7 Ways to Maintain Respect as a Leader

Part One
By: Ron Edmondson

7 Ways to Maintain Respect as a Leader
As a leader, one of your most valuable assets is the respect of the people you are leading. If a leader is respected, people will follow him or her almost anywhere. If a leader loses the respect from the ones he or she leads, it becomes very difficult to regain that respect.

Often a new leader is given respect because of his or her position as a leader, but respect can be quickly lost due to performance. Many times, it’s the seemingly small things that cause the most damage to a leader’s reputation.

I have found that a few simple (some not so simple) acts help protect the respect a leader enjoys:

* Return phone calls and e-mails promptly…
* Do what you say you will do…
* Act with integrity…
* Use fairness in your approach…not too harsh…not too soft…
* Show others respect…
* Learn continually and encourage growth in yourself and others…
* Work as hard or harder than others…

Maintaining respect is a matter of acting in a respectable way. How are you doing in that area? (You may want to ask the ones you are supposed to be leading.)
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Part Two

Inviting Evaluation from the People I Lead

March 24, 2010 in Church,Grace Community Church,Leadership,Ministry,Organizational Leadership with 21 Comments

Every year I allow the staff at Grace Community Church to evaluate me. I realize this works for some and not for others, but for me it is a part of my plan to continually evaluate and improve my leadership skills and success. I believe strongly that a healthy team allows itself to be vulnerable to each other. This allows me to set a precedent/example for working transparently with each other. I set up a system, this year it was using Survey Monkey, that allows them to remain anonymous in answering the questions. Hopefully, this helps them be more honest with me than if they had to sign their name. I tell them in advance that I’m looking to improve myself, not to feel bad about myself, so I ask them to be respectful in their response, but truthful. (You can read last year’s evaluation in the related links below this post.)

After giving them a few weeks to complete the survey, I host them for a luncheon where we address the questions and give feedback. I go over every response and/or question that was raised and we discuss it as a staff.

Here are this year’s questions and some of the feedback grouped into categories of answers. I tried to give a form of every answer that was offered without giving all the repeats.

1. What am I currently adding to the team? What do you see as my strengths?
• Leadership / vision casting / driving the team to achieve more/better
• Accountability, years of wisdom, level thinking, forward/future thinking
• Structure, Future Thinking
• Constantly thinking of ways to improve our ministries. Always challenging us to think ahead.
• Dreaming, idea generation, communication, leadership development

2. What is my greatest weakness? Where do you think I still need improvement?
• Communication, but I can see you continually improving
• Over commitment. I feel like you’re stretched pretty thin most weeks. I know you thrive on being busy, but I don’t want to see you burn out.
• Personal time with staff
• Evaluate situation more before responding
• Rushing to the “next thing” / I realize that has been out of necessity for the most part though
• I think the staff feels a lot of pressure to keep up with you

3. Knowing my skills, where should I be placing more of my attention these days?
• A balance of the “business” end of things and continuing to help each pastor on staff raise their game.
• Helping encourage/improve the team’s strengths & working on their weaknesses
• Keep looking ahead. yet walk beside us where we are at now
• Leadership development
• Continuing to invest in staff, helping to look for future staff as well, helping staff understand who they are (personality, leadership style)
• Planning for the future for the church, reminding us of our specific roles
• Staff development, helping each of us to achieve more/better
• Holding the staff members that directly report to you accountable to their most important responsibilities

4. What do you need from me that you are not currently receiving in the way of leadership/direction?
• Continue meeting to talk, evaluate, and help me to develop my strengths
• Time with you to think strategically in our ministries
• To know when you are giving information vs. a task. You send out a lot of info, but I am not sure if it is just info or something you would want me to do.

5. Do you feel I have your best interest at heart?
• Yes (All answers positive…yeah for this time!!!)

6. Would you feel comfortable bringing problems to me? If not, why?
• Yes (Again, this time I got 100% positive…this has not always been the case.)

7. If you had my job, what would you do differently?
• Give staff time to rest, not send emails on known days off
• Work on staff accountability
• Although I don’t think you should micro manage, I think there is a lack of accountability we are missing as a staff that could hurt us in the long run

8. Since last year’s evaluation, I’ve tried to put down my phone more and listen better. Do you sense any improvement?
• Yes
• Somewhat, yes

9. Describe what you like and don’t like about the work atmosphere at Grace.
• I the love the work environment! Laughter, friendship, and core values. Downside: too much distractions with the space constraints.
• I like the laid-back atmosphere but still feel challenged to think creatively. I like that we are pushed hard to excel and not just be satisfied with doing ministry
• High energy, great being around each other. Not a quiet place to work at times. Very thin walls
• I love the freedom we have as a staff, but again I think some accountability with that freedom is key. There are times that the noise level & “craziness” gets in the way of serious ministry moments and focused work.

10. What would you like to say to me or what questions do you have for me, but you haven’t said them or asked them, for whatever reason?
• Do you see yourself at GCC long-term?
• Appreciate your sincerity, drive and focus
• Thank you. Seriously, thank you for believing in us, encouraging us, challenging us, and investing in us.
• You are very open to come to with problems or questions. I cannot think of anything.
• You have truly become my Pastor, my leader, and a friend. I love GRACE so much!

You might wonder why I’m sharing this. Well, there are two reasons. One, I feel it helps with my personal accountability to continue this process, even though at times the feedback can be hard to receive. Two, it helps share with other leaders who may feel this is something they should do to see what type of feedback is received. I learn something every time I do this. The key, obviously, isn’t just to learn something, but to do something with what I’ve learned. (That’s where more accountability is needed!)