Today I want to talk to you about three ways to encourage and motivate your people toward development. If you are living out Paul’s charge in Ephesians 4 to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, then you are developing people in your church and in your ministry. Three things must converge to best motivate them in order for them to grow and develop in their roles. Let’s take a look.
This framework is adapted from Daniel Pink’s book Drive. And it’s all about the underlying things that drive people. The first component is purpose. In the church, we should know this really well: we have one purpose – to make disciples who make disciples – but your people must understand that in the context of their role. They have to understand what they do has value and makes a difference. For example, directing traffic in a parking lot may not seem terribly important to our purpose at the surface, yet it is beyond helpful for a family that visits your church for the first time to find their spot and have an easy transition into your church. Communicating the purpose of each role and the context of that purpose is a big, big deal. How it contributes to your overall church’s mission is a big, big deal.
Next is autonomy. Nobody likes to be micromanaged and volunteers will flourish when they are able to make their own decisions. If you can’t give this over, if you can’t give autonomy, that’s likely your problem. You need to ask yourself: Have I trained these people properly? Is it a lack of communication or a lack of selection process in place that I don’t trust these people? Ultimately this is all about building trust and delegating responsibility accordingly so that you empower people in their role.
The third component of this is mastery. If someone understand their role and feels fully equipped and empowered in it, they are going to continue to improve their skills, but they should not do that alone. They enjoy serving in their role, but they are going to enjoy it even more. And you are going to speed up that mastery process even more by having them develop someone else alongside them.
When purpose and autonomy and mastery all converge, you find the sweet spot in the middle. That motivates people. People are going to serve in your church, they are going to be excited, and they are likely going to encourage others to serve as well.
Now that you understand the three components that motivate people in leadership development, what are you going to do about it?
Check out our FREE leadership frameworks on Ministry Grid for personal development and to develop your staff and ministry teams.
