Wholehearted Leadership

Jesus put most of His effort into the 12 disciples, delegating His power and authority to them and growing them from simple followers to true disciples. He mostly used questions and parables to help develop the thinking of others, especially his disciples. "He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything." (Mark 4:34) Jesus took time to personally explain deep truths to his disciples and He intentionally trained his disciples in spiritual disciplines, kingdom principles, and servant leadership. He modeled prayer, faith, humility, and dependence on the Father, ensuring they were prepared to carry the mission forward.
Jesus instructed the disciples as he taught the crowds of others who followed Him around to hear the truth from his lips. “Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them." (Matthew 5:1-2) Jesus intentionally taught his disciples through the Sermon on the Mount, laying the foundation for Kingdom living. In the gospel accounts, the inspired writers capture the stories of Jesus healing the daughter of a synagogue leader who came to him, stopping the incessant bleeding of the woman who touched the hem of his cloak to be healed, and healing the blind and mute (Matthew 9:18-33). In each of these situations, the disciples were present to watch and learn as Jesus developed them into healers, as well. The disciples did not know what was coming next in their ministry, but Jesus did and was preparing them.
Part of preparing His disciples was to show them how to be brave and to have courage in the face of resistance and hostility. Jesus spoke clearly the Truth in each interaction, whether it was the people, or the Pharisees, or the Roman authorities. Your team and congregation will know how to be brave by how courageous you are in the face of resistance, as well. A wholehearted leader must have courage and exhibit bravery to speak the Truth in all circumstances, and to live by the 12 approaches Jesus used.
The keys to developing others on your team are to provide clear, timely feedback, to arrange learning experiences that will help them grow, and to coach them with perspective on possible approaches they could use. One of the more fundamental ways to develop others in a church or other organization is that of providing clear feedback. In informal conversations I have conducted with multiple organizations in the past 10 years, feedback that is immediate and specific, candid and caring, is often seen as lacking. Recently, I was reading the Bible, and I was struck by a series of paragraphs. (Matthew 7: 3-6). Though I had read this same passage several times before, I never noticed that the wisdom captured there could be applied by organizational leaders to the process of developing others through giving feedback.
Developing others as a wholehearted, servant leader requires that you know how to give candid and caring feedback intended—by the definition—as the “basis for improvement”. First, I’d like to share a story from when I learned that feedback is a gift, and that I needed to care enough about people to provide it. About 35 years ago, I was part of a panel that spoke to a group of HR professionals in New York City on a topic related to career development. On the panel sat three people--a Human Resources VP, the head of another consulting company, and me as an outside consultant. This consulting company president immediately annoyed me when he arrived breathless—moments before the event began—and informed the rest of the panel that he needed to speak first, because he had another crucial engagement to attend. So, from the beginning, it was clear that he had something more important to do and he did not intend to stick around to hear what his fellow panel members had to say. I was annoyed by his entitled attitude.
Then, just minutes before the event began, he popped off to the men’s room. He came back and turned to address the room filled with HR professionals. As he made this turn, I sat slightly behind him and noticed that his suit coat was tucked into the back of his pants, making it clear where he had just been and what he was just doing. He was unaware of it, however, and the audience was also unaware of it at first as he faced them to speak. I sat there silently for a moment and asked myself if I should tell him about his suit coat being tucked into his pants. In that moment, I decided that I didn’t care enough about him to give him the gift of feedback. He launched into his part of the talk, often turning his back to the group as he went through his slide deck. I knew it would be sometime later, when he was at his very important next meeting, that he would notice the way he was dressed. I smiled with a bit of evil satisfaction thinking of that moment.
As I said, feedback is a gift of time and energy designed to help someone improve. To be the kind of leader who serves people by giving effective, consistent feedback, you must think about the feedback in particular ways. Here’s where biblical wisdom comes in, with these suggestions for effective feedback:

 Genuinely care. When you decide you will give people feedback, make sure that you are genuinely interested in their improvement. If you are threatened by them in some way, if you are jealous of their abilities or successes, or if you just don’t like them for some reason, you will not give feedback that is helpful. Particularly if you are feeling critical or judgmental about them, your feedback will not be effective. Further, if they feel judged by you due to the tone and content of your feedback, they will evaluate you as unfair and overly critical, and they will convince themselves that your feedback is designed to harm them rather than help. Make sure you do have their best interests in mind before you deliver the feedback.
 Clean up your own act. Over the years as a coach, I’ve heard my clients complain about bosses or peers who gave them feedback about something when these people were worse at it than my clients. It’s important to “pay attention to the plank in your own eye” before you “look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7: 3-5) For example, if you struggle with listening deeply to others when they share their thoughts and feelings at work, make sure your own skills are up to at least adequate before you start to give advice and counsel to others about listening. Or, if you tend to swing from passive to aggressive in your approach to conflict situations, shore up these conflict resolution skills in yourself before you try to coach or mentor someone on being respectfully assertive.
 Carefully choose the timing. Even the best feedback, from a foundation of genuine caring and personal skill in coaching, will fall flat if the person is not ready to receive it. So that you are not wasting your breath—and annoying the other person—choose your timing carefully. Tee it up in advance by giving the person a ‘heads up’ about the topic about which you want to provide feedback. Ask them to think about their skill level in the area before your meeting. If they become visibly upset during the first part of your feedback, reschedule the meeting for a later time and ask them to think about the topic again beforehand. Otherwise, you risk throwing your pearls to pigs, which wastes your pearls and annoys the piggies. (Matthew 7: 6)