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Understanding Your Personality and Mindset - Lesson 12

Understanding Leadership Dynamics

In this lesson, you will gain insight into the individualistic belief mindset, which is driven by control and a desire for recognition. These individuals are strategic thinkers who can exhibit humility and be misunderstood as arrogant. You will learn about the challenges they face, such as conflicts with other mindsets, and the thin line between manipulation and facilitation. This lesson explores the leadership roles that individualistic mindset individuals may take on in the church, as well as how to effectively communicate with them. By assessing one's individualistic mindset and understanding its resources and liabilities, you can learn to adapt and grow to better serve your spiritual community.
Chuck Coker
Understanding Your Personality and Mindset
Lesson 12
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Understanding Leadership Dynamics

Understanding Leadership Dynamics

I. Understanding the Individualistic Mindset

A. Driven by control and recognition

B. Strategic thinkers

C. Humility and the appearance of arrogance

II. Challenges and Conflicts

A. Interaction with other mindsets

B. Potential manipulation and facilitation

III. Roles and Communication

A. Leadership roles in the church

B. Communicating with individualistic mindset

IV. Assessment and Growth

A. Score interpretation

B. Resources and liabilities

C. Adaptation and growth


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  • By studying this lesson, you'll learn the foundations of personality and mindset, explore major personality theories, understand the impact of mindset on personality, and apply this knowledge to improve self-awareness, relationships, and career satisfaction.
  • Through this lesson, you'll explore personality theories and mindset concepts, gaining insights on how to develop a growth mindset to positively impact your personality and overall well-being.
  • Through this lesson, you gain insight into personality theories, differentiate fixed and growth mindsets, and learn strategies to develop a growth mindset, fostering self-awareness and personal growth.
  • Through this lesson, you learn about the major personality theories and the role of mindset in personal growth, leading to improved resilience, emotional intelligence, and interpersonal relationships.
  • Learn about personality theories and the impact of fixed and growth mindsets on behavior, while acquiring strategies to cultivate a positive mindset for personal and professional success.
  • Through this lesson, you explore various personality theories and learn to navigate between fixed and growth mindsets, enabling you to enhance your personal and professional life.
  • This lesson teaches the significance of mindsets in ministry work, discussing how they adapt to different environments and help with spiritual growth. It covers three types of mindsets—objective, subjective, and belief—and emphasizes that there is no direct correlation between behaviors and mindsets.
  • You will learn about different mindsets and how they impact people's approach to tasks and interactions, particularly the objective mindset, which focuses on learning and effectiveness and values quality over quantity in ministry settings, while understanding these mindsets can improve communication and collaboration.
  • Understanding the utilitarian mindset can help you maximize their strengths in ministry work, as they focus on practicality, efficiency, and achieving tangible results, while also addressing their spiritual needs and potential weaknesses, such as overlooking details and people's needs.
  • This lesson delves into the subjective, esthetic mindset, highlighting their emotional responsiveness, creativity, sensitivity to the environment, and expression. You will learn effective communication strategies, the challenges they face in relationships, and how to utilize their abilities in a church setting, ultimately gaining a comprehensive understanding of this prevalent mindset.
  • In this lesson, you gain insight into the social mindset's role and challenges in the church and ministry, learning to recognize and support individuals with this mindset while maintaining a balance between self-care and caring for others to ensure a healthy and effective ministry.
  • This lesson delves into the individualistic belief mindset, exploring its characteristics, challenges, and roles in the church, while offering guidance on effectively communicating with these individuals and fostering their personal growth.
  • This lesson explores the traditional mindset, its characteristics, challenges, and how to effectively engage with those who possess it, as well as the implications of various traditional mindset scores, ultimately helping you understand and navigate relationships with individuals who hold strong convictions and beliefs.
  • Gain insight into the importance of mindsets over behaviors, assess your thinking style and strengths, identify service opportunities based on personal preferences, and learn to better connect with others by understanding their hobbies and interests to effectively share the gospel.
  • Gain insight into your own mindsets and how they fit with others, reflect on your personal history, and enhance your emotional intelligence to build meaningful relationships through understanding yourself and others.

In this course, you will gain knowledge and insights into personality and mindset. You will learn about the different personality theories, including psychoanalytic, trait, humanistic, and social-cognitive theory. You will also explore the two main mindset theories: fixed mindset and growth mindset. By the end of this class, you will have a better understanding of the importance of understanding personality and mindset and how to apply this knowledge to personal and leadership development, team building, and conflict resolution.

Dr. Chuck Coker
Understanding Your Personality and Mindset
pc312-12
Understanding Leadership Dynamics
Lesson Transcript

[00:00:00] Well, welcome back. We're going to move now into the belief mindsets. Now, there's kind of a change of pace here that we're looking at because we see objective, more logical, subjective, more emotional. But our beliefs will intensify the objective or the subjective by illustrating what role we take in objectivity and subjectivity and how we want that to come out and appear to the objective or the subjective minds. So when we think about the belief mindsets, it's not so much what the differences are, but it's going to emphasize how we want to express the objectivity and subjectivity, both personally and how God has breathed into our life a stronger need for structure or openness. 

