Building Trust - Lesson 11

Welcome back. We're here for the final stage of building our trustworthiness with others and we're on the application-based skill sets. But the final step for other people to be able to trust in you and for you to be deemed trustworthy is empowerment.

Well, can we empower everybody in one way or another? Yes, you can. Because when you empower somebody, you manifest their own autonomy and their own self-determination. Think about it this way.

What did Jesus say that we were supposed to do? "Make disciples." In other words, when he made disciples, did he tell them to all stay together? No, he sent them out two by two with purpose. Number one for encouragement, but number two for accountability.

If we don't empower our people, they become followers rather than leaders. You've got to empower people because as adults, and we discussed this earlier, the andragogy or the teaching and the growth of development of an individual requires their participation. Do you know why employees don't engage? It's because they're not involved in discussions.

They're not awarded or rewarded or set out because of their abilities that impact your ministry or your organization. This has to happen. Are they going to make mistakes? Absolutely.

But you have to encourage them with the mistake, with the whole concept of what did you learn? How are you growing through this process? And guess what? I made the same mistake so that they can be relatable to you. Because people become inspired when they feel encouraged and supported, and they're not going to feel encouraged and they're not going to feel supported if you do not empower them. An empowering leader encourages their employees to be self-sufficient.

Years ago, when I was involved in a denominational convention, one of the things was "find one, build one, and send one out." That didn't sound like much of a goal. How about find a whole bunch of people, disciple a whole bunch of people, and get lots of people saved? Well, as Billy Graham says, "People come into the kingdom one at a time."

So it's your role as a leader to disciple and encourage and empower people so that they can become self-sufficient. Now, how do we make people self-sufficient? How do we empower them? Well, first thing, very simply, is just trust them to fulfill the responsibilities and the role within your church or organization. See, this is easy and hard for subjective mindsets, and let me tell you why.

It's easy because they want to please. It's hard because they can be manipulated emotionally by the people that they come in contact with because they're not always going to be prepared for the emotional responses that come from people. It can be very hard for the high DC that has a very narrow vision and the high I that is so optimistic that they can do anything when they find out that they're going to run into brick walls from time to time.

So think about fulfilling responsibilities that fall within the role. Secondly, coach them short term on little projects. It's that chunking concept that we talked about previously, and mentor them long term for their development rather than dictate and demand where they're going and what they have to do and how they have to do it.

Now, this is going to be easier for a high I in social mindset because they enjoy working with, interacting with, and building other people. But it's going to be easy and hard for the high D objective people because they want everybody to get it right the first time. It's also going to be harder for the aesthetic mindset because the aesthetic mindset has an ideal and if you're not fitting into that idealistic mentality, you're not doing it right.

So think about this. Number three, don't micromanage. I don't know of one particular style that enjoys being micromanaged.

I want you to think about four steps that I have mentioned in other lessons, but it's important. If you will go through these four steps, you can actually avoid micromanaging by simply having checkpoints. Number one, paint a big picture for what you want the finished product service to look like.

Number two, tell the person exactly what you expect of them. Number three has three parts. What's the deadline? What resources do they have? And what are some of the potential roadblocks that they're going to run into? And number four, "Tell me what I just told you," because then you can clarify the points that they don't understand and completely avoid the micromanaging process.

You see, the high eye is a conceptual thinker and the conceptual thinker is going to be one that is going to give you ideas, but they're not going to help you with the details. It's going to be harder for a high C and a high utilitarian because they want things done exactly the way they want things done. Number four, recognize the value of mistakes and see how they create potential for growth.

If a person keeps making the same mistake over and over again, it's one thing. Most people get tired of making mistakes, so they will try to improve. You see, it's going to be easier for the high I and subjective mindsets because they don't like condemnation, they don't like correction, and they don't like feeling stupid.

It's going to be harder for the high D, individualistic, utilitarian, and the structured traditional because they have a mindset of how things ought to be, and they may even argue with you about the mistakes that they made. So, think about where you fall in each one of these four aspects of the application process, which is going to be easy, which is going to be more difficult, but you have to remember that not all of them are going to be easy. So, let's go through a few things that might help you build some best practices and grow in empowerment if it's not your strong suit.

First of all, just start delegating. "Well, I can do things quicker than somebody else if I tell them what to do. I'll have to wait on them until they get it done."

Well, that may very well be true, but what if you're in a growing ministry and you are the only one that knows how to do it? If you don't start delegating and teaching other people how to make the right choices for those jobs, guess what? You're going to continue until you become a bottleneck in the process. Choose the right people for the job. Define clear outcomes and deadlines and help them see how they can add to the success of an organization.

Number two, create a channel for feedback going both ways. In other words, communication is always going to be a key, and if you don't believe it, ask somebody that's been married for a long time. Communication is always going to be an issue no matter how much you love and care for a person, but think about this.

