Sneak Peek From Tom Goodlet’s Upcoming Book, Listen Like Jesus (Working Title)
If the manager’s job is to tell their subordinates how to best do their jobs, then the manager is set up to be the dumbest one in the conversation. They have the least amount of accurate information. And so, their ideas and instructions will seem dumb to those listening.
Early in my youth ministry career, I recall sitting in a senior pastor’s office as he advised me on how to do my job effectively. His instruction involved having more pizza parties and setting up a four-corner volleyball net because teens love this. I also knew, because he had previously told me, that this particular senior pastor had once tried to be a youth pastor. He quit after two weeks because he was terrible at it and realized he did not like working with teenagers. I also knew that the reason they hired me was that, for years, the church’s youth ministry had been struggling. They had a recent history of hosting numerous pizza parties with four-corner volleyball. It obviously wasn’t fixing anything, and the senior pastor didn’t know what to do. So, they hired me. And now I was being told what works best in youth ministry by someone who continued to fail at it. I just remember thinking, ‘This is dumb.’ The senior pastor seems dumb. And now I have to figure out what to do with this burden of dumb instruction.
Do we want to set our staff and co-workers up for success? Yes! That often means supporting them while at the same time getting out of their way. It requires allowing them to own the problems while we remain sounding boards for problem-solving.
#leadershipdevelopment
#decisionmaking
#advice