Finding Your Voice: How God Has Wired You to Lead and Communicate

Inspiring leaders—the ones whose words stay with you—tend to have a good sense of their own communication styles. Whether they’re preaching a sermon, leading a prayer, or just chatting with a colleague, they lean into the ways God has gifted them, and the result is powerful.

You’ve probably thought more about how to change your voice than about how to find it. But working with the way God wired you instead of against it will change the way you communicate. As you read the following guidelines for finding your voice, apply it to your context, whatever it is. This isn’t just for pastors. The place God has put you matters, and so does the voice He’s given you.

Identify the Leadership Voices You Most Admire

Toddlers learn to communicate by mimicking. Adult communication styles develop in a similar way. Everyone you encounter—like the mentor who models having hard conversations, or the friend who tells great stories—influences your communication style in some way. Can you identify those people in your own life? What is it that draws you to them? What have you learned from them? And what did they do to get to where they are? A leadership adage says, “A lot of people want to do what I do, but not to do what I did.” It’s a good reminder to say yes to small opportunities to cultivate your voice.

Be careful to learn from them without trying to be them. Trying to adopt someone else’s voice is like David trying to wear Saul’s armor: it’s awkward and burdensome. Be careful, too, not to let admiration become idolatry. If you idolize an imperfect human, you might begin emulating their weaknesses. Be discerning about which aspects of a person’s leadership style you learn from.

Finally, don’t forget to thank them for changing your life, even if you’ve just learned from them from afar. Gratitude and acknowledgment are becoming rare. Be the one leper out of the ten who returned to thank Jesus for healing him.

• Pinpoint what you admire most
• Find out what they did in order to do what they do
• Learn from them without trying to be them
• Admire them without idolizing them
• Thank them

Diversify the Voices You Learn From

Our tendency is to listen mostly to just a few people that we really love and respect. But because God gifts His people with such diverse perspectives and experiences, you’ll miss a lot of opportunities for growth if you only listen to voices in your “camp.”

Seek out, listen to, and learn from people with different styles, ages, races, genders, professions, and tribes. Avoid recency bias—you can learn a lot from people who lived centuries ago. If you’re a subject matter expert, make sure you thoroughly understand the opposing perspective. Listening to a wide variety of voices will make you more well-rounded and keep you from sounding just like everyone else in your camp.

• Learn from different voices:
  • Ages
  • Races
  • Genders
  • Professions
  • Tribes
  • Time periods

Embrace Who You Are and Who You Aren’t

Figuring out how God has wired you requires close, careful attention. Others can help you, but they can’t do it for you. Inventories, like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or the Enneagram, are a good place to start. They can’t tell you everything—but they can tell you some things. What can you learn about the way you make decisions and how you experience the world? Remember, you’re trying to figure out who you actually are, not who you would like to be.

You can also learn a lot about yourself by paying attention to what energizes you or drains you. How you feel about a social event where you have to interact with a lot of strangers says a lot about you! Some people will leave with their cup full and feeling energized while others will be exhausted and need a day to recover. Some people love giving talks on the fly, while others need careful preparation to feel ready. You can make yourself do a lot of things that don’t come easily, but noticing what comes naturally will give you insight into your giftings.

Open yourself up to a few close, trustworthy friends who are allowed to tell you things you might not want to hear. Wounds from a friend can be trusted. What can they see that you can’t? Where do they see you investing your time in an area that really isn’t your gifting? What gifts do they see you overlooking?

Consider keeping a running inventory that you add to whenever you have a great day—not a special occasion, just you finding a good flow in your normal context. Write down what you did that day, how you felt, what you thought, and what was going on. Every six months or so, review your list for common denominators. What do they tell you about where you flourish?

• Inventories can’t tell you everything, but they can tell you something
• Pay attention to what energizes you
• Pay attention to what drains you
• Pay attention to what makes you anxious
• Pay attention to what comes naturally
• Open yourself up to a few truthtellers

Find Your Message

As followers of Jesus, our message is the Gospel, and that should always be what we use our voices to communicate. But within that larger umbrella, God gives us unique burdens or passions. If you’ve struggled with a particular sin or walked through a difficult situation, you might long to help others who are facing the same thing. You might feel a connection to a certain people group or care much more about an issue than other people do. What could you talk about for hours on end? What do you find yourself dreaming about? In a bookstore, which section do you end up in? What kind of questions do you ask people?

