Most leaders don’t want to get stuck. They are always leaning in, learning, and growing themselves as a leader. It is the same with teams who are focused on moving forward, it takes intentional effort to move from being a good team to a great one.
We’ve been talking this year in different church leadership settings and with our staff about “What makes a good team great?” Read about our first installment here.
If we want to continually improve ourselves as leaders and teams some things to consider include:
- How can we solve more problems?
- What are ways we can work smarter, not just harder?
- How can we help more people?
- How can we honor God better?
- What Lids or Barriers are you facing?, etc.
And, how does a good team becomes a great team?
- The team mentality toward success is that we are blessed with everything and entitled to nothing.
The truth is, nobody is successful by themselves or without God’s blessing and favor on our lives. Rather than feeling entitled, we have to keep a spirit of gratitude. When we realize that any success we have is a gift from God, it helps us stay grateful, thankful, and humble.
When we stay humble and hungry as a team, we are able to remind each other that none of us deserve to be successful.
Here’s 3 key about staying humble and hungry:
- Humility is not denying your strengths. It’s being honest about your weakness.
- Humility is not thinking less about ourselves but thinking about ourselves less.
- Hunger gives us the motivation and passion to MOVE FORWARD.
Once we reach goals we set, we should celebrate them, but then continue to MOVE FORWARD with vision. Something more difficult than success is successive success (or repeated success). It’s true that yesterday’s excellence is today’s mediocrity, so we’ve got to stay hungry and moving forward with the right attitude and heart toward that next success.
- The team has a growth mindset.
I recently came across a book where Carol Dweck, a professor at Stanford University, wrote about two different mindsets: a Fixed mindset and a Growth mindset.
A fixed mindset settles in people who see themselves as they are and they are conclusive in their ideas about themselves. On the other hand, a person in the growth mindset sees themselves as being in process, or that everything about them can be cultivated. They can get better, or make progress, or bring change—they can grow!
What is great about this growth mindset is that teams welcome new opportunities and try new things. It’s also easier to see past problems and failures and see them as part of a bigger process that is helping you grow.
When a team leads from a place of vision that shows people and the church in process, they are constantly evaluating and making progress!
The church is really meant to be done like a team. The greatest intention, strategies, and plans all rely first on the strength of a team. We can all have the best of intentions with great hearts and huge talent but if the team is not together or in alignment we can’t experience our full potential as a church. You’ve heard it before: "If you want to go fast go alone. If you want to go far go together!"
