Have you invested so much time, energy, & resources in leading people or in relationships just to feel like you are spinning your wheels and not get anywhere? You aren't connecting, they are getting results, and maybe even seem disengaged. Maybe you don't know them as well as you think you do.
You cannot GROW people that you do not KNOW!
The cornerstone principle of the Shepherd Leadership framework is to KNOW those entrusted to your care.
Listen in as Nick describes this principle of knowing those entrusted to you so that you can guide, protect, & provide for them so that they will thrive and be at their best. Nick describes some resources and tools that he and his team use, as well as some applicable practices you can use at home. He also goes into detail on some pretty big failures in this department that he has learned from and hopefully you will too!
Have you invested so much time, energy, & resources in leading people or in relationships just to feel like you are spinning your wheels and not get anywhere? You aren't connecting, they are getting results, and maybe even seem disengaged. Maybe you don't know them as well as you think you do.
You cannot GROW people that you do not KNOW!
The cornerstone principle of the Shepherd Leadership framework is to KNOW those entrusted to your care.
Listen in as Nick describes this principle of knowing those entrusted to you so that you can guide, protect, & provide for them so that they will thrive and be at their best. Nick describes some resources and tools that he and his team use, as well as some applicable practices you can use at home. He also goes into detail on some pretty big failures in this department that he has learned from and hopefully you will too!
Welcome to the Shepherd Leadership Podcast where we hope to encourage and equip leaders to help those entrusted to them thrive and to be a leader others will follow for life.
My name is Nick Westbrook & I’ve had people entrusted to my care professionally for over 20 years in careers from ministry, coaching football, & business development to now owning & leading a Chick-fil-A franchise with over 140 Team Members. Leading my business at Chick-fil-A is the most challenging, difficult, and rewarding thing I’ve ever done. The challenges can feel overwhelming, But the call lead and being given the responsibility to steward so many people’s lives and experiences is an honor that I’m proud to shoulder. I’ve had more leadership failures than success, but from my greatest leadership failures I’ve learned the true art of fulfilling my calling to lead.
Thank you for joining our conversation where we will unpack the calling of leading as a shepherd and talk with other Shepherd Leaders in Chick-fil-A & other industries about the impact they are making in their organizations. We post a new 30 minute episode on the first Friday of every month and sprinkle in some bonus content along the way.
We hope to make this time valuable for you & encourage you. This is the Shepherd Leadership Podcast.
Thank you for coming back to enjoy the 2nd episode of our conversation as we learn to be Shepherd Leaders together. We learned in Episode 1 what Shepherd Leadership is. If you haven’t listened to Episode 1, I encourage you to listen to that first, so you will have a good idea of what the Shepherd Leadership framework is and why it’s so important.
So a good Shepherd Leader strives to lead & care for those entrusted to them so that THEY will thrive and be at their best, and experience God’s best for them. In doing this we can become a leader that others will follow for LIFE!
Now that last statement has a double meaning. We want to lead & shepherd others in a way that our leadership wouldn’t be discredited or cut off by our behavior and would leave a legacy, similar to a Paul & Timothy relationship. But we also want to lead and shepherd others in a way to point them to a fulfilled life. Jesus said, “I have come so that you may have life, and have it more abundantly.” We want to shepherd those entrusted to us in a way that guides them to that abundant life. We can do that as business leaders, T-ball coaches, fathers, mothers, office managers, & department heads. We don’t have to be pastors to lead people to that abundant life. I would argue & I think the bible would argue that if you have people entrusted to your care then you are, as a believer in Christ, obligated to guide them to that abundant life.
We do that by how we KNOW, GUIDE, PROTECT & PROVIDE for those entrusted to us. That is the Shepherd Leadership framework, to KNOW, GUIDE, PROTECT, & PROVIDE for those that entrusted to us so that THEY will THRIVE and experience God’s best for their life.
Quite possibly the cornerstone to Shepherd Leadership is to KNOW those entrusted to you. We learned in the first episode that the model for great Shepherd Leadership is found in Psalm 23. The first verse of Psalm 23 is “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” Some translations say, “I lack no good thing”. You cannot give something to someone that you don’t know they need. In order to shepherd those entrusted to us well, we have to know their greatest needs, desires, fears, hopes, & dreams. Every other principle in the Shepherd Leadership framework hinges on the depth of you knowing those entrusted to you. You have to know those entrusted to you well in order to guide them, protect them, and provide for them. You have to know their personality. You need to know their dreams, hopes, & ambitions. You need to know where they come from, what their history is. You need to know what is important to them and what is not important to them. You need to know their families and closest friends. You need to know how they receive recognition and appreciation the most. You should know what inspires them and what makes them anxious. You should know what challenges they are facing now, as well as what they are excited about and pursuing now. Know how and when they best receive feedback and like to have meetings, or conversations. Know what their favorite candy is and what kind of music they like.
