Keys to making your leadership work
Q: I have been a pastor of a church for a number of years. What dismays me is that in recent years, the population of the church members has been dropping drastically. Most alarming is the big drop in the young members coming to church now. This concerns me a lot because the younger generation is very important to the church as they are the next in line to keep the faith going and growing. I check
Deserted
A: Inevitably there will be attrition in any organisation (religious or secular) either due to natural causes such as deaths, migration, changes in lifestyle and so forth. A good leader will even go further to ensure that the inflow is always higher and faster than the outflow. This will rejuvenate and sustain the life of the organisation. So you need to ask yourself whether you are doing this or not. If not, then it looks like your church is in some kind of trouble, maybe even facing extinction if nothing drastic is done to it.
The Bottom Line: It is really all about making forward-looking changes and whether your church is keeping up with the changing time. When young people leave the church, it usually means that they do not find going to worship attractive and relevant to their lives. This could be due to a leadership style that they cannot accept or the church practices are out of sync with their needs and expectations. As a leader, you need to be very sensitive and empathetic to this. Doing this means you need to make bold changes to yourself. Indeed, there is a lot of soul searching you need to do on yourself. The faster you do this, the better.
Powerful Questions:
How much do you know about the young generation in their needs and expectations?
How much of this are met?
What changes are you making to flow with them?
What do you want to focus on from now on?
LEVERAGING ON YOUR EMPATHY SKILLS
Q: Somehow I think I have the “gift” of sizing up people pretty well. When they are speaking, I somehow can read between the words, even understand the deeper meanings of their message.
Even if they do not speak those words, I can intuitively feel what they are saying inside. The sad thing is this is as far as I can go as I do not make use of the information in more “productive” ways. I really want to do something about this but somehow there is a part of me that says that I should mind my own business. Why am I like this? What shall I do?
Being Gifted
A: Indeed it is an injustice if you do not make use of this gift to help yourself or others more. The good thing is you realise that it is not right, and want to do something about this. Perhaps, there is an inner conflict within you that need to be removed. This could be an uncomfortable feeling about the person, especially if you detect inconsistencies in their words and actions or underlying messages, which they are withholding from you. You want to tell them this, but stop short of doing this due to your fears, self-confidence, and even disrespect for the person. So you need to nail down which are the ones.
The Bottom Line: You need to reframe this thinking pattern of yours from negative to positive. In this instance, see them as someone who needs help; and see you as someone who can give help to them. There is a high chance that these people do not know or are not aware of these “inconsistencies” themselves. You need to extend your empathy skills to a larger area to understand the life circumstances they are living under as well. When you are ready for this, you will see yourself saying things like, “I just heard you said that ... I am confused with this as it appears you are going against your own value system ... Or can you help me to understand this?” When you do this, you will realise how much more you are helping them.
Powerful Questions:
What is your outlook in your relationship with people |generally?
How is this working for you?
What will get you even better results?
What needs to happen?
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The writer, Dr Michael Heah, is an ICF Master Certified Coach. He provides personal coaching services and also coach certification programmes. Check out www.corporate-coachacademy.com or email: |[email protected]
