How to Build a Healthy Team: Care, Clarity and Accountability

Key takeaways

• You are already on a team. Parent, fast food worker or business owner, you lead someone, so you are a coach whether you like it or not.
• Care comes first. When people know their leader cares for them, they give more than the job asks.
• Communication should end in clarity. Say it, check what was heard, and make sure each person knows their role and their season.
• Culture is built on purpose. It happens by design and not by default, and it has to be repeated and lived by the leader.
• Accountability protects the team. Avoiding hard conversations lets toxic behavior spread.
• Character outlasts talent. Insecurity, ego and doing everything yourself are the quiet bottlenecks.

Everyone is already on a team

Guest host Pastor Sammy opened this episode of the Beyond the Letter podcast with a wide view of teamwork. A stay-at-home parent has a squad, he said, and so does someone working in a fast food restaurant or a billionaire. You may be the coach, the star player or the sixth man, but you are in some form of team.

His starting idea was that talent will get you there, teams will keep you there, and healthy teams multiply impact. He pictured Nick Fury assembling the Avengers: how do you take strong-willed people who lead themselves and turn them into one team?

To get the conversation moving, he read from two coaches. John Wooden said it is amazing how much can be accomplished if no one cares who gets the credit, which Sammy summed up as credit killing more teams than conflict. Phil Jackson said good teams become great when members trust each other enough to surrender the me for the we.

What made their best teams great

Sammy asked each pastor at the table to name the greatest team they had been part of. Pastor Alan chose his junior-year high school baseball team, a group of friends who had played together since they were eight or ten. They went 32-0 and then lost 1-0 in the first round of the playoffs to a pitcher headed to Stanford. Alan still calls it the greatest year of his life. There was accountability and an expectation of excellence, he said, and there was also grace when someone made an error.

Another pastor pointed to last year's VBS. Everyone owned an area, so no single person carried it, and one team member never even saw one whole area all week because it ran well without them. Sammy described the effect this way: they did not feel like they were renting the vision of VBS.

Aaron played for a coach who won a thousand games over twenty-five years. He took a charge from a much bigger player, ended the game with a concussion and left in an ambulance, and the coach showed up at the hospital to ask if he was okay. Looking back, Aaron said, "I think it was a level of care that the coach brought to the team." That care came before the culture of man-to-man defense the coach built.

Sammy offered his own examples from early campus ministry: small teams on university campuses, sleeping on dorm floors and passing out thousands of flyers. What marked it, he said, was collaboration, which his group defines as different gifts plus equal sacrifice.

A healthy team starts with a healthy coach

The group kept returning to the leader. One pastor said a leader who is anxious or carrying old hurts will pass that on, and that if you are always late, your team will be late too. Sammy agreed and put it in a line he often uses: "we might teach what we know, but we reproduce who we are."

Alan looked at Jesus as the model. He admitted that in his early twenties he cared mostly about getting the mission done, sometimes at the expense of kindness. Jesus, he noted, stayed close to the people he led, spoke differently to Pharisees, disciples and crowds, and took Peter, James and John to both the transfiguration and the garden. Alan said he used to want people to see only his highs. One practical habit that helped him was asking the people he leads what it is like on the other side of him.

Communication that ends in clarity

Sammy borrowed a line he repeats to himself: "communication isn't what you say, it's what people hear." He suggested asking a trusted person what they hear when you speak, since people read your mood and body language before you say a word. Communication, he said, should be frequent, honest and open to feedback.

Knowing your people matters too. Sammy said Wooden could get in Bill Walton's face and Walton would lean in, but Kareem would shut down, so Wooden pulled Kareem aside and asked him what he was seeing. Managing treats everyone the same, one pastor added, while leadership treats everyone differently.

Another pastor said communication should always lead to clarity, and the group kept coming back to the phrase "clarity is kindness." People who know their role can sacrifice for it. A person in the wrong role ends up frustrated, and a person in the wrong season can burn out. Alan was grateful for the ushers, greeters and set-up crews who serve without the spotlight, and said he notices the parking team first when he visits another church.

Culture, then accountability

Sammy passed along notes from a conference speaker whose name he could not recall: culture happens by design and not by default, it has to be repeated, and it is what we do and why we do it. The speaker described three levels of culture: I know it because I can see it, I could teach it, and I will defend it. Leadership happens at that third level.

Alan added that culture also comes from the leader's convictions, and it will not catch on if the leader does not live it. If you ask people to pray for thirty minutes and you do not pray, he said, it feels like something to do instead of something to be part of. One pastor said that for Christians, Christ has to be at the center of the culture.

Sammy described the order as communication, then clarity, then accountability. Accountability applies when things go well and when they do not. He warned that leaders cannot be afraid of conflict or hard conversations, because allowing toxic behavior lets it take over the team.

What stops healthy teams

Sammy named a few bottlenecks: poor communication, valuing talent over character, and doing everything yourself. He told of a stretch of preaching seventeen days straight, after which he passed out for about thirty hours. He suspected a lack of trust underneath it, and he asked whether he could give people seventy percent and let them grow.

Another pastor said a lack of care is the first line of defense that fails, and that people who say a problem came out of nowhere should ask how long they have not cared. Others pointed to undefined roles, using the Memphis Grizzlies as an example.

One pastor said nothing kills more teams than insecurity: "pride comes before the fall, but insecurity will keep you on the ground." It breeds jealousy and makes it hard to celebrate a teammate. He tied it to identity and the way we see God as Father. The same pastor warned about character: "don't let your gifting get you in doors that your character can't keep you in."

Sammy summed up with a line he likes: your ego is not your amigo. He offered questions for any leader. Does everything flow through me? Do I need yes men and yes women around me? Do I need to be the smartest person in every room?

What this means for you

Whether you lead a family, a shift, a business or a ministry, you are shaping a team. A good place to start is to ask God to show you where you are the bottleneck, then talk with people who know you well. Sammy cautioned that feedback works best inside a real relationship.

The group also left a simple checklist. One pastor, drawing on his youth ministry days, said a good coach does five things, which spell COACH: correct, observe, affirm, confess and help. Sammy added that the best investment is often raising up your own leaders from the ground up, and he looks for people who are faithful, available and teachable.