[00:01:13] So we're going to start now with the individualistic belief mindset, because this is one that is so often misunderstood and problematic, but it's also one that is subject to the greatest abuse. So let's dig in and learn about the individualistic mindset. They're driven by control and a desire for recognition. You see, their goal is to be the master of their own destiny. Which can cause them at times to forget that God is in control and that God orders our steps because His ways are higher than ours. They also enjoy solving problems by either strategizing with other people or organizations by directing, coordinating and literally advancing processes in a way that will achieve the objective. That's why we refer to them as strategic thinkers, because they're good at developing, directing and putting together a plan of action. They think in terms of rewards and recognition, but not so much about risk. This is why there is a correlation between the high D and this mindset. 

[00:02:49] Now the big question we have is what about humility? Well, leaders have a propensity quite often to live a fairly lonely life. And you can say, Oh, I didn't know that. Well, let me assure you, the greater the leader, the more isolated they become because of the demands of their life and responsibilities. So what about humility? Humility is something that is critical for their growth and development. In a recent study I participated in, we found that a person's coachability and their ability to grow development is based 54% on humility. Humility is the key because recognition is not in opposition to humility. If you think about Moses, the Scripture says that Moses was the most humble of all of the Israelites, yet he accomplished much and literally was the focus of the Jewish religion. 

[00:04:16] But there's also the appearance of arrogance. Why? Because someone in a leadership position may not have the bandwidth to do all of the things that those of us that are just regular people have the blessing to be able to do. So arrogance is one of those things that we have to watch out for even though some people may perceive it. They want to be up front. They are quick to lead. They make good coaches because they expect other people to defer to them. That's why we talk about Moses, we talk about Paul, and we talk about other people in the Scripture who took those roles, but they were also willing to take the hits. That went along with it, and often times that was being alone. Leading groups of people is their objective. But what about after that time of leading is over because they tend to get lost in their objectives and in trying to accomplish those objectives. They may actually miss the inside of other people. I bet you know how to spot these people. Because their favorite word is "I." They are winners because they're competitive. They don't mind partnering for the success with the right person.

[00:06:06] So how do you recognize them in speech? I got it. It's handled. Hold on. No problem. But. As they lead they also have that propensity to put a whole lot on their plate that they're gonna need help with. And oftentimes they may not have the help that they think. So they get stressed out. Why? Because they can advance as quickly as they want to. Because they haven't got the help. And when that happens, and they're denied leadership opportunities. They're mad. They're angry. And they may even become manipulative and appear political and push their agenda behind the scenes. And sooner or later, you and I both know that God's going to uncover all of the things that were not the way they were supposed to be. 

[00:07:17] Now, I want us to understand one other thing, too, and that is the fact that a leader may at times seem manipulative. But sometimes that manipulation is not really manipulation. It is facilitation. So therefore, it's not necessarily negative when someone is trying to facilitate getting something done because they are trying to push that agenda. And let me tell you, Christians above all, have an agenda. We want to see the world saved. And those of us that are committed to that are not going to stop. We're going to go until God graduates us. But what we do know is that when these leaders are limited, they may come across as arrogant. But if they're not leading, then they tend to disconnect and and get lonely, as we mentioned before. So with this mindset we are obviously obviously going to collide with other mindsets. If they're an objective mindset, the individualistic person is not may not sense the direction of the ultimate objective and achievement of their particular priorities. They may be doing it their way and they don't like that. The subjective may appear to care more about what things look like or appear or how people feel rather than getting to the results that the leader wants to accomplish. And for the other belief, the high traditional, they may be focused on a specific way of things that should be done a certain way rather than what the ideal outcome will actually present. 

[00:09:37] So do we need these high, individualistic people in our church? Absolutely. We have to have people out front playing leadership roles. The challenge is that sometimes they prefer to make their decisions independently rather than collaboratively. They want to attempt to influence large and diverse groups of people and serve in a place of leadership. So where are you going to see these people? You're going to see them and pastors. But the pastors are there to shepherd their flock. Someone has to lead them. There has to be a shepherd. You're going to see them as teachers who want to communicate the gospel and the intricacies of the doctrine that is there available to help make us better. And you're going to see it in executive pastors also and elders.

