Building Trust - Lesson 7

Welcome back, because now it's time to actually dig into each of the three sections and the five constructs of trust. I'm gonna walk you through each one individually so that you get a real sense of how your personality is impacting other people's trust. So in our first section of interpersonal skills, let's focus on transparency.

Transparency manifests itself as actual openness and accessibility of information. You see, the people that work in your ministry want to feel in the loop. One of the things that I've discovered in the myriad of churches that I've worked with in both the United Kingdom and the United States is that people often feel left out of the loop.

In addition to the fact that they have not been communicated what their job entails completely because they often are yanked from one place to the other. Therefore, they don't feel like they are in the loop. And if they are in the loop and you are transparent with them, it makes it a whole lot easier for you to share bad news because it's easier to digest because when you're transparent, they know where they stand.

They know where the ministry stands and they know what's lacking and what needs to be done. You see, a transparent leader helps the team understand the reasons behind their decision-making. One of the things that we know for sure is the fact that oftentimes senior pastors, executive pastors, or departmental leaders expect people to understand what they don't know.

And that's simply not reasonable. So to be transparent, what we have to do is understand the people that are on our team. We have to tell employees about the organization's strategy, its vision, and its shared purpose.

And guess what? That's gonna be easier for a high I with social mindsets, but it's gonna be much more difficult for the high D and the high C. Why? Because the high I on social wants to communicate, wants to be around people, where the high D and the high C is much more focused on the task at hand. The second thing is, is that to be transparent, the person has to share the reasoning behind their decisions. And again, this is gonna be easier for the high I and harder for the D, C, and even the S, because the S doesn't want to speak up as much and push their ideas on other people.

Thirdly, to build trust, you have to keep your team members current about the organization's health and their future in the company. "What? You mean I gotta share financial statements or I have to share board decisions or elders' decisions?" Yes, you do. Why? Because if they don't do that, they cannot possibly grasp what's going on behind the scenes because all they see is the little narrow niche in which they're working and they are totally committed to because all of it adds to the ministry and the mission that Christ has given them.

So it's going to be easier for the high S and utilitarian mindsets because they want to know what's gonna be happening. The high S, because they need personal security. We discussed that.

The utilitarian needs that because they need to know how to make their work more efficient and get it done. But it's gonna be much more harder for a high C. Why? Because the high C wants to know every single reason, every single aspect of it, and they will struggle with answering questions that may not even be relevant to what they're doing. Number four is you need to tell the truth even when it's bad news.

That's gonna be very difficult for a high theoretical and someone with subjective mindsets because the high theoretical, "Oh boy, this one's outside where we need to be. Everybody's gonna be upset." And the subjective because, "Oh my gosh, what am I gonna do?" When in fact, you have to trust that the Lord is ordering your steps.

It's gonna be harder for the high I and S because they're concerned, "What's gonna happen to me? What's gonna happen to my team members? What's gonna happen to all of us?" But transparency is like a security blanket. It's something that you can wrap around your team and they can feel that they never have to doubt what's going on. If you are not transparent, your team can't possibly trust you because they never know where they stand, where the ministry stands and what the challenges are that they might be facing.

Because you know what? Most people are there for the cause. They have a conviction. And if you do not deal with that conviction, sooner or later they lose their passion for the conviction.

So I would think at this point, you've gotta be asking, "Okay Chuck, how do I grow my transparency? Especially since I'm very introverted and I am hesitant to speak." Well, step one would be just to increase the volume of your communication. You see, the more often you talk about something and the repetitive nature of a message helps other people absorb it.

And let me give you an example. Communication department in a church is trying to get a message out. When a pastor speaks from the pulpit, only the people there hear it.

But there is also the congregation that couldn't be there or the congregation that watches via streaming. So repetition of that message has to come in multiple forms. It comes from the pulpit or it comes from the ministry leader.

It comes from emails. It comes from text. It comes from social media.

But increase the volume of your communication. Say it a lot of different ways until you have your elevator speech. Number two, focus on different methods of communication.

Now we talked about different types of communication, but let's talk about different methods. You see, you can make your message more visual. You can, by using graphics, you can use your message more auditorially through podcasts and you can make your message more kinetic by transferring ideas and concepts even to children in the youth department by the kind of pictures that they're coloring.

You can share the news via the different mediums, whether it be in emails, small meetings, or actually one-on-one sessions, especially for people who are actively involved for either seeking volunteers or working with people. Most of all, you can increase your transparency by not being afraid to share bad news. One of the things that often happens when we share bad news is that empathy can develop.

And as empathy develops and the intimacy of a relationship begins to occur, your directness is not seen as a problem, it's seen as an asset. Well, I think it's important that people understand that yes, a ministry is supposed to be positive. It's supposed to be developmental.

It's supposed to give the encouragement that we talk about in Scripture, but not everything is perfect, especially in a ministry, especially when people are involved. And so when there is a challenge, the leader has a absolutely wonderful opportunity to bring people in and say, "Can you help me solve this problem? What are your thoughts? I have some ideas, but we've got to deal with this issue. And I would like your input because you may know the people involved in this situation a little bit better than I do. So what I would like is your input so that you know that this is not just something I did off the cuff, but this is something that we work collaboratively together and that we can be open enough about so that we win together. I understand the importance of transparency." The problem is that knowledge is power.

Yes, it is. And when you are transparent, you're giving knowledge to people who will, in some cases, many cases perhaps, use that power against you. So I think people are hesitant to be transparent because they know it's going to come back and bite them from some of the people.

Student: Any words of wisdom on that? 

Dr. Coker: Absolutely. I think the most important thing that we have to do is use our spirit of discernment. And when we are transparent, if we know someone is a gossip, I think we have to use wisdom and avoid being transparent completely with them.

If they ask questions about it, we can give them a very top of the pyramid type bit of information. But it requires that we have that circle of accountability, that circle of people that we can trust. And those people that we know that we can depend on to pray through the situation, to have that spirit of discernment, and that trust our instincts will allow us to be transparent and be collaborative because we don't always have all the answers, but we also don't need to be bringing people in that can be an obstruction or damage the ministry.

So I think it requires us stopping and pray, "Lord, who should I share this with? Lord, who can I trust? And who will give me the kind of input and keep it within perspective?"