The Leadership Drop Podcast
This is a podcast for Pastors, leaders, and anyone who wants to grow to be all that God has called them to be.
The Leadership Drop Podcast
Amplifying Leadership through Mastering the Art of Delegation
Prepare to amplify your leadership prowess as we dissect the art of delegation and its transformational impact on leadership. Promise yourself this – by the end of this podcast episode, you'll have a fresh perspective on how to effectively delegate, enabling you to expand your leadership horizon. As we journey through this episode, we'll unravel the Dunbart number's relevance to delegation and how your brain can comfortably manage around 150 stable relationships.
Spiced with personal experiences and biblical perspectives on delegation, this episode will have you glued to your seat. Join me as I recount an eye-opening encounter that led me to realize leaders don't need to be omnipresent within their organizations. We'll also unpack strategies to eliminate, delegate, and automate tasks, granting you the freedom to focus on what truly matters. Engage with me as we highlight how trust, accepting imperfection, and follow-up are the unsung heroes of the delegation process. Let's not forget the tech world - we'll shine a spotlight on the benefits of streamlining processes and leveraging technology. Get set to become a dreamer and a delegator, ready to scale your organization to new heights!
Welcome to the Leadership Drop podcast. In each episode, pastor Jackie, along with selected guests from time to time, aimed to drop some leadership insights that are designed to help you thrive, whether you're leading a church, a business, a team, a family or simply yourself. So lean in, listen, laugh and learn as we drop some leadership truth, and watch out for that leadership mic drop moment. Let's go.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Leadership Drop podcast. We're so excited to share some lessons that we've learned over time about how to be the most effective leader that you can possibly be, whether that's leading a sports team or a church organization, a business, your family or simply yourself. And I want to talk about an issue of leadership that often goes overlooked but I think is probably one of the most important qualities any leader can possess it is the quality of being able to delegate. Well, I'm convinced that delegation is one of the things that separates Soso leaders with above average leaders. Now, I'm not saying I'm above average leader, but I will tell you this I have a PhD in delegation. I love to delegate stuff. Matter of fact, we're filming this first episode of the Leadership Drop podcast in our new studio here, and I walked in here and I'm like hey, this is pretty nice. I've never seen any of this stuff. Somebody else did everything and they did a great job. I was over to our El Mirage campus we're about to launch our fourth campus here in Arizona and I took a tour today and I'm like wow, somebody's doing some really good work and we have dreamed it, but there are others that are faithfully doing it, and that is what delegation does. It allows you to expand the bandwidth of your abilities and your leadership. So I want to talk to you for just a few moments today about how to expand the bandwidth of your leadership capabilities, and it's all done through delegation.
Speaker 2:I read some time ago about the Dunbart number. You said what's the Dunbart number? Well, it's a number that was first proposed in the 1990s by British anthropologist Robin Dunbart, who found a correlation between the primate brain size and the average social group size that they associated with. The average brain size extrapolating out of a human resulted in finding out that the average brain size of a human, extrapolating out the results from the primates, is about 150 stable relationships. That means that any given time, you have the ability to have 150 stable relationships. Some people have extra capabilities in this and go a little bit further. Some people not as much. And then, at the same time, I was reading LifeWay Research, and LifeWay Research said that the average size of Southern Baptist churches and that's the tribe that we associate with primarily, but I think it's true the average size of churches across North America is 145 people. Yeah, this proves what you've thought all along. The brain size of the average pastor is slightly smaller than the rest of the population. Most people can have 150 relationships, but the average church only has 145 people. More seriously, proving that most of our churches are organized in such a way that the pastor, the senior lead pastor, is the be all, end, all of the organization, because it reaches a ceiling, a lid, if you will, because these are the average number of people that you can have relationships with.
Speaker 2:I'm guessing that your church is perfectly organized for its current size, and let's not just talk about churches I'm guessing your business is currently organized for its current size and most likely it's not scalable. Here's a key thought, maybe a leadership drop mic moment. Your church may not be growing, not because you're not doing enough. Think about this what if your church or organization or team isn't growing not because you're not doing enough, but because you're doing too much because it's not scalable? In the organization I lead, we're currently in a season of a renewed focus on delegation, challenging our leaders to be dreamers and delegators and less doers. So we're focusing on engagement, engaging leaders over attendance and all of these things. Remember, this is a church that will grow to the size many times of the pastor's personality if it's all about the pastor or your business will grow to the size of the business leader or the owner's capabilities if it's not delegated out.
Speaker 2:So I want to say two things to you in this brief podcast about delegation. Number one it is biblical. And number two it is best. Think with me first of all about how biblical delegation is. It's a great story in the Old Testament. Moses has led the children of Israel out of Egypt into the wilderness trying to get to the Promised Land, and he's leading thousands and thousands upon thousands of Israelites and they start complaining and they become a burden to him, and he's trying to do it all himself and his father-in-law comes to him. Now we love it when our father-in-laws give us advice, right, and yet this case, moses' father-in-law gave him some great advice. He said you're doing too much, you need to do less and you need to delegate more, and so you need to put leaders over different tribes and you need to lead the leaders, but you can't lead everybody at once.
