Engaged Leadership - Lesson 2

Welcome back. We're in session two now of engaged leadership. And in our previous session, we discussed how our personalities or that nature that we bring to the table through God's creative resources, and the nurture, the input that we get from our families, from our education, and from the friends and people we hang out with, and even our job, that nurture aspect is going to impact the way that we lead and manage.

So in this session, what we're going to do is we're going to define that in a way that will help you identify whether you have stronger leadership or stronger management tendencies. Then if you are a stronger manager, the time is going to come when you're going to need to inspire people and we'll show you how to do that. However, if you're much more leadership oriented, there's going to be a time to make sure that the boxes get ticked off and tasks get completed in a timely manner.

So let's focus now on the unique differences for each style so that you can begin to isolate how you are going to work with your staff and other people in your ministry. First, remember that most of us are better at one than the other. But the important thing is that you can learn to do things from both perspectives because leadership and management based on your function is going to determine how much adaptation you have to make depending on the circumstances.

In the graphic that you can see on the screen right now, let's focus on the differences between leading and managing and how you have to bring that together. Because leading is much more about vision and strategy and creating value, having followers, appealing to the heart, but it requires that self-direction and raising expectations and even asking hard questions at times. On the other hand, if you are much more task oriented or management oriented, you're going to find some different characteristics that seem much more appropriate to you.

And that is the fact that policies and procedures, value, power, and control, making sure that your subordinates are focused on their work is important. But however, that can come off as an authoritarian style. So what you want to do is focus on not being reactive, but even though you're working with planning on details, you can manage the status quo and give directions.

But the true value comes when you have both. You can accomplish the goal through explicit vision and organizational figureheads. You can motivate others and actually mobilize the resources that you have available to help you accomplish that.

So what I'm going to do is give you a very unique little formula to where you can look at your results and get a general picture of where your focus is strongest. First of all, leadership skills are made up much more of the high I and S personality and the aesthetic and social mindsets. Combining your nature or your high I and high S along with the high social and aesthetic tells me that you're going to be much more inspirational, generating much more emotion and inspiring people.

However, on the other hand, if your nature is that high dominance and compliance mixed with that strong objectivity, then you're going to have greater management skills. And those skills are going to be important to you because your belief mindsets are actually going to dictate how your leadership and management style is perceived by other people. So let's look at this particular graphic because it's going to help you better understand that when we look at your beliefs, they dictate how others perceive you.

You see, the high individualistic is going to be very commanding where the medium is more balanced and the low is very collaborative. If you have a traditional mindset, however, that's very high, you want a lot of structure where in the middle it's more balanced. I can take some structure, but I can also be receptive.

And remember too, that the lower traditional mindset doesn't mean that they don't have a structure or a belief in scriptural principles. It's just that they're open to a wide range of people. So where are you as a leader? I'm going to ask you to take just a couple minutes and begin to think about what aspects of your role in ministry require leadership qualities or inspiring people and helping them along the way and which aspects of your role have a much stronger tendency to manage projects and tasks.

It really doesn't matter what job you have or what responsibilities you have in ministry. Every role consists of both. So as you think about it, consider your leadership and management scores and then how they're presented through your beliefs.

How do these tendencies affect the way you view others? Because a strongly objective person may have issues with a subjective person because they tend to be more emotional. But if you are a supervisor, manager or leader, how in the world do you think people are going to judge you based on what it's like to work with you in a high-stress situation or where the pace is extremely fast? The way that we're going to do this is by using data-driven assessments rather than the subjectivity of what we think. You see, a modern team is a diverse team and success depends on your ability to use diversity to produce future leaders and managers.

And that is your role, not just to achieve, but to help structure and build other people. Now with the slide that you see, I'm going to give you a couple of examples of how you can literally assess your team members and how that should have an impact on the way that you work with them and that you nurture them through their natural skill sets and abilities. So we see the task-oriented objective person and we see a people-oriented subjective individual.

In each case, the person on the left you can see is much more managerial, where the person on the right is much more leadership oriented. Now I want you to think very briefly about the impact of what's going to happen. The person that you see that's task-oriented is going to want to focus on making sure that things are done and they may not be strong communicators.

The person on the right that's people and subjective oriented is going to be much more encouraged when you are encouraging to them and they need to have that emotional response to get things done. So let's take another example by looking at William. Is William a future manager or leader? You can see that naturally the graphs on the right with the DISC show that he is much more people-oriented, but when he comes to work or the graphs on the left-hand side, we see that that task orientation moves up strongly.

So we see both people and task-oriented skills, but when we look at the individual's graphics on the right-hand side, their mindsets, we see an even split between objectivity and subjectivity. So what William presents is both leadership and management qualities. So William might be able to make that transition a lot easier than someone who was purely task-oriented or purely people-oriented.

