The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
We're all about helping create a healthy, positive, and spiritually positive environment for church staff members and leadership teams.
The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
Middle Seat Leadership: How to Lead from the Middle
In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, Todd Rhoades discusses the concept of 'middle seat leadership,' emphasizing the importance and unique role of leaders who aren't in top positions but still hold significant influence within a church. The episode provides strategies for effectively leading without direct authority, focusing on supporting senior leaders, collaborating with peers, and leading subordinates with integrity to build a healthy church culture.• Middle seat leadership involves carrying vision and responsibilities without direct authority.• Leaders in middle positions have significant influence and should use it wisely.• Avoid underestimating influence or overcompensating with control.• Support senior leaders with clarity and feedback to align vision and leadership.• Collaborate with peers instead of competing or gossiping.• Lead subordinates with transparency and encouragement.• Middle leaders play a crucial role in building and reinforcing church culture.
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Most of your team isn't sitting in the driver's seat. They're in the middle. Passenger seat, or maybe even you're sitting in the back seat. They're not the lead passenger. But they still carry weight and responsibility and influence. And today, on the podcast, we're going to talk about what it means to lead well when you're not in that first chair, when you're not in the driver's seat, when you're not calling all the shots. We're going to walk away, hopefully, today, with some practical strategies for you to help lead up, to help champion your peers, and to shepherd those under your care because the middle seat is not a limitation. You might think it is, but it's not. It's actually a very unique calling. Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes, and I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffing.com. And you're listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. So you're not the lead pastor, you're not the intern either. You're somewhere in between in the middle. You're still carrying vision and responsibilities and expectations with very little direct authority. Does that sound familiar? This is what we call middle seat leadership. And it might be actually the most important and overlooked seat in your church's leadership structure. So today we're going to talk about how to lead well when you're not in charge. All right, so just because you're not in the driver's seat or you're not the one kind of calling all the shots, you're not the chairman of the board, you're not the lead pastor, you still have influence and you need to use it wisely. You don't need a title to lead. In fact, your consistency and your humility and problem-solving ability carry more weight than what you actually think. Because here's the truth people are always watching how you respond, especially to conflict or to criticism or to change. And the truth is, middle leaders often underestimate their influence or they overcompensate with control. And you need to resist both. Let me repeat that. Okay, so how do you learn to lead up? Leaders above you need support and clarity and sometimes some honest feedback. So you need to observe what those higher on the totem pole than you are, your lead pastor, observe what your lead pastor or other senior leaders truly need and truly value. And then you can start to ask yourself, how can I make their vision more clear and their leadership more effective with the rule that I have? When you lead up with care and humility and courage, you will trust me on this, you will multiply your impact. Alright, my last point for today. You need to lead across and down with integrity, okay? Don't compete with your peers. You need to collaborate with your peers. Don't use your middle seat as a place to gossip or triangulate or build your own following. Those can be really strong temptations and really easy to fall to those temptations, but don't use your middle seat in those ways. Lead your direct reports. Maybe you're in the middle, but you still have people or volunteers that report to you. Lead those people with transparency and encouragement. And what you really want to try and do is model what you want the whole team to look like, even if you yourself are stuck or overlooked. Okay, so here's the bottom line for today. Here's my final thought for you for today. Middle seat leadership is really where culture is built at your church. It comes from the top down, it comes from the bottom up sometimes, but right in the middle, that's the sweet spot to where culture actually can be built. And you play an important role in that. The middle seat is where values are either reinforced or they quietly erode. So today, if you can try your best to be the person who makes your team healthier and stronger and more aligned, even if you're not the one holding the steering wheel. I would love to hear a comment for you today. Here's the discussion starter for today. What's one way that you're learning to lead from the middle? I'd love to hear from you. You can reach me at podcast at chemistry staffing.com. And if there's any way that I can help your church, I would love to be able to help your church. I specialize and have a real passion for helping churches and church staffs become healthy. So if there's any way I can do that, maybe it's a new staff hire. Maybe you've got a problem church staff member that you need to have a discussion about. I'd happy to do that. Compensation analysis, all those kind of things. I want to be a resource for you and your church. And maybe you don't need me now, but maybe next week or next month or next year. I would love to be that resource for you. So you can reach out to me anytime. Podcast at chemistry staffing.com. All right, that's it for today. We're here every weekday, Monday through Friday, right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Hope you'll join me again tomorrow.
