Don’t Neuter Your Leadership

There’s a funny dynamic I’m seeing in teams:  We have a tendency to neglect developing ourselves in the areas that other team members are strong.

This is a principal that we’re being taught in modern management – build your team to compliment your strengths… surround yourself with people who have different gifts than yours.

I think the principal is sound, but what I’m seeing as a result is a tendency to neglect any development of gifts we may not personally have.

For example, I often shirk my responsibilities as a spiritual leader because I’m surrounded by a team of pastors whose shepherding and care gifts are much stronger than mine.  It’s easy to say, “they” do that and not develop this dimension of my leadership.

However, I believe it’s wrong and it neuters my influence as a leader.

The best leaders learn to develop all four leadership dimensions.  Of course we’ll be stronger in some more than others, but to completely neglect a dimension is a handicap to your leadership.

While I may not be the best spiritual leader on our team, if I abdicate spiritual leadership altogether, I can easily be perceived as “all business”, “cold” or “heartless”.

Conversely if our spiritual leaders only lead from a shepherding or care perspective, they may be dismissed when it comes to holding their teams accountable for accomplishing their objectives.

If I lead solely from a visionary standpoint, I may be ignored because I don’t know what it takes to get the job done today.

I need our spiritual leaders to teach me how to discern the spiritual health of our team.  I need our visionary leaders to coach me on vision casting.  I need managerial leaders to challenge me on systems and structure.  I need self-leaders to model self-discipline and ask me tough questions.

I need all the leaders and so do you!

Good teams compliment each others’ gifts.  Great teams cultivate and develop each others’ gifts.

What dimension of leadership have you been neglecting?