by Tim H. Swanson
Who is it on your team? Your electric guitarist? Your drummer? Your bass player or singer? Do you feel a little wiped out just thinking about the person? Well, there’s good news. God sent that person to you. He wants to teach you something. That may not feel like good news now, but I promise it is.
It seems like every team has at least one. I’ve heard other leaders refer to them as ‘personalities’. That’s a nice way of putting it. The truth is, there are some people out there who are hard to get along with. They can be difficult to figure out. And it can feel like they’re only there to drain your stamina. They are the stubborn, unteachable, cranky, bad attitude, disrespectful, primadonnas.
I used to have a musician on my team who was really difficult to get along with. He had been brought on the team by the previous worship leader. So he already was on the team when I was hired. He was such a difficult ‘personality’ that my predecessor actually apologized for handing me a team with that guy on it. For almost a year, that guy pushed on just about every button I had. He was always late, unprepared, sarcastic, offensive, you name it. Very quickly I became completely flustered with the guy. I felt like I was banging my head against the wall trying to work with him week after week. Not only did his bad attitude make it difficult for me. His general disrespect for worship was beginning to affect the rest of my team. One day I found myself sitting at my desk, completely wiped out, asking, “God, what do I do?” This is where the good news part comes in.
Once I asked God for help, He showed up. He began to show me all the things he was trying to teach me. After a while, I wasn’t getting burned out by this team member anymore. I was getting recharged by opportunities to learn and grow. Having that guy on my team was one of the most challenging and beneficial chances for growth I’ve ever had. Through working with that guy and a handful of other ‘personalities’ since then, these are the important principles I’ve learned about dealing with impossible team members.
1. It starts with your attitude, not theirs. Having a person with a terrible attitude on your team is bad. It’s even worse when there are two, and you’re the second one. If you’ve been working with a stubborn person for a long time, you may have grown bitter. The worst part is, you might not even be aware of it. When it came to the guy on my team, my attitude got really bad. Any time he was at one of my rehearsals, my bitterness would come out. If you’re in that place, you have to deal with your own attitude before you do anything else. So take it to God. Pray that God will give your impossible team member peace. Ask God to give him or her everything you’d want for yourself. Even if you have to do it through clenched teeth, this is the place to start. Once you’ve begun to reorient your attitude, ask God what He wants to teach you. This will build the teachable attitude that you’ll need to handle the toughest of people.
2. Lead with respect. I say this to the people I mentor all the time: You have to be respectful if you want to be respectable. It’s the truth. You will have to be respectful with your disrespectful team members if you want to make any kind of connection. This doesn’t mean that you suck up to them. It means that your tone of voice, and the words you use are respectful. You can be respectful even in confronting a person older than you. It’s a matter of carefully thought out communication. Think about what you will say beforehand and bring a respectful game plan to your confrontations. Things get way worse when you don’t have a game plan and end up saying something you’ll regret. Even if you and your team member don’t see eye to eye at the end of it, if you are respectful, you win.
3. Call on a conflict pro. I once had a volunteer write me a three page email telling me what a bully I was. I wasn’t really sure how to respond. So I printed it off, and brought it to a few of my mentors. I gave each of them a copy, let them read it, and listened to their response. They agreed that the email was a shotgun blast of negativity that was pretty far off base, but one of them suggested that I look for the pellet of truth in his words. So I reread it, and saw that he mentioned one character defect of mine that I had been accused of before. That was great for me. It showed me something that God wanted to teach me. Then when I met with the volunteer about the letter, I was able to be respectful to him by taking responsibility for my side of things. Going to my mentors was one of the best things I’ve done in working through conflict.
4. When you’re on the front lines, be well rested. It can be very difficult to respond wisely when you’re tired. If at all possible, seek out rest before going into a meeting with a challenging team member. One great place to begin is by regularly getting a good night of sleep. If you’re burning the candle at both ends right now, it may be time to reassess and work toward better sleep. That will help you be a better leader and problem solver.
5. Eventually you’ll have to deal with it. If just one person on your team is allowed to consistently sit below the bar, the rest of your team will follow that person. If examining your own attitude, respectfully confronting your team member, and calling on the help of a trusted adviser isn’t helpful, it may be time to make a tough call. After about a year of trying to work with one very difficult team member, I realized the rest of my team was beginning to suffer. When he showed up late and unprepared, he wasn't just disrespecting me. He was sticking it to the rest of the team. When you find yourself in this place, here is the thing nobody is going to tell you: your team expects you to do something about it. It wasn’t easy, but I called the volunteer into my office and told him I would no longer be scheduling him to play for our services. Letting someone go should always be a last resort, but eventually you’re going to have to do it. When the time comes, lean on God and your mentors for wisdom on what to say. Be respectful, and above all, lead with love.
6. Every life has a story. When I was in middle school, I had a Sunday School teacher tell me to go to Hell. He called me a couple of other choice words as well. It would have been easy for me to look at that guy and chalk it up to him being a jerk. I could have gone the rest of my life thinking that too. Fortunately for me, he was an adult about it. Later he came back to me and apologized for unloading on me. He explained that he was under an incredible amount of stress at work and at home, and he just lost it. Through that situation, I began to realize that there is usually more than meets the eye with people. When you are thinking about your stressful team members, ask yourself, “Could there be more than meets the eye with this person?” This may be the question that helps you realize that your team member isn’t in a great place, and you might need to cut him or her some slack. This video presents this idea better than my words ever could: See video at the bottom of the page or Click here to watch it.
There are no perfect teams. Every leader will have to deal with some level of attitude at some point. When it happens to you, remember that God is using the person and the situation to grow you. Look for the lesson in it. It may still wear on you, but the benefit comes on the other end when you’ve become a better leader and God is glorified through you.
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