What are you using as a grid for making decisions? What guides your decision-making process?
The TrainChurchLeaders.com Practicum suggested that leaders should be using the Church’s purpose to love God and love people as a grid through which decisions are made and not merely their personalities, feelings, or circumstances. A previous post on this site, Scripture Related to Decision-Making, showed how God’s Word guides us in getting beyond ourselves when making decisions.
Are you arriving at God’s desires, God’s way, or are your decisions and your decision-making process driven by personality?
Understanding how our personalities might be swaying our decisions and the process used in making them can help us take a step back and recalculate where needed.
I will be referring to Hippocrates’ temperament as well as the DISC. For help on understanding these personality types, go to: Ministry Profile: How Your Personality Fits
We will see how our personalities can put us at one end of the spectrum that could cause us to somewhat unbalanced in our approach and could even cause us to miss out on what God wants us to do.
- Are you very analytical? (melancholic, C in DISC)
If so, your decisions will tend to be well thought through but you could slow down the process by too much deliberation and frustrate others because of it if not careful.
- Are you more intuitive, going by feelings or circumstances? (sanguine, I in DISC)
If so, you might not be getting all the facts in making decisions and miss the mark.
- Do you tend to make rash decisions? (choleric, D in DISC)
If so, your decisions might at times be a bit premature, sometimes what God wants eventually, but not always, and you could ignore the wise input of others if not careful.
- Do you tend to put off making decisions? (phlegmatic, S in DISC)
If so, your procrastination could make decisions a bit late for averting unnecessary problems or more work than necessary.
- Do you tend to look for creative alternatives? (melancholic, C in DISC)
If so, you can bring some fresh ideas to the table but must learn to release those ideas to God and not sulk if they are not used.
- Do you tend to look for what works in the moment? (sanguine, I in DISC)
If so, you might be missing the big picture effect of your decisions.
- Do you tend to look for what conforms to what you’ve done in the past? (phlegmatic, S in DISC)
If so, you might get stuck in traditions and miss out of where God wants to take you.
- Do you tend to want to take risks? (choleric, D in DISC)
If so, you might experience new and innovative ideas but need to make sure it’s a faith risk guided by God.
- Do you tend to want to play it safe? (phlegmatic, S in DISC)
If so, you might avoid conflict and danger but you might also be failing to exercise faith in God’s ability to do the extraordinary.
- Do you tend to aggressively stand up for your decisions, debating any who oppose you? (choleric, D in DISC)
If so, you might get your way but in the process alienate people.
- Do you tend to quickly cave in to those who oppose you? (phlegmatic, S in DISC)
If so, you might be putting people’s desires above God’s in your compromising.
Just as we’ve noted in previous posts about how our spiritual gifts can affect the way we approach various ministry or leadership efforts, so can our personalities have these same kinds of effects. We concluded that networking with those with the various leadership gifts can help bring balance and health into a situation. Likewise, we need to acknowledge how our personalities might be negatively or positively affecting the decision-making process and seek the help of others who can help keep us accountable by challenging us to ask the right questions. A post on the TrainChurchLeaders.com Practicum, Decision-Making Questions for Lining Up, provided some questions for leaders to stop and ask themselves.