The 3 C's for leaders: Control, competence, clarity
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I have recently been revisiting some work I've done in organizational leadership for my master's degree and been rethinking leadership vision casting as I have been in my new role as a lead pastor.
There's a tendency for many of us when we enter a new leadership role to roll out ablaze and give it all as we are full of ideas and ways of doing things better. Sadly, many young leaders' ideas/suggestions are ignored and can run into major frustration. The leadership crisis comes to a screeching halt with personal frustration, self-doubt questioning, and ultimate rejection as an obstacle to moving forward.
As a result? The quick fix response given to these young leaders are, "In time young man" and dismissed to the sidelines. These passionate young entrepreneurial leaders begin to wonder whether everything they have been taught in school and leadership has been wrong the entire time.
Over the past decade or so, I have been in the second chair and now in the lead role and can see from both perspectives. Without the proper three C's, teams can be frustrated, apathetic, or even chaotic at times.
Here are my thoughts for the three C's: Control, competency and clarity.
1. Control
How much power/authority do the team members have in place to accomplish the task given?
For without proper control, the decision-making process is bottlenecked and slows down the entire process to reach the final goal. The traditional top-down monitoring system in every decision-making falls flat on its face and legacy is left to the dust of the world.
Why is control a big deal? Why do leadership organizations struggle with somewhat a simple concept? For change is difficult; not only for the whole of the organization, but on an individual personal level as well.
I remember one time being installed to a leadership role and was told, "The problem with us is that we do not have leadership." As I began to examine the organization, I realized the problem was not a lack of leadership, but there was too much leadership. In essence, there were too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Why? For people love to have the power of control and are not willing to let go.
The bottom line is this; Working together with others can be difficult. Society likes the level of holding onto certain power and struggles to delegate and release the power through the proper channels of leadership structure.
Part of the issue lies within the dilemma of control comes down to the following two; (1) issue of competence, (2) issue of clarity.
How can we begin to change the top-down / command-and-control leadership model? By leveraging the voices of the team by flourishing the credibility by being vulnerable by giving both competency and clarity.
2. Competence
Perhaps you may have noticed by now, proper control by itself is not good enough to see an organization flourish to its fullest. Control without competence is chaos.
How well is your team able to effectively/efficiently execute the task?
Effectiveness is a fancy way of saying, "doing the right thing" Efficiency then is, "doing the right way" that creates competency within the group.
In response to this matter, what do churches often provide? Rather than "training sessions" they provide more "teaching sessions." Why? Too often training implies knowledge deficiency. However, the issues that ministry leaders face is not a "knowledge" base but is a "competency" base. The problem does not lie within knowledge deficiency, and traditional church "training" is not the solution.
What is the solution then? It begins by clarifying the identity of the organization (competency flows out of identity), clarifying the purpose and mission of each role in the organization, and finally clarifying the specific goals by focusing on achieving excellence rather than avoiding errors or mistakes.
This often begins with the leader empowering and encouraging the team with proper control to accomplish the goal of the organization. Perhaps one of the questions that could be asked is, "Does your team spend more energy trying to avoid mistakes than achieving excellence for the overarching goal?"
3. Clarity
The third leg of the chair in supporting healthy vibrant leadership is clarity. How well does the team understand the vision/mission of the organization?
If the team does not understand the "why" they exist and the plan set forth, then defeat is inevitable for the organization.
Now, remember the focus is on the "team" and not the "leader." For even if the leader has a crystal-clear understanding of what a "win" is and runs straight into the battlefield as an onward marching soldier, without the team cooperatively moving together towards the price set forth, the leader is destined to fail epically.
How is this possible? This only begins by "trust." At the end of the day, whatever leadership organization you are part of, we are in the people business. The people must feel cared for and loved first to push forward to the overall vision and mission of the team. As a result, leaders must be open and encourage people for open communication and questioning rather than blind obedience.
When clarity is not given, the team is aimlessly doing the task without a proper destination. The team becomes a conveyor belt mentality to simply get the task done. Volunteers will show up to, "keep the show going" rather than knowing how their efforts are making an eternal impact.
The art of seeing through the leadership lenses
Perhaps you may have been asking many questions about why certain things have been done in your ministry setting.
The first step to growing as a leader is to recognize you do not know it all!
I pray the list above was helpful as you wrestle through your personal leadership development.
 | Dr. Jonathan Hayashi earned his B.A. from Moody Bible Institute with a double concentration in Pastoral Ministry and Biblical Studies; a M.A., in Congregational Leadership from Moody Theological Seminary, and Doctorate of Educational Ministry in Biblical Counseling from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He presently serves on the Executive Committee at Southwest Baptist University (Bolivar, MO) and serves on the Board of Trustees at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He served as Senior Pastor at Northern Hills Baptist Church Holt, Missouri from 2020-2022. Learn More » |
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