The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
Why You Shouldn't Be the Smartest Person in Your Staff Meeting
Pastors who need to be the smartest person in the room unintentionally silence their team and hinder collaboration, eventually causing creative staff members to leave or stop contributing.
• Insecurity often drives leaders' need to have all the answers
• Dominating meetings with answers tells staff "you're here to execute my brilliance"
• When people don't feel invited to contribute, they check out mentally
• Creative staff either leave or stay and become silent
• Leaders should invite input by asking "what do you think the next step should be?"
• Empowerment isn't just a buzzword—it's a discipline
• Innovation dries up when the leader is the only source of ideas
• Even Jesus asked more questions than gave answers
• Three shifts to make: ask more questions than give answers, affirm contributions publicly, rotate leadership
• If your team can't move without your brain, you're not leading—you're bottlenecking
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Every pastor wants to lead well, but if you're always the one with the answer, you're slowly silencing your team. Today, on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, I'm going to explore how needing to be the smartest person in the room can actually kill creativity and hinder your collaboration and weaken your church staff over time. Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes. I am one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and I'm your host right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast each and every weekday. If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. Ever heard that phrase? What if your need to be the expert is actually holding your church staff team back? Today, we're calling out a leadership trap that a lot of pastors fall into without even realizing it, and it might be one of the reasons why your team isn't thriving. Stick around. We're going to be breaking down this habit and talking about the most freeing move you might be able to make in the near future.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's be honest. We need to have the answer. A lot of times, that's just how we feel. We just feel like we're the ones we have to have the answer. That's not just about leadership. A lot of times, that feeling of always needing to be the person with the right answer can be a lot about insecurity as well. We fear looking unprepared, or we fear looking unworthy or unnecessary. But the truth is, when you dominate every meeting with answers, you're unintentionally communicating. Leading with answers you're unintentionally communicating. You're here to execute my brilliance. Real leaders don't need to be geniuses. They need to be more guides, all right. So if your staff is only echoing you, you're not building a team, you're building a mirror, right? So when people don't feel invited to contribute, they start to check out and they wait for the next brilliant idea from the lead pastor. Eventually, your creative people just leave or worse, they stay and they get silent. So it's really important that, as leaders, that we invite input, that we ask better questions and that we say things like what do you think the next step should be here? Don't give the answer immediately. Ask them the question what do you guys think? What do you gals think? What do you think should be the next step here? Maybe another way to put it is hey, if I wasn't here, what decision would you make? Okay, so empowerment. When you do that, empowerment isn't just a buzzword, it's a discipline. Okay, when you do that, empowerment isn't just a buzzword, it's a discipline.
Speaker 1:Okay, so as you look at how you present yourself and when it comes to innovation and getting people on your team to confide and speak up when you don't have all the answers, here's the ironic part. If you're the only source of ideas, if you're the only one that answers, if you're the only one that talks, that innovation is going to dry up and people get really tired of offering suggestions where they don't go anywhere. People will just shut down. If they offer some ideas and nobody ever, they just fall on deaf ears. They will eventually just stop giving ideas and eventually, if they stay on your team, they're going to stop thinking creatively. At all the most innovative church staff cultures though, they celebrate those bad ideas. No idea is a bad idea. They reward that risk and they ask who else wants to take a stab at this? What are your ideas here? Really important that you just have that diversity and that speaking up on your team, that it's not just always you.
Speaker 1:And this is something that we can learn from Scripture as well. If you remember back in Exodus with Jethro and Jethro's advice to Moses, what did Jethro tell Moses? He said if you try and do it all. If you try to be the only voice, he said what You're going to wear yourself out and that this work is just too heavy for you and you can't handle it alone. And God's design for leadership has never, ever, been a one-man show. Even Jesus asked more questions than he gave answers. If you look at scripture and the early church really thrived through that shared wisdom and the mutual submission and the spirit-led community. And if Jesus didn't need to be the only voice in the room and if anybody could be the only voice in the room, it could be Jesus, but if Jesus didn't need to be the only voice in the room, you really don't either.
Speaker 1:What are some shifts that you can make here, from just the person with all the answers, the answer giver, to the culture shaper? Okay, let me give you three shifts that I think you can make, and you can start this even today or whenever you have your next staff meeting or your next one-on-one meeting with people on your team, people on your staff. Okay, here's the first one, and try this and this may be difficult, particularly if you're the one with all the answers. Right, simple rule ask three times more questions in your next meeting than you give answers. Ask three times more questions than you give. I know you're going to want to give answers, but ask more questions and listen to the response. Number one you're going to learn more. And number two they might have a better idea than what your answer was going to be anyway. So that's the first one. Ask three times more questions.
Speaker 1:Number two affirm contributions publicly. That's a great insight. I wouldn't have ever thought of that. Contributions publicly that's a great insight. I wouldn't have ever thought of that. But thanks, that's awesome. Do that publicly, do it personally, do it privately, but also do it in a group setting when contributions are made. Encourage that and maybe just rotate leadership in your meetings. You don't have to be the point person at every meeting. Sometimes give the mic to others, let them run point.
Speaker 1:You step back and you think I can't step. I said you step back. You're not really stepping back, you're stepping maybe more aside than back. Okay, just enough to let others step up. Just enough so that you're not the only person, the only person in the room that has answers, and just so you're not the one that everybody looks to and thinks that they're the smartest person in the room.
Speaker 1:Here's the bottom line for today If your team cannot move forward without your brain, you're not leading, you're the bottleneck. Let me repeat that because I think it's really important. Here's the big takeaway If your team can't move without your brain, you're not leading, you're bottlenecking. Empowered staff just don't lighten your load. They're going to multiply your ministry, but you have to take the first step and allow them to have that input. You don't have to be the smartest person in the room. You really don't. Matter of fact, it's going to be better when you not step back but step aside and let other people share their input, share their ideas and share the leadership. That's it for today. I'd love to hear your comments and your feedback on this. You can reach out to me anytime. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom and I will be back here again on Monday for a brand new week of brand new episodes, brand new content right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.