So let's take another look so that this has a deeper impact. Let's look at Josh. Is Josh a future manager or leader? Well, we can see that naturally his people skills are off the chart.

In other words, he's going to want to interact on a very personable basis with the people that he works with, but what we see in his mindsets is quite different. His highest skills are in the area of objectivity, making sure that the tasks are done. So what can we actually pull out of this that yes, Josh is very people-oriented because his social as well as his high I and S make him strongly people-oriented, but the priorities for him is making sure that get things done.

Now, when we consider Josh, we see that his strength is in people, but he also has that desire for effectiveness and efficiency. So when we look at the way he presents himself, we see that the leadership is basically situational. So what he's trying to do is weigh the differences between the set of circumstances that he's dealing with to make it appropriate for the situation.

That low traditional tells us that he's open to people and that he's attentive to him, but let's go back to that extreme I. He wants to have personal approval. So that helps us see why he's willing to migrate between management and leadership skill sets. So what I want us to think about now is, okay, how do we make that transition? Because it's not always easy, especially if we're in high stress environments and those of you that work in parachurch and megachurch ministries are going to know that the pace is usually pretty high.

So what we want to think about is how do we blend this together and make it more interactional as well as accomplishing the tasks. So if you're more of a leader, that's great. Maybe you're more of a manager and that's okay too, but it's impossible for any individual to score zero in each category.

Everyone is capable of wearing both hats. That said, people may worry about, am I forcing this? Am I making this harder than it really needs to be? But listen to this, we can actually compensate for our weaknesses by borrowing from our strengths. Now, what's the first step that we need to accomplish? Well, first of all, articulate the organization's or ministry's mission, vision, and values.

Why do you want to do that? Because if a person does not have an understanding of how they fit into the mission, vision, and values of the organization, they will not engage. They simply won't see how they fit into the organization. And this is why the turnover is so high in faith-based ministries.

Natural managers are going to want to emphasize processes and tasks, but they lose sight of relationships. So what we have to do then is make the manager more people oriented. Natural leaders, on the other hand, emphasize relationship, but they often lose sight of people's direction.

So let's make leadership much more accomplishment oriented. And we can do that in a number of ways. On a day-to-day basis, we build controlled accessibility into your schedule.

Maybe it's just leaving the door open during certain hours, but letting people know when those hours are. But also on a day-to-day basis, you can't miss an opportunity to make a hero of your people. We get so busy in ministry, focused on accomplishing our mission, that we forget that it's the people in our organization that provide the reputation, and they are the best spokespeople for the ministry.

Next, think about this when you're interacting with your team. When you ask them for help, tell them why you need it. If they are not empowered with an understanding of how to get to the mission, vision, and values, they won't engage.

So when you're asking questions and making decisions, frame your responses illustrating how their role impacts the company's mission, vision, and values. So here's the key. Natural managers, increase the number of the one-on-one meetings that you have with your people.

Assign new responsibilities as a recognition for success in accomplishing those abilities. Keep that communication line open, individually, in groups, through emails, through newsletters. Keep that up.

Now, natural leaders, on the other hand, are going to get people inspired. They're going to make them want to be a part of the mission, vision, and values. But what they often forget is that structure of accomplishing things along the line.

In one of our previous sessions, we focused on SMART goals. A leader needs to focus on SMART goals because what it does is it chunks things up into manageable parts so that an individual can weigh things out as to what specific they want to accomplish. How are they going to do it? Through measurement? Is it actually attainable? If so, it should be on your calendar, and it must be relevant to the mission, vision, and values of the organization.

But most of all, you have to accomplish certain things in a timely manner. So now that we've helped you better understand how you can understand whether you are more of a leader or more of a manager, I think it's important that we focus on how do we communicate those things? How do we adapt? How do we make them work for us in our everyday environment? So let's focus on the fact that many people, especially those entering ministry, and this is sad to say, don't quit their job. They quit their boss.

This is true. It's backed up by numbers. 70% of employees quit because they dislike their boss.

The rest either feel disengaged or unappreciated. You see, your good communication is instrumental in your team's engagement and accomplishing the mission, vision, and values of your organization. So in this next slide, I want to walk you through a couple things that are critical, and that is, first of all, good communication allows you to recognize excellence.

It allows you to give that people discretion on how they do their job because the job description may need to be written more for an ambivert than an extrovert. Identify what the individual is good at so you can actually craft the job and the responsibilities, not just on tasks, but on key performance indicators that help them better understand whether they're actually accomplishing all aspects of the job. Then disseminate that information to everybody.