This is another area where close friends may be able to speak into your life. People often don’t know what they know. Because something is important or obvious to you, you might assume it’s the same way for everyone else. It can take an outside perspective to identify your areas of special knowledge or gifting.

• What do you carry a unique burden or passion for?

Address Your Insecurities

Everyone has insecurities, even the best leaders and communicators. Those insecurities will influence your voice and how you use it. If you’re a pastor whose greatest fear is mediocrity, you might choose a showy story for your sermon instead of an illustration that makes your point more effectively but doesn’t get as many laughs. If you’re terrified of hurting people’s feelings, you might stay silent when you have an opportunity to share truth with someone. You’re constantly making little decisions as you communicate, and if you haven’t addressed your insecurities, they will drive your decisions. Those little decisions—the choice to make a witty quip, drop a name, or post something—shape your voice. If you aren’t careful, you can become a very entertaining communicator who isn’t actually good at sharing the Gospel.

Every heart has a question it longs to answer: Am I significant? Am I lovable? Am I accepted? Only Jesus can ultimately satisfy our souls, but if we’re not careful, we can try to use our leadership roles to answer our heart’s questions. That’s when our insecurities show through most clearly.

Cultivate Your Character

People will celebrate you for your talent and cancel you for a lack of character. The danger zone is when your talent outpaces your character. If people give you a platform because of what you can do, but your life doesn’t match what you’re teaching, your voice will lose its impact. If you don’t cultivate what’s internal, it will become apparent at some point. People won’t follow someone they can’t trust. Everyone wants the spotlight, but when the spotlight is on you, it shows you for who you really are.

If this is you, you might need to step out of ministry for a season so the Lord can break you down and build you back up in such a way that your talent and character match.

• People will celebrate you for your talent and cancel you for a lack of character
• Don’t let your talent outpace your character
• Nothing will mute your voice like cracks in your character

Avoid:

• Self-promotion. David knew he was going to be the king, but right after his anointing, he was back working in the field. He had opportunities to take the throne, like when he was alone with Saul in the cave, but he waited patiently for years for God's timing. You won’t have to reach and grasp for the place God wants for you. Unfortunately, self-promotion is a communication norm today, especially on social media. We’ve been desensitized to shows of pride that would have set off alarm bells in the past. This is a wake-up call.

• Conformity. This goes along with the principle of learning from people without trying to be them. You’ll be tempted to change so others will value you more. But the more you are who you think other people need you to be, the less you’ll be who God made you to be. You don’t have to dress and talk the same way everyone else does. Sometimes the most valuable member of a team is the one who disrupts the status quo and provides a new perspective.

• Comparison. Social comparison theory says that we gauge our value by looking at the people around us. We need other people to fail in order to feel successful. This kind of thinking doesn’t have any place in Kingdom work. Ministry is not a competition. We’re all on the same team! Comparison happens when you take your eyes off God’s calling for you. What has God called you to do? Be faithful to do that. It might not be enough for some people, and that’s okay. Remind yourself of this truth often. Celebrate with others when they succeed.
  Hearing people sing “Saul has killed his thousands, David his tens of thousands” infuriated Saul. But his son Jonathan helped put David on the throne, even though it meant he didn’t get it himself. Jonathan's life was a success because he was faithful to what God called him to do. Will you be Saul or Jonathan to the Davids in your life?

• Passion without wisdom or tact. Words are as powerful as fire, and the way that you use them can either be destructive and demoralizing or encouraging and empowering. It’s great to be passionate about things that matter, but zeal needs to be constrained by wisdom and tact or it will be a devastating wildfire.

Your turn. Journal your answers to the following reflection questions. Pray and ask your friends for their thoughts.

1. Which people have most shaped your idea of how a successful or faithful leadership voice sounds? Why?
2. Whose voices have you imitated the most as you’ve developed your own? How do you mimic them?
3. What are the primary ways you lead through your voice currently?
4. What do you believe is the most effective way you communicate?
5. What is your greatest insecurity about your leadership voice?