Leader's Insight: Under-Communicating

In several earlier columns, I pointed out the three legs of trust: character, competence, and communication. All three are necessary to gain and maintain credibility as a ministry leader. But of the three, communication often seems to be the least recognized as a component of trust.

By communication, I don’t mean the communication of God’s Word from the pulpit. I’m talking about leadership communication, the kind of communication that can help or hinder your church’s attempts to row together in the same direction. Whether at the visionary, missional, strategic, or tactical levels, good communication is crucial to ministry effectiveness and to your personal credibility as a leader.

Years ago, when my husband and I signed the contract to purchase our first house, our real estate agent told us, “Congratulations, you’re halfway there!” We didn’t realize that agreeing on a price was only the first step of the process. Next, we had to find a lender, arrange for an inspection and appraisal, work through the entire loan process, and secure insurance, not to mention manage all the documentation needed to actually close on the house.

In the same way, many leaders fail to realize that reaching a decision on an issue is not the end of the process, but the beginning. The communication (or lack thereof) that follows is just as important as the decision itself.

How can you tell whether your communication is effective? There are several indicators that can help you evaluate this element of your leadership.

The Telephone Game. Can your hearers communicate your message back to you? More important, can they communicate it accurately? Like the old game of “telephone,” the message can easily become garbled as it passes through another person’s frame of reference. Does what they hear match with what you are trying to say?

The Pass-Along Factor. Do you hear people communicating the message to others? I’ll never forget the first time I heard someone in our church communicate the vision to someone else, not just repeating words they had heard in a sermon or read in a bulletin, but passionately sharing what our church is about. The church’s vision had become their vision.

Action Steps. Do you see communication translate into action? In a church, vision often breaks down at the implementation stage because of poorly communicated action steps and roles. Whether at the visionary level or the tactical level, do people’s actions demonstrate that they got the message? For example, if you change the date of a meeting but everyone shows up on the original day, those actions point to a communicator problem, not a listener problem.

Leveling the Stool

Improved communication will help those you lead better appreciate your character and competence, and thereby build trust. Here are some principles to help you become more effective at communication as a ministry leader.

Any time you need to communicate something, ask yourself: “Who else needs to know?” Many great visions, ideas, and decisions have been killed during the communication process because the word does not reach the right people in a timely manner. In addition, failure to communicate adequately throughout an organization can result in mistrust of the leaders as the congregation begins to wonder if the leaders are trying to hide something.
Always try to over-communicate. Remember that you are always less clear than you think you are. If you think you’ve done a good job of communicating, you’ve probably just scratched the surface. Also, remember that you may need multiple “passes” to ensure adequate coverage with your message. At my church, many folks are gone two to four weeks out of any given eight-week period because of school, work, and vacation schedules. In this type of setting, it’s important, for example, that we follow up a “Vision Sunday” with additional communication to those who may have been absent. And something as important as vision needs to be re-communicated regularly throughout the year. A corollary to this principle is that the larger the group, the longer it generally takes to get a message across. Like the wave cheer at a stadium, communication ripples through an organization and takes time to get across a large group.
People always inject their own emotion into an issue. You may say one thing, but people will assign an emotional timbre to your words. Help avoid this pitfall by sticking to facts, and giving as many of them as possible. If you’re the one trying to communicate emotion or urgency, keep the central issue clear and free from your own “tangles.” That’s hard to do when you’ve invested so much blood, sweat, and tears into something, but it projects clarity and objectivity to the people under your leadership.
Use multiple methods to communicate a unified message. Whether it’s a variety of media (brochure, bulletin, blog), a variety of settings (worship service, small group, Sunday school, personal conversation), or a variety of people (pastors, staff, lay leaders, parishioners), your message will be more likely to reach its target if you utilize multiple delivery methods.
Communicate even when you don’t think there’s anything to communicate. If people don’t hear anything, they will draw their own conclusions, maybe even the conclusion that you aren’t doing your job. Even if nothing is happening, build trust in your leadership by communicating that to people. For example, building campaigns are subject to countless slowdowns with permits, zoning, fundraising, etc. Explain the overall process, then keep people informed of whose court the ball is in. When I’m stuck in a traffic jam on the interstate, I’m much more content to wait (usually) if I know the reason for the slowdown.
Use communication methods that are most effective in your ministry setting. At our church and many others, the primary methods of communication are e-mail and e-zines. In other churches, the weekly paper bulletin or a phone tree are the best ways to get the word out. In one church we served, leaders decided to reschedule the all-church annual meeting, and communicated that decision by taping handwritten paper signs to the doors of the church building. That approach may work at a neighborhood church in a smaller community, but not in a larger, regional church where members live a half-hour’s drive or more from the facility.
Allow people adequate time to process information. You may have been wrestling with a key decision for months with your leadership team, and perhaps privately for months before that. It’s easy to think that everyone else is as immersed in the issue as you are. Guess what: they’re not. Give your congregation ample time to digest the information and its implications, especially if it requires a decision or commitment on their part.

Trust is perhaps the most valuable leadership commodity. One of the ways your church needs and deserves for you to guard that trust is through good communication.

Angie Ward is a leadership coach, pastor’s spouse, and associate director of the Innovative Church Community in Durham, North Carolina.

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