Perhaps one of the most infamous lines used when a romantic relationship is breaking up is, “It’s not you, it’s me.” “Sometimes ‘it’s not you, it’s me’, is an attempt to avoid conflict from a person who believes it actually is you,” says clinical psychologist Dr Lisa Firestone, co-author of Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships. “We do our exes a disservice if we don’t give real feedback about what we found troubling.”
So why start a blog to priests about a dating relationship? Because that line may apply to you and your leadership style. Our last several posts have been about divisive or toxic team members. While the vast majority of the time it may be someone else, it is important that we take a long hard look in the mirror and make sure it is not you. The team may be hesitant to give you tough feedback out of respect and to avoid conflict.
Jenni Catron, on biblicalleadership.com, wrote an interesting blog that may be useful if you think the situation described above may be relevant to you. https://www.biblicalleadership.com/blogs/what-are-you-not-seeing/ She provides a valuable personal experience in her career that helped her to learn a good leadership lesson. One very important line in her blog is, “I wanted control, not leadership.” She goes on to say, “Leadership is messy, murky, complicated and rarely black-and-white.” AMEN!
In the past, we covered some ideas as to how we could help toxic team members to change or even how to recognize them to proactively prevent them from becoming part of your team. But now we must focus on ourselves. Strong leaders recognize the talents and weaknesses that every member of their team has. No one can be expected to be great in everything.
Often, our tendency as a leader is to want to strengthen weaknesses and ignore current strengths to “help” our staff develop. While this is noble and can at times be beneficial, we might do better to supplement weaknesses and build upon existing strengths. Consider as an example, the secretary who has strong skills for filing and record-keeping but abysmal phone skills. While record-keeping is critical for any parish, think of how much damage that person may be causing by her poor phone skills.
If a problem can be readily addressed and easily corrected, then by all means do so. If, however, a situation is not resolving do not try to force it. This is where, “it’s not you, it’s me” comes in. You as the leader need to see the problem and develop a solution. In this case, is it possible that another staff member has the exact opposite traits – disorganized with excellent interpersonal skills? Could these two individuals share the two roles with a focus on the area where each excels rather than training and straining to get them to do something they naturally can’t do?
As a leader, your ability to see the problem and come up with creative solutions is critical. Your team member may be the problem, but you need to be the solution. In our next few blogs, we will begin to focus on a very important quality of leadership – your mindset and its impact on others.