Speaker 2:Fast forward to the New Testament. Jesus came onto the scene. And Jesus, what did Jesus do? His first order of business was to grab a group of leaders we call them the disciples, there were 12 of them and use them to do the work that he was called to do through them. They were the ones that distributed the loaves and the fish. They were the ones that picked up the leftovers afterwards. They were the ones that went in and found the donkey for the triumphant entry. They did all of these things and Jesus knew. Think about this. The sovereign God of the universe decided it was best, when he started his earthly ministry, to work and delegate his ministry through others. Fast forward even farther into the New Testament.
Speaker 2:The apostle Paul, when giving a structure for the organization called the church, says in Ephesians 4, 11 and 12 that he has given some to be apostles, prophets, yadda, yadda, yadda, and that our job as leaders is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Now, it's important that you hear the language there. Our job is not to do the work of the ministry, our job is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. We could almost say that our job is to delegate to the saints the work of the ministry. And so it might be that in your organization, team, church staff, whatever your case may be, that the reason you're not growing is not because you're doing, not doing enough. It could be because you're doing too much. It's all got to flow through you. So the first reason for delegation in any organization, especially the church and if you're listening to this in that context, especially the church, but any organization the first reason is it's biblical. The second reason it's best.
Speaker 2:I'm convinced that delegation is rocket fuel for you, your organization and your team. Think about it. It is best for you when you delegate efficiently. It allows you to minister and live effectively. Let me say that again when you delegate efficiently, it allows you to minister and to live effectively. It gets you in the zone, so to speak, the sweet spot of where you are using your giftedness to the optimal level.
Speaker 2:Try to figure out your sweet spot for just a few moments. It would help to ask for questions to try to determine what is the sweet spot of your life and your productivity. Question number one what things are you incompetent at doing? That's a long list for me and I shouldn't be doing things that I'm incompetent at. Question number two what things are you competent at but you just don't enjoy? I mean, there's lots of things that I can do but I don't really enjoy doing them. Number three what things are you quite good at but you don't have a passion for? I mean, it doesn't wake you up in the middle of the night, it doesn't burn in your bones. And number four what things do you excel at and that you love doing? I would say number four. The answer to number four is your sweet spot. It is the realm of your, what some people call your unique ability. I read some time ago that Frank Sinatra never moved pianos. I love that One of the greatest singers of all time but he never bothered to move a piano. Other people could do that. Stay in your lane and do what you are uniquely gifted to do.
Speaker 2:When you delegate well, it not only increases your effectiveness but it gives you the gift of time and balance back to your life. I hear pastors and business leaders and sports leaders and school leaders all the time talking about how busy they are. I want you to say it out loud with me. You don't have to do it all. You don't give yourself permission to delegate to other people so that you can take time to turn everything off and practice some self-help.
Speaker 2:Over the course of my ministry career, I've had three children. They've all played all the sports and I could probably count on one hand the number of sporting events that I missed for my kids. I just made it a priority. I pastor, now lead a church that has multiple campuses. I get to lead a network of churches here in the metro, and alongside that is a part of a national coaching network that helps to coach pastors and rescue churches. But I tell you, I still take pretty much every Friday and Saturday off. I hunt, I play golf, watch college football. You need that time to refresh and recharge and so when you delegate, it gives you more bandwidth, it gives you time to spend with your family. It's best for you. Secondly, I would say it's best for others.
Speaker 2:Here's what delegation will do in your organization it will lift the lid off of your organization and let the cream rise to the top. This should be easier in church life than in business life. But in both church and business, we need to remember that the bottom line for us is not to build projects and profit margins. Now, that's important. It's important that the church stays financially solid. It's even more important if you're a business owner that your business stays financially solvent. But in the end, the goal is not to build projects. In the end, the goal is to build people and our goal is not to build projects or profit margins. Our goal is to build people and nothing builds people up more than delegation to getting them involved in the journey, training them, preparing them to be all that God wants them to be in, whatever lane of work and life they live in.
Speaker 2:Back in college and in seminary I had to go through some classes that were required internships for practical ministry courses. One of my internships, I had to show up at a church's family life center and hand out roller skates to teenagers after school, as they had this roller skate rink in their church. I was learning by doing. Delegation is the internship or practical ministry course of your organization. They are learning by doing, and not only that it shows them, those in your organization, that there is a path to upward mobility in your organization and that it has a way of motivating people, at the same time telling people that you trust them, that you believe in them. Here's this task. I think you'd be great at it and then check back later. It is best for you, it is best for Others, is also best for the organization, the church team, family that you lead. Here's what delegation does. It unlocks the potential of teams and organizations because it gives the right people the freedom to do the right things. Let me give you two examples of that.
