Imagine the Olympics without judges.

What would the Olympics look like without judges? How necessary are they, really? Perhaps the athletes could do it themselves, in a diplomatic sort of way? They could get together and discuss each others’ routines and come up with the deserving winner. Would that work?

Maybe the coaching staff could discuss and delegate the medal winners? After all, coaches should be fairly trustworthy, shouldn’t they? Alternatively, they could always move to an electronic or text voting system in the stadium or for home viewers, like a televised talent contest.

I can just see the athletes trying to use hand signals for their represented countries as the camera scans through the finalists. They start mouthing their country name with fake smiles, like an American Idol contestant trying to pitch for votes during the final episodes.

Perhaps judges are the better idea!

What about us? As leaders, do we need judges? Going a bit deeper, who judges a spiritual leader? The quick response would be God does and that is true. God will definitely choose whether or not to lead a spiritual leader is headed for success or failure, by His standards.

What about our earthly judges? Are they needed? If so, how do they operate? Unlike God, they’re fallible and could potentially skew the objectives and outcomes. They might also have unhealthy motives, and therefore judge incorrectly.

The question is what are they actually judging?

One may resolve to look at the popularity of one’s messages, books, podcasts, etc. If that’s the case, it’s not a full picture of the leader. In fact, that’s pretty fleeting since they won’t know who the spiritual leader is personally.

In that type of situation, the judge becomes more like a fan making a vote on a competition of skills, or a critic making an assessment of a narrow margin of abilities. A healthy judgement is established by those who witness the entire character of the leader, including their motives and methods.

I believe staff teams make great judges.

This, of course, is for the leader who wants to be assessed and improve his or her leadership. (Because asking staff for input can be risky!) As a pastoral leader who works a lot with volunteer staff, the first judge is whether or not I have staff.

As Walter C. Wright notes in Relational Leadership,

“The choice of the follower is critical. Unless the follower chooses to follow there is no leadership…“

According to Walter, a leader is doing well if people are following them. However, the tangible scores on how a leader is doing matter as well. If there were an actual scorecard which a judge would complete on a specific area of leadership, what would the score be?

I started to wonder, can a spiritual leader get this kind of specific report? How can a leader ensure that each staff member will be completely honest? I figured out a way.

I created an anonymous comment card.

For those of you who don’t know my background, I started in the Hospitality & Tourism Industry before I started my ministry career. For a hotel, the comment card has long been a great resource to give management valuable guest information and insight on whether or not the guests are being served well.

A few years ago, I decided to match a leadership survey with the hotel comment card and give one to each of my staff members. The goal was to obtain accurate scores on how I was doing as a leader. I specifically told them that I did not want them to include their names.

By issuing this comment care in an anonymous fashion, I could ensure I was receiving their true thoughts and opinions. Much like the hotel comment card, I asked well-structured questions that addressed particular areas of leadership, but I also left a fair amount of space for additional comments.

It was a choice to be judged.

If you’re in a position of leadership and you don’t have an anonymous way for your staff to give you information, you’re missing out. Sometimes our titles and positions as leaders make us unapproachable. And it’s not that we’re unapproachable people, or that we have weak staff.

Our teams simply need to be asked for information in a way that feels comfortable. The benefit is that once you put this into practice, you will receive many tough comments. You’ll get the truth of what your staff are thinking and feeling.

Some of them are quite harsh!

Nevertheless, I have found that most staff are willing to come clean about what they wrote after they’ve submitted the comment card. Without any prompting whatsoever! My estimation is that once they’ve formulated their thoughts into the comment card, they knew the cat was out of the bag (so to speak).

Once they put it down on paper, it motivated them toward reconciliation over the related issue. They were then empowered to articulate their words, face the situation and address it in a positive manner. These are the situations that prove to me that my staff make great judges!

Join the Conversation, Leave Your Thoughts

• Would you ever use an anonymous comment card with the people you lead?
• Would you ever ask your staff to judge your abilities?
• Would you be comfortable with your staff judging your character?