The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
Let Your Staff Shadow You (Here’s Why
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You want to develop leaders on your staff team. Don't just give them books or send them to comments. Let them watch you work. And today on the podcast, we're going to talk about the overlooking power of leadership shadowing in the church. You're going to learn how to turn your everyday leadership moments into training moments and multiply your leadership without burning out. Hi there, my name's Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders of over at Chemistrystaffing.com and your host here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast every weekday. What if your best leadership training tool wasn't a book or a conference or a policy document? What if it was you? The greatest ministry leadership lessons are often caught, not taught. And today that's what we're talking about. We're talking about how letting your staff shadow you might be just the most powerful thing that you could do to help build the next generation of leaders in your church. Leadership isn't just about what you say. You probably have strong opinions about leadership. Books, you might even teach staff classes or team members through content, but leadership development happens just as much in the car ride or in the coffee meeting or in the hallway debrief. It's your tone, it's your timing, it's your reactions. That's the real classroom. Let the people around you watch you work. Let them hear how you lead a hard conversation. Let them see how you prioritize, how you think, how you make decisions in real time. Why? It seems really simple, right? You're modeling your leadership. And you can do this with other staff members. It's right, it's according to your position. It's important to other staff members to be able to spend some time with you. But actually, like the waitress of the restaurant, they walk up and they've got somebody behind them, they say this person's training today. Shadowing can be really powerful. And not just with staff people. Maybe do it with some people that are just high capacity volunteers or people that you think have some great leadership potential. Because some of your leadership is going to rub off on them just through shadowing. So why don't we do this more? It seems like such a logical thing to do, mostly because we don't want it to be a distraction, right? They're busy, I'm not polished. They what in the world could they learn from me? They won't learn anything from watching me answer email. But here's the truth, okay? Leadership isn't always shiny, it's subtle. And what your staff sees in you every day will shape what they believe leadership looks like in the future. So bring them into kind of the unfiltered, bring them into the boring, bring them into the mundane, what you think is mundane, but they're going to find actually fascinating. That's where the trust forms, and that's where the real growth begins. So how do you make this happen? We said that it's it could be distracting and it can seem like it's just time consuming. It's the same thing with delegation. I could delegate, but it takes more time. I just do it myself. And it can be the same here. Why would I want to have somebody with me when it is they're going to hold me back? So how do you make it happen without adding more to your plate? You can spread it out, right? Invite a different staff member each week to kind of shadow you for a day, or even just a half a day. Start off low. And let them listen in for real, for real, on real conversations, where it's appropriate, obviously. But then afterwards, just debrief one-on-one afterwards. What surprised you? What would you have done differently? You can rotate these different people in and out so it becomes normal and not weird. And really, it may seem like it's just gonna drag you down, but really it's in most cases it's gonna be fun to have somebody around you so that you're not doing all of this in isolation. And if you rotate them in, it becomes it just becomes normal and not weird. It might be weird for the first couple of days, but after that you get used to it. Use the time to learn from them too, okay? All during your day. Ask about their take on things. It doesn't have to be a show, right? It may feel forced initially in that first couple hours, but try not to put on a show. It just has to be real. They just have to see what you do, how you react, how you respond, what your demeanor is. All of those kind of things can transfer from you to them. If you want to multiply leadership, don't start with curriculum, don't hand out a bunch of books, don't send people to tons of conferences, all those things are great. But you can start by being visible. Great leaders don't just lead for others, they lead with others. So here's the question for today. What's something you learned leadership-wise just by watching? And you can side note here, you can also watch really bad leaders and pick up some of those things too. Right? I'd love to hear from you, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. What's something you've learned in your leadership by watching, by having a mentor, by actually shadowing somebody? I'd love to hear from you. Podcast at chemistrystaffing.com. And if there's any way that I can help you or your church, reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. Love to start up a conversation if there's a way that I can help your church in any kind of healthy church staff initiatives. All right. Thanks so much. This is it for the week. I hope you have a great weekend praying for your Sunday services, your weekend services, and we'll we'll be right back here getting into the Christmas season. Yay! Right here on a healthy church staff.
