As a Lead Pastor in a multiple staff church setting for more than two decades, I had the privilege of working alongside a number of other people. One of the most important jobs I had was forging people who had unique interests, abilities, and personality quirks, into a team … a group that had a sense of unity and cohesion about it.
I had some staff members whose gifts and abilities were off the charts, but whose ability to be a team player was frustrating. On the same hand, I had some staff members whose ministry skills were more average, but whose attitude and demeanor made them exceptional team players to where they were an absolute delight to partner with.
Over the years, I’ve thought a lot about what makes someone an exceptional team player. And while there are undoubtedly more characteristics than these, I’ve come up with five that seem to stand out and be consistently present in the lives of those I’ve regarded as being exceptional and first-class.
1. Exceptional team players own their mistakes. The fact is, all of us make mistakes and come up short from time to time. We get distracted and don’t follow through in the time frame we promised, or we run into obstacles that prevent us from doing our best work. But exceptional team players own it when they come up short. While they may acknowledge circumstances or issues beyond their control, they don’t place blame there. At the end of the day, they assume responsibility. They don’t point fingers … or cast blame … or wallow in self-pity.
I had a staff member who, most every time there was a conflict, it was a case of “they misunderstood” or “they got the wrong impression.” It was never a case of “I didn’t communicate as well as I should have” or “Perhaps I did something unwittingly that contributed to the situation.” (S)he was perpetually the victim and never the responsible party. Part of being an exceptional team player is taking responsibility for your part in the conflict and being teachable. The moment you start pointing fingers is the moment people view you as someone who resists or lacks accountability. And when people view you this way you’re always going to struggle with engendering their trust, making a true sense of partnership elusive.
Closely related to this is a second characteristic …
2. Exceptional team players can admit it when they’re wrong. They have a knack for being able to understand the other person’s viewpoint and track with their reasoning, whether they agree with it or not. They are open-minded towards new information and changing parameters. They are not so locked into their mindset to where any point that challenges their beliefs is automatically viewed as something that needs to be shot down. And they don’t always have to be right.
Again—I recall a staff member who, whenever there was a point of discussion, it always felt like (s)he couldn’t modify her position—that (s)he had to be right and it was everyone else on the team’s job to adapt or adjust. I never got the sense (s)he saw the bigger picture and realized, “You know, perhaps I should flex a little bit here so he/she can better accomplish his/her ministry objectives.”
There’s a phenomenon in psychology known as the Dunning-Kruger effect which states that some people possess a blind spot that causes them to overestimate their own knowledge or ability, particularly in areas where they have little to no experience—i.e., they don’t know what they don’t know and assume they’re far better at something than they actually are. If you’ve ever seen the movie Florence Foster Jenkins, you’ve observed this reality in relation to the lead character’s ability to sing; she fashioned herself as talented and gifted when, in fact, she was dreadful. Similarly, staff members who possessed this shortcoming would fall into this classification—they’d fashion themselves as being exceptional team players and are unable to see their stubborn tendency to shut down dialogue and not really consider the ideas or opinions of others because of to their need to be right.
3. Exceptional team players respond to conflict and dissension in a mature and controlled manner. In any group enterprise, there’s going to be periodic tension and conflict. Much of it is healthy, as it forces us to think creatively and perhaps arrive at a better solution than any of us could arrive at individually. But the key to doing that is dealing with an issue that is potentially explosive or volatile in a controlled and composed manner. The moment excessively charged emotion enters the picture, the ability to extract something positive from the conflict typically leaves the room.
Obviously, all of us get angry from time to time. There are things in life that should make us angry. But for some people, anger and aggression is their go-to reaction whenever things aren’t going their way. When they feel like they don’t have as much control over a situation as they’d like, anger and aggression are deployed to help them secure their position. And it inevitably cripples the team dynamic.
4. Exceptional team players have empathy, and it’s their repository of empathy that makes them able to understand other people’s points of view whether they agree with them or not. But I’ve had some staff members who carried themselves like they couldn’t believe anyone could actually disagree with them and see things differently than they did—that those people must be crazy. Granted—all of us are selfish from time to time. But it’s one thing to be periodically selfish; it’s another to be so wrapped up in our goals and pursuits that anyone who disagrees or sees things differently than we do is perceived as being unnecessarily adversarial and antagonistic. Exceptional team players have an ability to enter into the other person’s situation in order to more fully understand their point of view.
It was a psychologist named Edwin Friedman who popularized the concept of differentiation—namely, the ability of a person to disagree with someone else while still maintaining a cordial and collegial relationship with them. He labeled it as an indispensable quality of effective leadership. To effectively differentiate, you must be able to truly hear and understand the other party. One of the reasons unproductive team players typically struggle so much with differentiation is that their lack of empathy prevents them from entering in so they can hear and understand the other person.
5. Exceptional team players demonstrate a spirit of humility. I was talking a month or so ago to a good friend who serves on staff at a local church. The church has gone through a change in leadership recently, and the new pastor is very different from his predecessor—the one that hired him. When I asked him what the issue was, he said, “It’s like he thinks I’m dumb and have nothing of insight or value to offer. When we come together as a team, it’s as if he believes he’s the smartest person in the room. He processes very quickly and, once he reaches a conclusion, he’s locked on and there’s nothing I can say that will cause him to re-evaluate or reconsider. There’s not just a feeling of being a true partner in ministry.”
One of the things I appreciated about exceptional team members is that, when they offered an opinion, it had the air of, “Here’s my best thinking on the matter, but I realize I could be misperceiving something or not factoring in some dimension that needs to be considered.” They gave me input they deemed worthwhile and important, but it came without an obligation to have it shape, or serve as the primary factor in, the decision. In other words, they were humble enough to realize that other people might perceive something they overlooked. And they were also, typically, confident enough in their own abilities to where they were not afraid of being overshadowed.
My guess is, if you’ve been a part of a team, you’ve developed some additional characteristics and qualities that are necessary to be an effective team member. But—if a person can bring these five attitudinal qualities to the table and couple it with a reasonable level of competence alongside a teachable spirit, the partnership can be really enjoyable and gratifying.