How often is it that you get information about what another department is doing? That's critical because interdepartmental communication helps us better understand the stress factors that other teams are up against when it comes to deadlines and how you integrate their work into your work. You see, those relationships need to be built intentionally. We have to facilitate the whole person's growth, and how do you do that best? By showing vulnerability.

It's okay for you to communicate that you failed doing this at some point. We all do that. We all get to a point to where we can do some things well and we don't do other things well.

That's why crafting that job description may be the best thing rather than just saying, this is your job, don't do anything else, because they may bring much more to the table. You'll see this in introverts much more so than you'll see it in extroverts, because extroverts can do anything. Just ask them.

Introverts, on the other hand, take that responsibility very seriously and internalize it. What we don't want to do is guess. That's why the data helps us understand how to do that.

In order for us to see improvement with our employees, look at these statistics that you're going to see on the screen. When we engage with our employees, 106% more energy, 50% higher productivity, 13% fewer sick days, 76% more engagement. What does more engagement mean? It means more funding, stronger relationships with the people that support our ministry and contribute to it.

But there's really a greater satisfaction with their lives and 40% less burnout. All of that is critical to keeping your team together, because the longer a team stays together, the better and more effective and efficient they become. You know the golden rule.

Treat others the way that you want to be treated. With some exceptions, we all try to follow this, but it doesn't always work, and that's not because any of us are bad people. When two people have very different behaviors and mindsets, they may not know how to treat each other.

This is what we call the communication mismatch, and so as we think about that, let's give you several principles to work with to solve the communication mismatch. First, remember other people judge you based on their standards. In other words, their perception is 100% of reality, so it's critical that you understand their personality.

Second, your people are already doing this, hopefully. They want to please you, but they might be bad at it. You have to take that into consideration, because for those of them that may be bad at it, you can add the spice or whatever you think they need to make that transition.

But who is the most important person of solving that communication mismatch? It's you as the leader and the manager. It's like when you talk to a child. You have to be the adult in the process, otherwise you're not going to be able to get the communication across the way that you want it.

You see, it's up to you to adapt. Not your employees, not your volunteers, but it's up to you to adapt. As a person in a higher level, it's up to you.

Third, communicate with your team members individually. Think about their behaviors and mindsets, and then choose the message that is actually going to resonate with them best. So, let's take a couple moments to identify some unique types of behaviors and what are some of the right words that we might want to use with them.

Well, first of all, if we're talking about that high DC person that is extremely objective, we want to make sure that we are quick, to the point, and very focused on outcomes and the information that we will be giving with them is more data-oriented, more fact-oriented, and to the point. We don't want to say things like, I think and I feel. We want to use purely focused, direct, attentive information.

But because they have that C aspect to the dominance also, they may want to dig into details at a greater level. So, when you interact with this more managerial type person, what you want to do is make sure that you are not just prepared to answer their questions, but address the questions that arise from your answers. So, let's look at each of the four things that move us ahead when we think about the high S subjective person.

Do you have employees that look like this? How are you going to instruct them? How are you going to motivate them? How are you going to correct them? Well, first of all, you have to show them that they're needed. You have to illustrate that there is a purpose. That's why we want to make sure that they understand how their role fits into the mission, vision, and values.

Second, we want to help them understand that they are an integral part, and that just because their role may not be high profile visually, doesn't mean that it's not high profile when it comes to ensuring that the team accomplishes its goal. So, we're going to use more warm, encouraging information and communication with them as we help them focus. Now, let's talk about another person that we haven't considered before now, and that's a very task oriented DC person, but they're very subjective.

These type of individuals are going to push to get done what needs to be done, but they're going to want to do it with emotion. They're going to want to express themselves in a way that allows you to share the dream that they're trying to bring about, and without accomplishing that dream, the task therefore doesn't become worthy or is not accomplishing what it's truly meant to be. The last of the four different approaches is that people oriented person that's very highly objective, and that individual is an individual that wants to work with people, but they want to get the task done so that people will benefit from it.

So, when you talk with them, open up with that personable approach and nature to communicating with them, but then when the conversation becomes a little bit more serious and oriented to what you're trying to accomplish, then bring out the data, the facts, and things that go along with that. So, framing our message is critical. Just as the words that you use, the way you organize and frame that message is crucial.

Some people will want motivation, others will want you to get to the point. The way that you optimize framing of your message depends on your knowledge of the employee's personalities. So, when we think about the people that you see right now, and you see the manager and the customer service representative, you see a strongly task-oriented, objective individual as a manager who wants to lead by efficiency, where on the other hand, you have a customer service rep that's very, very introverted and highly social, care about anybody and everybody.

