Hitting a plateau can be exasperating in your organization. Whether it is hitting a plateau of sales as a business or a plateau of attendance if you are a church, finding yourself in the middle of a plateau can cause great anxiety and panic for you as a leader. All you see in front of you is a flat path.
That is usually when you realize you have hit a plateau, isn’t it? When you are in the middle of it and you come to the realization that you haven’t lost any elevation, but your upward trajectory has hit a flatline.
As leaders, we immediately begin to search for the cause. We evaluate our customers, we look at our marketing, we question our services and their quality, we troubleshoot our systems and processes, and we even look at our staff and teams to see how they can improve in order to get back into a growth trend. Often times, though, we look all around us to discover the cause of the plateau, but we seldom, if ever, look in the mirror and begin to evaluate ourselves. If I am being honest, it makes logical sense to look at every other element of our organization first because if we are playing the percentages, there is a greater chance the issue lies somewhere other than with ourselves. Afterall, we are just one person against all the systems, employees, customers, and processes. It is probable it is something other than us.
What I have found is that though as leaders we are just one person in our organization, we are the only person that affects every aspect of the organization. We are the one person that can act as a catalyst for great things or we can be the lid that holds our teams back. Whole companies and churches can live on a plateau simply because of the one person sitting in the lead chair.
One of the biggest ways we as leaders are the lids that keep our organizations on the plateau is by not properly utilizing everything our staff members bring to the table. I am going to assume that your team is the best you can hire with the budget you have, otherwise, the issue is not your ability to delegate but your ability to hire well, which is a completely different conversation. Assuming you have hired well, the question you need to ask is, “Am I giving my team the freedom to spread their wings, be creative, make decisions, and explore the possibilities of their potential without holding them back?”
Every great leader, at some point, is faced with the temptation to control those who follow them. “To control” is not the same as “to lead”, however, and we have all been under leaders who use various devices of control that we have inadvertently picked up and apply in our own contexts of leadership. Without realizing it we stifle the potential of our teams, we hold them back from exploration and creating, and we limit the organization from becoming all that it could be.
As leaders, we are susceptible to being controlling and we often don’t realize that is what we have done until we are walking along the plateau. Instead of looking at everything else around you, start by looking inside.
Evaluate your leadership over the last 6 months to a year. Have you been concerned about something, is there a big project on the horizon that is consuming you, is there a client you are trying to take care of and your anxiety is causing you to be too involved with the details, in the middle of things you shouldn’t be, and building boundaries around your team in the process? If so, take a step back, delegate effectively, and begin to make adjustments to allow the members of your staff to spread their wings, explore possibilities, and infuse growth back into your organization.
Field Notes 