I love organizational leadership and I am happy to serve on a healthy team. It’s amazing how many church leaders I know that say their team is not healthy. Recently I started wondering why it is that I claim our team is healthy and it led me to this post. Here, in my opinion, are 10 elements of a healthy organization:

Obviously, when you address the principle of letting go, which could also be called delegation, it opens a huge question for those wired as completers. The question is: HOW? How do you let go of responsibility when you are wired so heavily towards not doing so?

Letting go of responsibility is not something that comes natural for me.

I score high on Command in the StrengthsFinders assessment.

I think where I have landed, at least for now, is that bigger than the issue of evaluation, is the issue of continuance.  The fact is that I really do believe growth is occurring in individual lives, not just in the total numbers of people. We are accomplishing our objective to “make growing disciples of Jesus Christ”.  I still want to consider ways to validate that belief, and I have some ideas I’m working on there, but the key word for me now is sustainability.  I want us to be able to continue doing what we’ve been doing.

If you serve on a well-organized team, then your role is vital to the success of the organization’s mission. If you do not pull your own weight, the entire team suffers because of it, and ultimately the entire organization suffers. Healthy teams are dependent on every member of the team.

Personally speaking, the older I get the more I am concentrating on my weaknesses.
I know my strengths. I need to know what’s holding me back from being all God wants me to be. I like to surround myself with people that stretch me.

We are not a very formal organization at Grace Community Church. As our church and staff have grown, however, we have recognized the need for more structure. I try to keep an open door policy of leadership and frequently ask for input and try to provide feedback. I realize, however, that communication is one of the areas I continually need to improve upon, especially as our church grows larger.

I am a macro-manager. I like to lead leaders, so I try to paint the big picture for a team and release team members to do their work carrying out the mission of an organization in his or her own way. There are times, however, where more micro-management is needed by the senior leadership

A couple times a year we do an extended weekend retreat. This weekend we are headed to Nashville for an all staff planning retreat. An added twist is that our spouses will join us on Friday night for fellowship and then on Saturday morning for a special brainstorming session. (We think they may have better ideas than we do!)

They may not admit it, because it sounds somewhat morbid, but leaders love when things are messy…The truth is leaders love fixing a problem…