Recently at work I’ve taken a couple “tests” to find out a little bit more about myself – how I’m wired up, what my strengths are, and what areas I’m not so strong in. Both of these tests confirmed what I already knew, but still added some helpful insight. During graduate school I took a number of personality profiles and tests which all gave insight into how I’m wired up. It was a great experience for me, because it helped me become more self aware.
One of the things I like best about revisiting some of these tools for self awareness, though, is that this time everyone on staff is doing it. We’ve all used the same couple tools to give us insight into our strengths and weaknesses, and we’re all reviewing them to see if they’ve given an accurate assessment. But we’re doing more than that. We’ve been asked to identify some key areas about our personalities, our strengths, our weaknesses, our working styles, etc., that other people we work with need to know. You see, it’s one thing for me to know how I’m wired up and how that will affect the way I work, but if I never share that with others, especially those who are wired very differently from me, then we could have a potential train wreck at some point.
Gaining insight into ourselves is critically important, but it shouldn’t stop there. We need to ensure that those close to us, our families and co-workers and friends gain a better understanding of us. This just provides for better, more honest, and effective communication. It also alerts us to things we need to be careful of when we’re around different people. For example, I’m a very highly energetic and relational personal. So much so that when I walk into the room, some of my more reserved and introspective friends need a nap just from looking at me. Being aware of this helps me remember to tone it down a bit so I don’t exhaust them. I also know that I can be a bit impulsive, so I need to slow down and listen to the objective advice from some of my more cautious friends.
But that’s the difficult part – identifying what I need to do with that self awareness. It’s not enough to know my strengths and weaknesses. It’s not enough for me to share my strengths and weaknesses. It’s not even enough for me to also know others’ strengths and weaknesses. I need to think through how those different personality types, how different giftedness, how the different ways we’re wired up will merge and clash and gel. I need to examine how I impact the people around me just from being me, and how they impact me just from being who they are. And then we need to acknowledge that God has wired each of us up differently from one another for different roles and purposes.
This is part of the growing process. This self evaluation takes a little effort. Sometimes the tools that help (I recommend the Strengths Finder 2.0 which I was recently made aware of) take a little money. And sometimes involving the feedback of others takes a lot of humility. But it’s worth it. Think of what it would look like to talk through each person’s strengths and weaknesses with the group in a gentle, respectful, humble, honoring way to assist each person in becoming more comfortable with who they are in Christ, and to create deeper understanding of differences and respect for one another. I think this starts with the leader, and I think it starts with some personal reflection on our leadership. So, I’ve included just a few questions for you to ponder in your personal reflection this week:
What aspects of leading the group are most natural for you? Why?
In what areas might you struggle?
How will evaluation help you in both your strong and weak areas?
What aspect of leading a group have you seen another do well that you would like to emulate?
How can you involve group members in the evaluation of your leadership? How can this be beneficial?