[00:10:52] So. How do you communicate with that individualistic mindset? We know that with the objectives, we had to tell them something that they need to know. With the subjective. We had to tell them how they need to feel emotionally, but with the individualistic and traditional mindset, we need to tell them what they need to do, what they need to accomplish, and show them that they are being positioned by the Lord God of Israel for leadership. And that is part of their purpose. And assure them that whether it's recognized here on earth or not, God knows. Think about Jeremiah. I'm calling you. You can't get married. People aren't going to listen to you. You're going to get abused. But you are going to be my man and I won't let you get hurt and I'm going to protect you. So those are not personal objectives that most of us would agree to. But they are tied to the leadership in the spiritual world, and those are good things that they need help to achieve. 

[00:12:26] So let's go through the scores real quick. So pull out your assessment results and let's talk about what your scores mean. From 57 to 70 you're probably convinced that your leadership and management skills are going to be needed in the undertaking ahead of you. From 44 to 56 you probably are very confident in your skill sets and you're not going to struggle stepping up to the microphone when you need to. When we get into the middle in Area 37 to 43 and 27 to 36, there's going to be capacity for leadership, but it's going to be whether you feel competent and feel like you can take ownership with it. On the lower end rather than being commanding, you're going to be much more collaborative. You're going to feel that you have some abilities, but it is not going to be a positive thing to be in that kind of position. And you see other people as having stronger skill sets.

[00:13:45] So when we talk about the power of an individualistic mindset, it's because they want to set the pace for others to follow because that passion that exists says strategic alliances can help us. I know what is the major mega-churches around America do, they borrow ideas from other megachurches to see what helped them grow. And an individualistic will do that. They'll be strategic, but they often exceed their limits when the power position becomes more important than the people that are actually being led. You. They get stressed when their authority is reduced.

[00:14:31] So how do you get your point across? By focusing on the opportunity of advancement. And that's not just with worldly things, that's before God. Careers, obviously. Pastor, teacher, elder, disciple, group leader. All of these things have an opportunity for you to lead and develop other people. The driving force is to advance to that position and gain the greatest power to lead and direct others, because the goal is to assert yourself and be victorious regardless of what the objective is.

[00:15:18] So with all of that in mind, we know that there are resources that this individualistic person is going to bring to our ministry. They're going to have a passion for hard work and strategic development of the ministry. They're going to have a strong desire to use their talents to lead. And they want a powerful, powerful position that provides impact. But those resources can produce some liabilities too, because they may become more focused on the rewards and the efforts than the work it takes to get there. And they may even overlook others needs at times because they want to manage and lead if they're involved, rather than ensure that the job is completed.

[00:16:10] Now. How do they want to work and live? They want to focus or direct some of the aspects of the ministry's operations and plans. It may not be leading the whole ministry, but they want their little section of the world that they can manage. And they'll often make decisions on their own and use their knowledge and skills with a wide diversity and quantity of people. But with all of that, they're still going to need to adapt and grow, especially when it comes to focusing on the spiritual needs of people rather than the goal of the project. They need to learn to be grateful and accept other people's input rather than expect it. And they need to be willing to compromise whenever it's needed. 

[00:17:14] So as we think about the high individualistic belief, let's focus on the key points because their goal is achieving the objective so that there is recognition and rewards because they're competitive. They're quick to assume a lead and unless they're partnering with someone for success they're not going to be interested because they get stressed if they're held back. Ministry-wise, they're going to enjoy leading, influencing and making decisions. So tell them what they need to do for the role, position and influence where they have been placed. Now that we've heard a little bit about that I individualistic, you probably have some questions. What's one of those questions that you would ask? 

[00:18:16] We can think of individuals in sports like coaches in sports or leaders in the military that have been highly respected and have had people underneath them that fully support what they're doing and feel like they would do anything for that person. So practically, how do you get to that point? What are some things that leaders can do that are individualistic, that have to make some decisions that sometimes are going to seem unpopular, but that have enough equity in the people that they're leading, that people are still willing to follow them through those difficult times?

[00:19:14] Well, I think the most important thing that the high individualistic has to remember is the fact that there are always going to be hard choices and not everybody will accept those hard choices. But I think there's one little secret that puts them in a position that will meet or exceed most people's expectations, and that is to tell them why they're making the decision that they are. So when a pastor decides that our congregation is at a point to where we need to plant a church on another side of town people are going to be in an uproar because most pastors are going to say who will go and help plant that church? Oh, you're pulling my Bible study apart. You're ruining our fellowship. You know you're going to have that. Yes, some of your Bible studies may be upset and some of your fellowship may be upset. But what is the difference between a spiritual young adult who does great things for God and a spiritual father? The difference is the spiritual father disciples and plants and grows the ministry regardless of their own personal desires. They invest in other people, and planting a church is no small task. You're taking and putting these people in a whole different role and responsibility. So therefore, if they don't understand that there are people in this section of town that need Jesus just as much as they do then they may have those hard feelings. Whenever a leader must make a hard decision they must be willing to, first of all, prepare their congregation or their staff by telling them that the change is coming. And second of all, they must tell them and tell them a different way and then reinforce it until it becomes integrated into the culture.