I read your post with interest because of your frequent references to a compelling purpose in your workplace. Your references to a supportive organization you worked in and your expressed concern that you received feedback rarely from leadership. I appreciate your succinct summation of the eight characteristics of team excellence followed by the four processes that teams need to have. You’re fortunate in having what you call “a compelling purpose” and your team’s “united commitment.” I believe that among the components of team leadership that the goal or purpose or vision of the team being front and foremost is crucial to a team’s success. You also refer to the “supportive organizational context” in which you worked. It is evident that this leadership component allowed you to build your team and supplied the team with the resources to be successful over a long period of time. Any organization that is not supportive of a team and supplied resources dooms the team to failure. Having outside support of the team is often outside the influence of the leader’s ability to acquire. It is predicated on the culture and decision of the organization. Lastly, you refer to the benefit of feedback. In my experience in Christina organizations, feedback is infrequent and I feel that feedback is often perceived as being critical, unsupportive and “un-Christian.”
Your experience with a lack of feedback from your superiors highlights to me the importance of feedback to not only growth within the position but also with maintaining morale. Thank you for the reminder that leadership isn’t just about getting a job done but also making sure people want to keep doing the job.
Norm,
I definitely agree that I am indeed lucky to work in an organization with a clear compelling purpose. I also very much agree that having the long term vision at the forefront of everything an organization does is crucial to achieving success.
My experience in regards to feedback in Christian organizations, not just the one I am currently with, has been similar to yours. That it rarely happens and is often seen as critical, judgemental and “wrong”. I wonder if you have any ideas of how that perception could be changed? As someone who is working in a Christian organization it seems to go against the grain to provide this kind of feedback, and because we are so relational it seems hard to know how to do that in a way where it will not be taken personally. Do you have any suggestions for me as to how I could go about doing better at giving feedback to my staff? How I could go about changing this culture in my organization?
I feel that changing the perception that negative feedback “is often seen as critical and wrong,” as you stated will be difficult. I feel you can decrease the negative responses by getting to know your staff much better in a one-on-one context. I encourage you to get a better understanding of birth order through Kevin Lemans’ book, The Birth Order Book. Secondly, find out (if your staff members know) what their spiritual gift(s) are. For that, I recommend Chip Ingram’s six-part video series on spiritual gifts. Thirdly, get a better understanding of their love languages through Gary Chapman’s The 5 Loves Languages. Fourthly, try, through conservations, to ascertain their learning styles . . . visual, auditory or kinetic. Fifthly, learn more about their temperaments by have them fill out a Myers-Briggs personality evaluation. I encourage you to be very explicit when discussing goals, expectations and the organizations need for good, measurable performance.
On another note, in the context of group leadership, it has been said that “it is important to have the right people on the (leadership) bus.” In addition, it has been noted that it is just as important “to have the right people in the right seats on the bus.” Are the members of your team suited to doing what they are asked to do? Have they had proper training? I believe that to varying extents, your problem is common in most churches. Take heart, you can improve the situation!