Leadership On Tap
Stanford University did a study a while back to see how people communicate. They divided people into 2 sections… guessers and tappers. The tappers job was to tap out common songs and the guessers were to guess what song they were tapping. When asked before the study, the tappers said that they believed the guessers would get about 1/2 of the songs correct just by hearing the tap. At the end of the study, guessers got around 2 % of the songs right. For us in the church, this can be applied at an extremely practical level. The vision and the passion we communicate with those we lead is often just tapping.
While we hear and see the entire “song” and vision in our heads, the people following us are hearing “tap, tap, tap.” As a result, they aren’t seeing the big picture and aren’t following the vision.
One of the easiest ways to try to lead is by tapping. To tell people what to do. To correct them and dictate what they do next. Doing that, though, makes it all about the leader and not about the people or the vision.
The church needs leaders who are willing to play the song long enough, loud enough, and often enough so that followers and those that are on board with them can sing the song themselves. That’s the way Jesus did it, that’s the way he’d still do it.
Categories: Church Leadership, Church Planting, Church Staff, Church Stuff, Craveable Church, Leadership, Small City Church, Vision Casting
Leave a Reply