You cannot know enough about those entrusted to your care!
You cannot help GROW people that you do not KNOW.
Leaders that don’t invest time getting to know those entrusted to them have no idea where to start to help those entrusted to them thrive.
Without knowing your people and knowing your team, you are leading blind.
You may be asking, “How can I get to know my team?” I’m going to share some really great resources and tips to help you get to know your team.
You may be say, “I’ve led the same people for years, I know my team!” I would challenge you that if you aren’t taking some key and necessary steps, and following some consistent rhythms with your people, then you don’t know those entrusted to you like you think you do, and you have some work to do. And people change. You’ve changed over time, and those around you have too. Your spouse will change over time. Their desires, hopes, dreams, tastes, preferences, will all change. Your kids will change, RAPIDLY! We have to really be intentional with them.
Why should you invest time getting to know those entrusted to you?
People are different. There are so many different personalities that exist, so many ways people relate to each other. Every person you lead or influence has a different story that has led them to this point in their life and that story has shaped the person they are and who they have become. It may have shaped their opinion of leaders, it may have shaped their ability to open up or be transparent, it may have, like me, shaped the reason they are so ambitious and unrelenting in their pursuit to achieve. It may also shape how they respond to feedback.
Knowing those entrusted to you is the greatest tool you have as a leader to be able to shape how you form the experiences that person has that will help them thrive and grow.
In Psalm 23, David says the shepherd makes him lie down in green pastures. That is important. Sheep only lie down when they are completely at peace, and they are naturally anxious animals because they are defenseless against predators. The shepherd knows them his flock so well that he knows what would make them be a peace and help them rest, and thrive.
You cannot help GROW, people that you do not KNOW.
How can I get to know those entrusted to me? How can I better get to know my team?
You may be married or a parent and think, its too late for me to get to know my spouse again, or to lean in to get to know my kids. It’s NEVER too late to get to know those you are to care for as a leader.
One fun resource that we have found to get to know each other is through personality tests. I LOVE personality tests. I personally like the Enneagram and the DISC assessment the best. I’m a 3 on the Enneagram. My wife says that I am a 3 wing 3. I didn’t know that was even possible. I love the Enneagram for how it doesn’t give us an excuse to behave poorly, it simply describes a person in how they respond and react to circumstances based on when they are in a healthy place or an unhealthy place. It helps paint a picture of what peace looks like for each different personality type and shed light for those closest to us on why we act, think, & feel the way that we do. The Enneagram has been most helpful in my relationship with my wife, Brooke, & my two teenage daughters. If the Enneagram is completely foreign to you, I encourage you to look up Ian Morgan Cron’s book, “The Road Back to You”, and check out his podcast Typology.
Strengths Finders is another one we like. We like Strengths Finders because it helps us know where people fit best and what the most productive work they can do is. Strengths Finders encourages people to do things that fit into their strengths instead of incrementally improving their weaknesses. My top 5 strengths are WOO (Winning Others Over), Communicator, Activator (I like to start things), Achiever (I like to get things done), and Maximizer (I like to take good to better and better to best). This means I don’t need to be doing accounting work. I will get frustrated and not be excited about my work. I will not thrive in that environment.
We have recently found great value in taking Patrick Lencioni’s Working Genius. Lencioni is an organizational health expert and his tool, the Working Genius, for which there is also now a book and a podcast to go along with the assessment, identifies the disciplines that are energizing or life-giving to an individual, and what is exhausting or life-draining to an individual. The reason this is so important is that we may be asking a leader or a person on our team to be something or to do something that is completely draining to them. They may be dragging their feet or missing deadlines, not because they are a bad person, but because it is the last thing on their mind because it drains the life out of them to get this done. Once example that’s happened to me is where I expected a leader to be galvanizing, bringing people together, be the RA-RA person to get everyone fired up for an initiative, or for the week, or just for their shift – when galvanizing was in this person’s dred zone, it was in their bottom 2 disciplines that are life-draining. I was asking them to do something that was completely out of their character. They were incredibly gifted at other things, just not galvanizing. That didn’t make them a bad person or mean that I needed to remove them from my leadership team, I just had them doing the wrong things. there will be a link to Lencioni’s Working Genius and how to find it in the Leader Guide. I highly recommend that resource.
