Leadership is teamwork. When you are elevated to the position of leader, much of your responsibility is to gather around yourself those who carry the burden of the ministry, share the workload and help bring to fulfillment the vision you are casting. However, working together with people who have different strengths and weaknesses than you and who have their own ideas and opinions can sometimes be challenging. The ultimate goal is to gather everyone’s ideas, trim the bad, save the good and produce a product/program that is a combination of the ideas of the entire team.
Below are helpful suggestions for selfcheck. This is something that should be done periodically and each member of the team needs to evaluate their own feelings, attitudes and actions to better relate to those with whom they are working.
Step 1 Accountability
Be accountable for what is going on inside you. Keep a check on your attitudes. As you become aware of another’s weakness be careful not to begin seeing yourself as superior. Don’t play the comparison game. Guard your own heart and remain teachable yourself.
Step 2 Responsibility
Take responsibility for your own weaknesses. Never excuse your own weakness or “holes in the net” by saying, “that’s just the way I am, I can’t help it!” Be honest with yourself and invite God into your weak areas. Do what you need to do to take the responsibility that is yours. If you need help, take courage and ask for it.
Step 3 Building up
Encourage each other. Polish up the good you find in one another. Share how you are growing and what you are learning. Work toward unity. If an issue remains that needs to be talked out, go to your teammate with the attitude of building up. Be open if someone comes to you about your weakness. If necessary, get a third party to mediate before a conflict escalates rather than after. Be pro-active in guarding the relationships that are important to you and to the team.
Step 4 Choosing
It isn’t always comfortable to deal with another’s weaknesses in the right way… our own emotions often get in the middle. Neither is it always comfortable to look our own weaknesses square on and invite God to change us and to be our strength. Yet God invites us to choose His way in making the right relational choices. These decisions, made in the face of the sandpaper edge of irritation, will bring a result. You can help choose what kind of harvest you want on your team.
Step 5 Prayer
We will pray for each other. When you see an area of weakness or irritation in your teammate, talk first to God and not to the next teammate. When I see a weakness in you, and you see one in me, our first job will be to carry it in prayer. Weaknesses are the very entry point for God’s strength when we ask for it, we will offer grace to one another.
Step 6 Blessing
Affirm one another as often as you have opportunity. Do good to each other, speak well of one another. Look for opportunities to touch each other’s lives in a positive way.
True strength acknowledges weakness. It is all too often the little things that wear on us and become the source of eventual dispute or even demise. Take the opportunity to grow together as a team.
It is an honor to be involved in the work of the kingdom. Remember, God has placed you in position to grow and help others grow, so let’s do it with grace, love and a spirit that is willing to not only teach others, but also learn ourselves!
* Taken from Internet article on Women Today written by Gail Rodgers
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