Coaching Churches

At times we all have difficulty working with other people especially in stress charged environments.  It is very easy especially as a leader to fall into the bad habit of making negative comments about people especially when they are not present.

This type of conflict resolution will do nothing but add to the problem and ultimately destroy your leadership credibility.  When anyone hears you making destructive comments about another person who is not there, they too realize that one day they will not be there either.

The principle that I have adopted is that if I have something negative to say to another person I will go directly to them and talk about it privately.  If it is not a big enough deal for me to go and talk privately then it should not be a big enough deal to talk with others.

This one discipline has eliminated at least seventy-five percent of my need to make negative comments  to other people and almost completely stopped the destructive habit of public personal criticism of others.  Now when I do need to talk with someone about a real performance issue my motives are right and my methods are positive.

This is not a pleasant subject either for the person who needs to go or for the person who made the wrong decision to bring them on the team.  It requires courage and it must be done well or the moral of the entire organization can suffer.

I always feel to some degree as a leader that I have failed when we finally get to this point.  I want to make absolutely sure that I have given this person the right amount of leadership, specific feedback and the necessary resources and training to be successful.

After this due process, how do you know the timing is right?  The two questions that are listed in Good to Great offer some incredible perspective.

The first is would you hire this person again?  If the clear answer is no, then you know it is time to act.  The second is if they were to go on their own would you be disappointed or relieved?  If the answer is relieved, then you know what you need to do.

Leaders must have the character to act and make the hard calls.  There is clearly one thing worse than  having to deal with an appropriate termination.  The later realization that your entire team had reached this same conclusion six months ago and were beginning  to wonder why you could not see it or pull the trigger.

There are many leadership qualities that must be present in the leader if people are going to trust them to the point of following.  It is very important to be committed, competent and inspiring but without credibility especially today people will see you as a fake and be totally turned off.

The bottom line is regardless of how visionary the message if they cannot believe in the messenger then trust is destroyed.  People may show up for work but their heart is not in it and although they seem positive in front of superiors they are constantly critical with their peers in private.

If leaders are to maintain credibility they have to walk the talk and personally practice what they preach.  When their actions are inconsistent with their words and they do not follow through on their promises then they are no longer seen as authentic.

When team members work on a project for a long time and produce great results only to see the leader take an inappropriate amount of the credit they feel burned.  They want to see leaders who give credit to others and assume personal responsibility when they make mistakes.

If the leader is seen as real when things are not going well people will give them the benefit of the doubt every time.  When leaders are hypocritical and things are even going well, they will get polite support but in reality they have lost the confidence of their team and sadly don’t even know it.