism I’ve built up or because of something that has happened to me in the past. But God uses the “salt” of other people’s behaviours often to round our corners and, painfully sometimes, to heal our wounds. If we always hold the people we work with at arm’s distance – not getting too close – we will never experience how God wants to heal us through them.
- A balanced team is stronger than a charismatic, hero leader. I’ve known parishes and organisations in the past that have rested on the genius, charismatic leadership of a single person. Sure, many movements through the Church have risen up in this way. But – even if something gets off the ground through one person’s heroic leadership – there are clear disadvantages to this as a normal operating mode. One of the Divine Renovation mantras is, “There’s no such thing as a balanced person but there is such a thing as a balanced team.” Even a charismatic hero leader has blind spots. How will he know what they are unless he is leading out of a team? Accountability is something that has been lacking in leadership in the Church on most levels, and authentically leading out of a team is one of the only ways (as far as I can see) to ensure this.
- Love is the only way. I’ve sometimes learnt this the hard way. A “balanced team” often means opposite personality types and strengths to your own and yes, that means difficulties! Of course, there has to be some kind of chemistry for a team to work – you have to like each other and enjoy being together. And unanimity of vision is a non-negotiable. But “balanced” does mean working closely with people who will sometimes (make that often!) see things from the opposite perspective you do. However frustrated we might get, however much we might want to just break away and get something done on our own… 99% of the time, God is calling us to stay… to stay and to love. How much stronger a chain is through the many links holding together. Love is the surest way God can work through us.