Speaker 2:Years ago, when I was much younger, I used to play full court basketball pickup game. That we had every Monday, wednesday, friday at 5.30 am at the gym near where I lived. One of the guys that came and was a part of that pickup basketball game every Monday, wednesday and Friday was a guy by the name of Mark Jackson. Now some of you will recognize in the sporting world the name Mark Jackson, former player, I think, and coach for the Golden State Warriors. Well, that's not the same Mark Jackson. He's a totally different guy.
Speaker 2:This Mark Jackson was a part-time pastor in a church in a town that I lived in and he came up to me after one of the games and he said hey, jackie, some of your people down at their church are asking me about buying a refrigerator, a freezer or something like that from me for some ministry you guys are doing. What do you know about that? And I remember vividly it's like 6.30 in the morning. I remember saying man, I don't know anything about it, I have not got a clue. And Mark asked me that morning. He said, jackie, how can you be the pastor of a church where you don't know everything that's going on? And in a moment of clarity and I was much younger at the time, but in a moment of clarity I said, man, I really don't want to be the pastor of a church that's small enough for me to know everything that's going on. It lifts the lid of your organization, the potential of your teams.
Speaker 2:Years ago the first worship pastor we had here at our church was a very dear friend, still a dear friend of mine, nathan Haskins. Great guy, humble servant, wonderful worship leader, and he stayed with us for six or seven years, moved back several years ago to be near his family in Missouri. But I remember when Nathan came to kind of audition and interview for the job we had a fellowship after church. Years ago we were back in our first generation of buildings Church was much smaller at the time and we were packing up after the dinner and Nathan everybody saw him. He was picking up these chairs and stacking them, rolling these tables to their carts and, man, it became part of Nathan's folklore at our church. Look at that guy. He's such a faithful guy. He picks up the chairs and he helps, do just the dirty work, and that became part of his story. Well, I have my own folklore story that no one really knows about and it has just almost the opposite of Nathan's story. I remember the first time here at our church as we began to grow, that the first time that I left our church while the lights were still on and people were still there and activity was still going on and I forced myself to walk to my truck and drive away because I knew at the time for our church to grow, we're gonna have to give this ministry away and we're gonna have to entrust it to faithful people. And sure enough they were able to take care of things. They were able to actually turn the lights off and lock the doors and leave.
Speaker 2:But delegation does that. It lifts your organization's potential to more than just what you can do, to what everyone can do together. Because here's the deal if everything has to cross your desk to get done, only a few things will ever get done. To move your organization forward, you have to look for things to eliminate, to delegate or to automate. Now mark that down. You're gonna have to find ways of things in your schedule that you can just eliminate. I don't need to do that, and we as an organization may not even need to do that. Things that I can delegate, we still need to do them, I just don't need to do them. And things we can automate. In days, world technology allows us to do a lot of automation. I love, love, love.
Speaker 2:When people ask me stuff on Sunday at church and I honestly have to say I don't know. That's the honest answer. That's in a different area, that's a different team. I know the team leader, I trust them, but I don't know. So here's the end of this.
Speaker 2:The bottom line delegation is going to require a couple of things on your end to do it well. Number one is going to require trust. You're gonna have to trust the people You're delegating things to do and trust that they'll do them. Number two and this is the hard thing for us as leaders and it's really difficult for me you're gonna have to be okay with things being less than perfect. That doesn't mean that we lower the standards completely. It doesn't mean that we don't have an expectation of excellence, but we're gonna have to be okay with things being less than perfect.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you what's better than one person being a 10? Or is it better to have 20 people who are sevens on the scale of effectiveness? So you have to be okay with things being less than perfect. And then, thirdly, delegation does require follow-up. As the old saying goes trust but verify. Hey, listen, if you're going to expand the bandwidth of yourself as a leader, trust me when I tell you it's going to require you to learn to be a better delegator. It will expand your bandwidth, it'll give you more time to do the things that you love and spend more time with the people that you love. And so I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Leadership Drop podcast, and I hope you've found somewhere in this podcast one of those might drop moments, as we've talked about the subject of leadership.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Leadership Drop podcast. Be sure to like, subscribe and share. In case you missed it, here's our might drop moment.
Speaker 2:Because here's the deal If everything has to cross your desk to get done, only a few things will ever get done. To move your organization forward, you have to look for things to eliminate, to delegate or to automate. Now mark that down. You're going to have to find ways of things in your schedule that you can just eliminate. I don't need to do that and we as an organization may not even need to do that. Things that I can delegate, we still need to do them. I just don't need to do them. And things we can automate. In today's world, technology allows us to do a lot of automation. I love, love, love when people ask me stuff on Sunday at church and I honestly have to say I don't know. That's the honest answer. That's in a different area, that's a different team. I know the team leader, I trust them, but I don't know MUSIC.