Sticky Teams
by Larry Osborne
Rating: 8 of 10
Larry Osborn suggests that unity of the leadership team is the most fundamental leadership task that a pastor has to accomplish. To this end he gives the church leader a very practical resource for how to develop a unified and thriving church leadership team.
There are many practical suggestions I found helpful in this book, but one that really “stuck” to me was the difference between lobbying and continuing education. Osborn points out that if there is not an ongoing continuing education program for a leadership team, then any educational pieces given in the moment of decision-making will come across as lobbying and are likely to be received with skepticism. To accomplish this kind of continuing education, he suggests that a leadership team needs to meet more often, perhaps twice a month, with one meeting being devoted entirely to continuing education.
This vision for two meetings a month has helped give my own leadership of our church’s Team Leaders meetings considerable clarity. I inherited a team that met twice each month, but I wasn’t sure what to do with two meetings a month. Now we are spending one of those meetings in continuing education and one of those meeting doing business. We are already beginning to see a new future and increased morale for SCC as helpful change naturally flows from those times of learning.
If your leadership team isn’t very unified or if they are and you want to take them to the next level, reading this book together might be your first step toward regular continuing education.
Currently Reading/Listening
The Busy Family’s Guide to Spirituality by David Robinson
Parenting with Purpose by Oddbjorn Evenshaug, Dag Hallen, and Roland Martinson
At the Still Point compiled by Sarah Arthur
Fascinate by Sally Hogshead
Direct Hit: Aiming Real Leaders at the Mission Field by Paul Borden
Shaped By God’s Heart: The Passion and Practices of Missional Churches by Milfred Minatrea
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