You may not love and care for the person that you work with the way you love and care for your spouse, but you have to always allow for encouraging and educational feedback for and from your team. Collaboration works 80% of the time. And last, give your team members some authority.

Clearly define what they have the capacity for to make decisions. It'll boost their confidence, but do so cautiously because what you don't want to do is put a person in a position to where they feel foolish. Empowering your people is the way to grow and develop.

I'm sure you have questions at this point about empowering your employees, and I would welcome them. What are some practical ways that you can encourage people to see themselves as disciples and integral parts of the ministry rather than being passive adherents, especially since our culture today, we're pulled in so many different ways. We have so many different opportunities for distractions, entertainment, scheduling things, things like that.

That's a very good point because it's very, very prevalent, especially with newer believers and people that are not quite as far along as perhaps you might be as an elder or leader in your church. First of all, ask them this, "Why are you here? Why have you volunteered or why did you become part of the staff of this ministry?" And sit there and listen to them. Follow up with this. If I hear you correctly, you feel that God called you to this position.

Their answer in almost every case is, "Well, I know I want to be here, so I guess God must have called me." And then ask them this question: "Do you believe that God in all of his wisdom calls someone he has not equipped?" What's their answer going to be? What's the only answer they can? Did God call Jesus and not equipping? Did God call the apostles and not equip them through Jesus? Did God call you to become an elder or leader or teacher in your church? Of course he did.

He called you with purpose. He doesn't make mistakes. And if he doesn't make mistakes, then he gave you what you need to fulfill your role.

Now that's settled, "My friend. God has equipped you. What he hasn't done is given you all the information that you need because he wanted to see how you would handle your equipping."

And guess what? That's your job. Is to learn how to use the God-given skills, the gifts, the maturity, and all of the experiences you have in life to bring them to fruition. You are equipped, my friend.

What you may not be is an expert with that equipping. And the reason you are here is to learn. So I'm going to empower you and allow you to learn what you haven't been brought to at this point in your life.

Because God's ordering your steps. Because his ways are higher than your ways. So we're going to give you the opportunity to develop the skills you need because he has equipped you.

Student: I'm really sure I know what your answer is to this, but I wanted to ask it anyway for the record. In talking about building trust, there's some people that are just never going to trust you. They don't want to trust you for whatever be the reason. So can you give us permission at the end of the process to say, "Once you've done everything, just sometimes it's not going to work." And what do you do? 

Dr. Coker: Well, here's the thing that I think you have to do when you reach that particular point. "You know, I've tried very hard to illustrate to you that I'm placing my confidence in you to do something. And at this point, there is a reason for you not having confidence in my trust for you. And I want to help you understand something. The reason you don't have that confidence is because of fear."

"What do you mean fear? I don't fear you."

"No, but you are being oppressed by fear. Now, let me ask you this: Is fear an emotion?" 

"Well, of course it's an emotion." 

"No, read 2nd Timothy 1:7, 'I have not given you what the spirit of fear, but a power and self-control.' The spirit of fear will oppress you and keep you back from becoming the person that God created you to be. And it is that oppressing spirit of fear that brings about distrust, that brings about anxiety, and that holds us back from achieving the true potential that God built in us when he knitted us together in the womb. So if you don't have trust, I can't make you trust.

Therefore, please feel free to decline this opportunity or move on. But what I will pray for you from this point forward is that you will have a hedge of protection around you the same way that Job had in Job 1:10, and that that hedge of protection would protect you against the spirit of fear that is ruining your ability to trust so that you can remain behind that hedge in a place of peace." 

Well, I want to bring this session to a conclusion by thanking you for participating with us in this course on trust. I hope that the same trust you have in Christ Jesus will be obvious to other people as you display trust, mainly because I've tried to lay things out for you in a very progressive format by helping you understand the psychology of trust and then sharing the dimensions of trust and how different behaviors and different mindsets view trust. Most of all, I wanted to remind you that there is strength in diversity, and when that diversity appears, your different behaviors and mindsets are going to have an impact on whether you can accept that diversity as a way to build and strengthen your spiritual community or your ministry or whether you allow it to build distrust.

So to do that, what I tried to do was share with you the signs of distrust so that you could actually understand what to look for and how to approach it. Lastly, I shared with you the five constructs of trust and how to build them. I share best practices with you and I pray, I earnestly pray that you will be able to acquire those skills and make your personal development a priority because I expect that you will become a more transparent, reliable, relatable, predictable, feasible, and empowering leader that is capable of building trust in your ministry and through the people that you work with.

Because our workplace and our ministry challenges are going to arise. I can assure you that's the devil's handiwork, but I want you to refer back to the manual and refer back to these videos because they're always available to you. I want you to look back at the results of your Trustworthiness Index so that you are constantly reminded of the areas that you might need to work on so that you can develop goals and objectives that will contribute to a culture of trust.

Remember this, the culture you create can eat strategy for breakfast and when you build an environment of trust, you're building the kind of environment that Jesus Christ asks you to as you make disciples. God bless you.