One of our favorites is The 5 Love Languages or the 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace. Did you know that people do not receive appreciation the same way. You may have been thinking that you are showing appreciation to you spouse, your kids, or your team, when in fact you have been spinning your wheels because they do not receive appreciation best in that form. If you receive appreciation through Words of Affirmation, but your leader once every quarter or so brings donuts to work to show appreciation, you don’t feel appreciated because you do not receive appreciation best in that form. It’s the shepherd leader’s job to show appreciation for those entrusted to them in the form that the person best receives it, not the way the leader is most comfortable giving it. This is why it’s so critical to get to know your team and how they would most like to receive appreciation. One thing you can do is ask them. You might say, “Honey, I’m not sure I show you my appreciation for you in the best way. What ways can I help show you how much I appreciate you?” She might say, “well I would really feel appreciated if you helped out with the dishes some”. Well she probably receives appreciation through Acts of Service. You may bring your kids home a gift or souvenir from every work trip you go on but they never seem excited, or they may neglect the gift. They may really need quality time and they would feel most appreciated if you said, “Now that I’m home, can we go out for ice cream and catch up?”
These have all been extremely beneficial to me to learn about myself as a leader, as well as learn about my team and how they respond to different types of people and situations.
One of the best ways to get to know your team or you’re your family is to actually ask them how they are doing. Get really good at asking questions that aren’t prying but gently open the door for them to walk into transparency. John Maxwell tells us that the best leaders ask the best questions. “What are some things coming up that you are really excited about or looking forward to?” What’s your favorite memory here at work? Which one of our vacations was your favorite and why? “Is there anything going on in your life that could be affecting your attention or engagement that I should be aware of so I could pray for you or support you?
One thing I learned about shepherds is that the really good shepherds will inspect their flock every day. You see sheep are so defenseless, and are prone to so many parasites, bugs, and irritants. Their nostrils and facial tissue is a breeding ground for a particular type of parasitic fly. The flies will irritate the sheep so much that it will ram its head into a rock to relieve itself of the irritation, some have been known to run off cliffs and injure themselves trying to relieve themselves of the irritation of what gets under their skin. They can get a scrape or cut and if not inspected under their wool could get infected and spread through the entire flock. The good shepherds will closely inspect the face and wool, hooves and legs of their sheep everyday to see if they can serve them in any way to help them thrive. We must do the same as shepherd leaders. When I come into by restaurant in the morning the first thing I do, before my first meeting, before I get started on my work, I check in with every single team member on the clock. I look them in the eye, I say hello, I give a fist bump, I call them by name, I say good morning, I tell them I’m glad to see them, and ask how they are doing. You can tell so much by looking someone in the eyes. It’s been said the eyes are the gateway to the soul. I have done this routine before and seen such despair in someone’s eyes that I pulled them aside to see what was going on to learn of a terrible sickness in their family that they were deeply worried about. We prayed through it, & sent them to care for their ill loved one. They wouldn’t be able to focus on their work that day, and they needed to be where their heart was that day.
One of my absolute worst failures in regard to this was with a new leader that I had given responsibility to early on as an Operator. This person was ambitious, excited to learn the business and to lead and influence. One day he was dropping the ball in several ways that week and it finally came to a head and I called him in the office and began to pretty aggressively point out all of the things that were not acceptable with his performance and then asked him “WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON?!” He began to cry and said his wife had recently left him and he didn’t know what to do and found it difficult to focus at work. Man did I feel like an idiot. I never asked him if there was anything going on that could be affecting his performance that I needed to know about. I just leaned right into rebuking him. Big miss. We embraced. I was able to tell him my story and we were able to get him some counseling and connect them with the Winshape Marriage foundation.
After doing a personality assessment with one leader we realized her extreme attention to detail and love for standards and procedures. She was serving as a Hospitality leader for us at the time. She was doing well in the role but was extremely underutilized. We put her in charge of all of our training and she began to flourish, she completely revamped out training program and we have never had better training in our business than we have with her leading it. We go to know her better and were able to shepherd her better.
You cannot GROW, people that you do not KNOW.
Get to know those entrusted to you.
- Give them personality tests
o Enneagram, DISC, Myers-Briggs, Working Genius, 5 Languages of Appreciation
- Spend time with them
o Have regular one on one meetings
o Go on group outings
- Ask them questions and inspect your team
o Good leaders ask great questions
o Get good at asking great questions
o Build a toolbox of questions that you can pull from.
§ One resource we use is a tool called the Unstuck Box
§ Several categories of questions leaders can choose from to lean in and inspect their team members
- Use what you KNOW to help those entrusted to you GROW
Be sure to tune in next month when we will talk about how a good shepherd leader GUIDES those entrusted to them.
Encouraging you to KNOW, GUIDE, PROTECT, & PROVIDE for those entrusted to you so that they will thrive and that you will be a leader people follow for LIFE.
Until next time, shepherd well my friends.