So, the manager is going to have to do one thing that's important, and that is slow down. As the manager slows down, they are going to be able to articulate things somewhat better, and when the introvert begins to ask those analytical questions, they're going to ask them and you're going to need to reframe them in a way that illustrates you actually care about the people and that are involved. So, let's give you a little method to help you do that, and we call this the 'sandwich method.'

As you look at this graphic on the screen, the sandwich method is one thing that a manager can use. Complement, identify the areas of challenge, and then complement closing it out. Use data and statistics with an employee's track record of timely reporting, or number three, the manager should use a story of his or her struggles and how they eventually turned it into success, or number four, compare this employee's response to the group's overall response and rate the steps.

In this particular case, the manager who is trying to reframe their message a bit to the introvert should probably use either the sandwich method or tell of their particular struggles, because with the high SC, experience is critical, and it's very, very informative towards helping the person achieve their objectives and actually relate to the manager. We're going to dig into this a whole lot more in our next session on trust, but it's important for you to see that the manager must be able to relate to the employee. So how do you make your message clear? First of all, decide on your purpose and the desired result that you're trying to achieve.

In other words, know why you're saying something so that you can communicate that to the people on your team. Second, move into that framing the message for the audience so that they can understand with clarity based on their personality. When you work with a specific group of people, there's often commonalities in that particular group, and so framing that message is going to be very important for you to identify how to communicate with the programmers, with the audiovisual people, or with the people ministering to the group that you're focused on.

Number three, build your content so that there's understanding. Who's going to be affected by this news? Why is this change being made? How will it be implemented? What are the benefits of the change? And what are some of the challenges that are actually involved in that process? And last but certainly not least, decide on the emotional response that you want your employees to have. Because remember, 67% of the people that you interact with are emotionally based more than logical based.

So we've laid a foundation now for how you, as a leader or a manager, can adapt your behavior and move ahead in this process. Next session, we're going to move into a way, now that you understand how to adapt and reframe, into the three components of how to bring a person into your world, invest in them, and help them build the characteristics that are going to help you succeed with your ministry. Are there any comments or questions that you have at this particular time that might help us bring clarity to the situation? 

Student: I have a question. So we often judge other people based on their behavior and we judge ourselves based on our best intentions. How do these steps help us to resist that tendency? 

Dr. Coker: You know, that's an excellent question because this is so typical of all of us. We want to be communicated with in the language that we understand.

But when you interact with an individual, their behaviors alone do not tell you the intention behind it. That's why in the lessons that we've just covered, it's important for you to understand the difference between a person's actions and what's actually important to them. Because their actions can be tolerable, but it's what's important to them is what brings them together in a team.

So in a process where you see actions that might be different, you want to ask questions like, I understand that you would like to approach it this way, but have you ever thought about? Have you ever considered doing things from this perspective? And I made this mistake when I had approached things this way in the past. But the important thing for you to remember here is not just watch their actions and their behaviors, but listen to what's important to them because only then will you have an understanding of why they're addressing things from a different perspective or why they might even be questioning the approach that you have. 

Student: So you talk about prioritizing communication to the individual and tailoring it to how they're best going to receive it. What recommendations do you have when you must communicate to a whole group of people with a diversity of beliefs, behaviors, and mindsets? 

Dr. Coker: That's a very good question because anyone involved in ministry is going to be put in that situation from time to time. So what I would do in most cases is try to address each of the three belief systems in the way that a person thinks. You want to give some facts and data to start with, but then describe how it impacts people and circumstances so that you reach that core group and then move into your belief systems by showing the authority that God has given your ministry, but illustrate to them that you're open to any type of individuals that feel called to that particular ministry.

Student: One of the things you've been talking about that surprised me a little, it may be more of a function of my own personality as a high D, is that you're defining leadership is more of a people skill, people-oriented, than it is a task-oriented kind of situation. So in your understanding of what makes a really effective leader, is it the people side tends to make a better leader? 

Dr. Coker: That's a good question because if you go to Amazon, what you'll identify is over a 100,000 books with leadership in the title, where management there's around 18,000. So since 66% of the population is made up of subjective people that run on their emotions, we have to speak to the majority most of the time.

That's why leaders today are assessed for their emotional intelligence, IQ: how smart we are, how we can figure out problems, EQ: how do we handle our interaction with other people, conflicts and negotiation. 90% of leaders that are assessed measure their emotional intelligence because a score on the emotional intelligence level between 95 and 110 guarantees that that person will be successful over 90% of the time. Emotional intelligence is made up of those leadership aspects of inspiring people and communicating with them in a way that not only they understand it, but they accept it and can see how to move in an actionable manner.