When it comes to building the church, it is important to have a culture of teamwork. If you’re the lonely leader at the top and all you’re doing is directing people to do things, that can only last so long.
We’ve seen way too many people shoot way up and fall hard. What we want is consistent, continual growth from the time we start to the time we end.
One important aspect of how teams should function is what we call feedback. Why is feedback so important? Well, can a leader make consistently wise decisions for an organization without getting good consistent information? No, they can’t. Every leader needs a certain amount of information, or feedback, to make wise decisions. Can a person be discipled correctly without certain kinds of feedback? The answer is, it’s possible, but growth can be slow.
Below is a diagram I’ll be referring to. Not only is feedback important between a Leader and Teams (and vice versa), it’s also important to bring God into the picture. God wants to speak to us!
Feedback > Team to Leader
1. REGULAR REPORTING
This is necessary information on a regular basis. It is the kind of information we absolutely need to have in order to make decisions.
In a children’s department, it’s important to report the number of kids and youth so that the leader is able to make decisions on the best way to use the given space, and to report the age groups so that we know the best way to divide them. But it’s not just numbers, it’s what’s happening in the lives of those kids; what is being taught? Is the teaching going well? Has there been trouble with anyone in particular? It keeps leadership in the loop so there are no surprises.
Preparing a form for your team to give monthly/weekly reports is the easiest way to get regular, consistent feedback. Here is a template of a project report that we get our team leaders to submit every 2 weeks.
Feel free to download and use it! You can modify any questions you need to.
2. QUESTION DRIVEN FEEDBACK
Whether this is in a meeting or a follow-up to a report, this kind of feedback digs a little deeper. It asks the kind of questions that not only get more information but help a person learn.
We could go back to the question that Jesus asked his disciples in Matthew 16. The first question he asked was informational – he asked “who do men say I am?” He wanted to hear some feedback from what others were saying about Him.
The second question he asked was transformational – he wanted to know if those closest to Him knew the scriptures and had been observing. He asked his disciples “Who do YOU say that I am?” And Peter spoke up and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”. This didn’t seem like a deep question, but it pulled the Truth out of Peters’s heart.
As leaders, we want to learn to ask the type of questions that dig below the surface. We want information, but we also want transformation. We could be asking the type of questions that help people self-discover, instead of telling them the answer.
Questions are also a way to not only get feedback, but they are an excellent way to give feedback without the person knowing it all the time.
3. REFLECTION
This is reflecting on a service or event. Maybe not everybody enjoys reflection time – I love it. It gives us a chance to ask:
- What did we do well?
- What didn’t we do well?
- How can we fix ‘this’ or ‘that’
- What could we do better next time?
This is a time where we are asking a certain kind of question that asks for feedback so we can improve how we can reach more people & meet their needs.
Next month we’ll be diving into Feedback > Leader to Team. Have someone in mind that would enjoy this series? Get them to sign up to our email list here so they don’t miss out on our updates.
Extending Your Reach,
John Grunewald