4 Things Every Leader Must Do

The last thing a leader wants is to frustrate people and slow down objectives--worse than that is to spiritually or emotionally wound their precious volunteers.   

To avoid these pitfalls, every leader must do 4 things:

1.  Communicate

Your volunteers aren't mind readers.  If you're not actively communicating to your team what the goals are and where you want this project to go, you're asking for problems and failed missions.

Essential ways to communicate are email, text, phone calls, and Facebooking.  Be consistent with these!  However, don't forget one key, strategic vehicle of communication: the group meeting.  You don't have to do group meetings in person: you can Skype or use Google+ Hangouts if you have a web camera.

Bottom line: get with your team and communicate.

2.  Delegate

Maybe you're the one facing burnout; not your volunteers.  Chances are the reason why you're experiencing this is because you still haven't utilized the power of delegation.

Here's a pro tip for ministry: Only do the things that only you can do; all other things need to be delegated to volunteers.

Need help delegating?  I've given 7 Tips on How to Delegate that you can easily follow!

3.  Negotiate

What do you do when you know where God wants you to lead your team, yet you're experiencing resistance from your volunteers?  Pray and negotiate.

Ask yourself: "What are my open-handed and closed-handed issues with this project or initiative?  What must we keep, but what can I release?"

Sitting down with your team members and having a give-and-take conversation shouldn't freak you out.  Often times I've experienced a situation where the Lord gave some deep-seated wisdom or a kind word of caution to my team members that helped us come up with an even better strategy to accomplish the same goal.

4.  Ideate

Taken from the StrengthsFinder 2.0 category of Ideation, to ideate in my book simply means to come up with new ideas!

Be fresh.  Be creative.  Think about your role of leadership in ministry as a precious opportunity of stewardship given by the Lord.  How can things improve?  What needs to change?  What is the Lord leading us to do?

Having a problem doing this?  Read a book; watch an interview; read a blog.  New ideas flow out when you're putting new ideas in!

When your volunteers know that you're actually leading them somewhere with great ideas, it keeps them motivated and excited to serve under your direction.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

Tell me: which of these 4 leadership must-dos is your strength?  Which of these is your weakness?  How do you plan on changing?