a late night

This is a guest post by my friend David Leuschner, the Executive Director of the Technical Arts at Gateway Church in the Dallas area.

It was late. I walked into my house and sat down with a lot on my mind. As I sat there and thought about the day’s events, some good, some bad, a thought came to my mind: Am I leading my team well?

One person I have read a lot about and continue to learn from is Steve Jobs. He once said, “The most important thing is a person.”  His passion on this statement created some of the most dominant products and product following we’ve seen. More importantly, that statement is the key to answering the question, “Am I leading my team well?”

So, how does focusing on people show you’re leading your team well?

Change the mentality of what your team is doing.

Your production team isn’t just behind the scenes. They are the scene.

Like a worship leader on the platform playing a keyboard, techs are playing an instrument that mixes everything together to create the environment that ultimately sets the environment of worship and hopefully leads people to Christ.

Without this vital group, the spoken word would not reach satellite venues, recordings or the masses.

Technical artists are fulfilling the Great Commission.  If your team can grasp this, it’ll change the way they act and interact with each other.

If I do this will everything run perfectly?

No, tough situations arise. Leading well means you’re ready to address these tough situations. You’re monitoring the health of the team and ready to help someone if they get hurt or out of line. Similar to a sports team, you’re ready to bench people who don’t live up to the values of the team.

As I drifted off to sleep, I wrote down one last item. We have to hold ourselves accountable to be the best we can be, but our team is made up of people. They make good decisions and bad decisions. We can’t expect perfection, but we can expect excellence.

As Max DePree says,

Our first obligation as a leader is to define reality, the last is to say thank you, in between, be a servant.

Live that and you’re leading your team well.

Goodnight.

This is just an excerpt of David’s thoughts on leading well. Check out www.audiovideolighting.com for a more complete version of his perspective on what it means to lead a production team in the local church well.

Connect with David on Twitter: @davidleuschner