Do you need to motivate your team? If you find the members of your ministry team have a heart for serving but seem to be moving through sludge, then you may have a motivation issue.
As pastors, we often misunderstand behaviors like apathy, laziness, or even rebellion as character flaws in our staff. Though this may be true, there may be something else going on.
It’s possible you’re dealing with a motivation problem, and it is time to rethink your approach to motivating your team. I have an incredible tool you can use in four powerful steps.
If you want to powerfully motivate your ministry team, you need to use the StrengthsFinder assessment tool by
- Giving the Strengths Assessment
- Identifying Core Motivations
- Developing a Team Motivation Strategy
- Developing an Individual Motivation Strategy.
Jesus Powerfully Motivates The Crowd
We are all familiar with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5-7, Jesus delivers this incredible sermon where he addresses the gathering crowd. In the sermon, he covers a variety of topics with one theme: how to live as citizens of the Kingdom of God. Scripture tells us that Jesus began by speaking to his disciples (Mt. 5:1-2). Before long, a multitude had gathered to hear Jesus’ teachings (Mt 7:28-29).
In a crowd that size, you are going to have a wide variety of personality types motivated by different things. Even among the twelve disciples, there were large personality differences, meaning there were very different core motivations among them. So, how did Jesus motivate so powerfully as he spoke to this large group of people?
In Matthew 5:12, we see Jesus motivating the crowd through reward. “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Jesus uses the motivation of survival. He told the crowd, “For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown in to hell.”
Later on in Matthew 5, Jesus uses the motivation of belonging to teach the crowd to love one another. In verses 44-45 he says, “But I say to you, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven.”
The point here is that Jesus understood the key to powerfully motivating a group of people is to tap into a variety of motivations at once. If we are only using one core motivation as we lead, then we are likely missing key members of the group, and risk relying on hurtful motivational styles such as guilt, fear, and embarrassment. Jesus used none of these motivations.
Why Motivate Your Team Powerfully
As pastors and ministry leaders, most of what we do boils down to how we motivate people. Whether it is our sermons, our teachings, our personal interactions, or how we handle conflict, we are motivating people toward action. If you aren’t motivating people to action, then you are not leading them.
In our context, if you want to have a highly effective ministry team, you have to understand how to properly motivate them. Properly motivating them will maximize their levels of effectiveness. Properly motivating a team needs to happen at the collective level as well as at the individual level, which is why you need a strategy for each.
It is easy to fall into the trap of motivating your team the way you want to be motivated, even though you know that each member of our team is motivated differently. If I am motivated by a need to prove myself, then I believe everyone on my team feels the same way, so I try to motivate them from that perspective. However, I may fail to realize that a member of my team is actually motivated by a deep need for meaningful relationships.
When I understand the individual motivations of everyone on the team and use that as a filter in my communication, then I set them on a path to improve performance, enhance their well-being, boost personal growth, deepen their sense of purpose, and increase their morale.
From a team perspective, when we motivate our teams powerfully, we gain several valuable benefits for the church community as a whole. When we motivate powerfully, we
- Put human resources into action
- Improve levels of efficiency in team members
- Pave the way to the achievement of ministry goals
- Build strong, lasting relationships
- Enjoy team stability
And don’t forget, when you have a team that is motivated properly and enjoying the benefits I just listed, then you are able to enjoy your dream life in ministry where you get to pastor a growing church and live a healthy personal life.
How to Motivate Your Team Powerfully
Motivating your team powerfully is much easier than most leaders think. It is a matter of constant implementation, which is worth the upfront work, and laying down foundation.
Give Strengths Assessment
Motivating your team members begins with understanding them. Most of us didn’t spend time working for the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) learning how to profile people. Instead, we rely on our own observations, conversations, and relational interactions. Despite utilizing these valuable tools, people shade the trust about themselves by being guarded and shading the truth about themselves. Even the best of us. This is why I encourage pastors to use an assessment tool that will cut through the noise and shorten the learning curve of understanding team members.
The assessment tool of choice for me is the CliftonStrengths Assessment. This tool takes a positive approach, which is why this is where I start with assessment tools. Its foundation is based on the fact that everyone is gifted with talents that will become strengths. Understanding an individual’s top 5 strengths will reveal their core motivations, and provide you with the information you need to add value to your team members as they serve your faith community.
Giving the assessment is simple and you don’t need to pay a huge fee to have someone evaluate the results for you and your team. In fact, the assessment costs the same as a book…because that is exactly what it is.
You can go on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or any other local bookstore and find a brand new copy of the book for about $20. Inside the book, you will find a code that you can use to take the assessment. If you have 5 staff members, you can gain incredible insight about your team, as well as equip them, for about $100.
Once everyone has taken the assessment, you can collect each individual’s top 5 strengths and core motivations.
Identify Core Motivations
Once equipped with the core motivations of each team member, you have a greater level of understanding of them. More so than after working with them for years.
Having these core motivations can now shape the way you interact with each individual. For instance, let’s assume your youth pastor’s #1 strength is Achiever. This means that his core motivation is to achieve something tangible every day. What this means for you is, when you give him projects, events, or partner with him on projects, you have to give him an opportunity to achieve something each day along the way. If his days are spent making progress without a tangible accomplishment, he will go home at the end of the day feeling like he failed, or he will stay longer hours than he should to get to a point where he accomplishes something tangible.
By understanding how each team member is motivated according to their top strengths, you can monitor their daily satisfaction with their position and responsibilities, At the same time, you can begin to build a strategy of how you are going to be intentional about how you motivate your team collectively and individually.
Develop Team Motivation Strategy
You have everyone’s top strengths and have identified their core motivations as individuals. Now, build a strategy of motivation for the whole team.
First identify the motivations shared by your team members”. Where are the overlaps? It is possible that everyone on your team has a core motivation they all share. If this is the case, then when you are motivating your team collectively, this shared motivation becomes the baseline that you use.
If your team is split into two or three core motivations, then find the common ground between those motivations and use it to help your team move forward together. Once you establish that common ground, you will begin to see two primary results. First, your team’s morale will go up because they are being asked to work within the boundaries of what they are already good at and love to do. Second, they will be far more productive and efficient.
As the pastor, your job becomes easier because you can stop trying to convince people to do things. Instead, you are wrapping what needs to be done in a package that your team will love to open. It appeals to them at a very core level.
Develop Individual Motivation Strategy
You now have a team motivation strategy that will help you immensely. Next, you need to develop an individual motivation strategy. Leaders who understand how to nuance their approach to their followers always enjoy greater success.
Knowing the individual strengths of each member will allow you to a motivation strategy. You will know how you will communicate with them, assign tasks to them, and reward them. As leaders, we need to be more nuanced than leaders even did 10 years ago. Especially when you lead a team of less than ten, your followers expect a more personalized approach. When leaders tailor their approach to individuals, it boosts loyalty, increases relational capital, and adds immense value to each individual.
By creating a motivation strategy for each person, you will begin speaking their language. Each time you assign tasks, you will empower them through motivation.
Conclusion
A leader who is not able to motivate their teams are dead in the water. Either the team is out of harmony and going in various directions, which leaves the church in upheaval and disunity. Or, there is a lack of urgency and responsibility in the approach to ministry, which leads to stagnation.
By using the CliftonStrengths Assessment, you can motivate your team powerfully by maximizing who they are at a core level. You will add value to them and their ministries, but also increase the effectiveness of your own leadership.