It is hard to sit down and honestly evaluate yourself on how you are doing as a follower of Christ, as a leader, and even just as a person. I know that I tend to be either overly harsh on myself or more lenient than I actually deserve. However, I am fortunate enough to be living with nine other guys, in very close quarters, who are loving enough to tell me how it is. About a month ago, I asked these guys to take a survey on my leadership skills so that I could find the reality of where I was at. After going through their responses, I found that I had actually been doing a lot of things right. I also found that I had been doing many things wrong. I took their feedback to the drawing board and began to figure out how to improve my leadership skills.
For me, communication has always been a two sided device: there is talking and there is listening. I am great at the first and terrible at the latter; therefore I am not a good communicator. I have been aware of my disability in this area for years, yet I have had little people instruct me on it. I am so thankful that my teammates don’t beat around the bush as they were the ones who gave me direction to fix this listening problem. So, as a result of this feedback, I was inspired to become more intentional in conversation. I am trying to listen not to respond, but to actually hear and comprehend what the other person is saying. I have a big tree to climb, but I have made some progress towards the top, limb by limb.
Through this assessment, I have learned the value in sitting down with other Christians to evaluate each other and grow closer to God. After all, this is how the body of Christ builds itself up in love (Ephesians 4:16).
