What's Going On?

Here's a short but dead-on post from Craig Groeschel the Swerve blog:

In some ways as a leader, what you don’t know matters as much as what you do know.

In ministry, many pastors want to know everything about what is going on. The problem with that concept should be obvious. To know everything means that you can’t have a lot going on.

It’s not uncommon for a pastor to delegate something to a trusted person, then expect to know all of the details about the progress. Although some communication is always valuable, the only thing the pastor really needs to know… is that the job is covered and will be done well.

One of the unrealistic expectations we seem to battle in our church is the expectation not only that the pastors should know everything, but that the leadership team (elder board) has to know everything, and approve everything. We all struggle to let go. And it seems there is a constant need for better communication. But we hurt ourselves, our growth, and our effectiveness when we consider it a bad thing that something was accomplished or is moving forward that we didn't know about in detail.

P.S. The next day, Craig followed up his post with this, which is likewise dead-on:

Instead of always knowing “what” is happening with a project, what we really need to know is “who” is covering the project. If we have the right “who,” we shouldn’t have to worry about the “what.”

If we have the wrong “who,” then we need to know the “what.” If you always need to know the “what,” you have one of two problems:

You are not an empowering leader.
You have the wrong “who.”

Either way, the problem needs to be fixed.