Chris Marshall Resources – Page 80 – Ask the Pastor

On a Mission–Literally!

Hi Everyone! As I mentioned yesterday, New Life’s Mission is to share, grow and live the new life of Jesus Christ with the world–one person at a time. I’ll be out of the country for the next two weeks serving on a mission in Cambodia as a way of setting a leadership example in fulfilling that mission. As Bill Hybels always says: speed of the leader, speed of the team, so I make it a point to take at least one of the country mission trip each year, where I can share, grow, and live the new life of Jesus with folks of another land.

Please, pray for God to use me to encourage the orphans with whom I’ll be investing time the first several days, and for wisdom when I have the opportunity to lead as a guest in that beautiful nation.

Here’s to leading better by living our mission–today!

On A Mission-Literally!

Hi Everyone! New Life’s Mission is to share, grow and live the new life of Jesus Christ with the world–one person at a time. I’ll be out of the country for the next two weeks serving on a mission in Cambodia as a way of setting a leadership example in fulfilling that mission. As Bill Hybels always says: speed of the leader, speed of the team, so I make it a point to take at least one of the country mission trip each year, where I can share, grow, and live the new life of Jesus with folks of another land.

Here’s to leading better by living our mission–today!

What Accountability Looks Like: Changing Over Time

As we conclude our focus on accountability, I wanted to remind everyone that overtime your accountability partnership will change. That’s true with all human relationships, since living things grow–or die when they aren’t nurtured. I don’t know of anyone who has had the same accountability partner for more than twenty years, as I have, but what I do know is that once you get to know each other, and get to trust each other the relationship changes. That’s a wonderful thing, because since healthy things grow and growing things change, the change is a sign of growth!

For Bill and I the first major change was that we went from a clear, defined structure to a more informal one. As I noted earlier in the week, when we first started we used specific books to give our time together structure. We found that over time we didn’t need that. Neither of us are detail-oriented men, so we have found over time that we don’t need the formality of a workbook, or even a weekly Bible study to keep us on track. Personality does play into this, if you and your accountability partner are more detail-oriented you may always want some type of specific format to ensure that your accountability relationship doesn’t turn into just a time of getting together as friends–unless you want it to change into that.

In addition to the change in the format or style of your relationship, over time as trust develops you will find yourself going to your accountability partner with both victories and defeats more easily. Particularly if you are a follower of Jesus, you may find it hard to “celebrate the wins,” as Bill and I call it, because it can seem like you are bragging. In addition, if you know that both you and your accountability partner have been struggling in an area, to say that you’ve had a victory can seem like you are rubbing it in his face. Bill and I have learned to rejoice with each other when we have a win, and in fact Bill’s win is mine and my win is his. You’ll know your accountability relationship has grown significantly when you get to this point.

Another change for us has been that at first we were careful to make sure that each of us had our “fair share” of the sharing time. Now there are days when nearly the entire agenda is Bill, and others when it is me. The reason for that is there are weeks when Bill’s plate has been particularly full, or he has experience a major victory or defeat and needs to talk about it and so do I. If there’s a week when we both need to go through more than the usual amount of stuff, we’ll extend our time. While we meet at a time that is before a mutual commitment so we really can’t go over, we have followed up with a phone call, or stayed late after our commitment.

Finally, the prayer component of our relationship used to be as formal as everything else. While there’s still a formal component to it, in that we always pray at the end of our time together, sometimes that prayer is not together. We commit to praying each other on our way home–and we do. We also pray for each other through the week. When we know the other is having a particularly challenging time, or an important appointment or event, we’ll send a text that simply says, “Praying.” or “Praying for you.”

I pray that you have taken this series of posts seriously, and have either committed to finding an accountability partner and developing an accountability relationship, or that you have committed to deepening your accountability partnership as a result. I remember John Maxwell saying, “Those who think it’s lonely at the top don’t truly understand leadership.” What a powerful statement. Leadership is not intended to be lived out in isolation. While every leader finds it necessary at times to make isolated decisions, or to lead in areas that are unpopular to the group being led, no leader has to lead alone. That is a conscious, and sometimes unconscious choice leaders make. I encourage you to go through your leadership life with at least one person challenging you and encouraging you as you go–your accountability partner.

Here’s to leading better, by leading with the partnership of an accountability relationship–today or as soon as you can!

What Accountability Looks Like: Asking Hard Questions

As we continue our focus leaders and accountability, we turn today to “Asking Hard Questions.” While having a structured approach to your accountability relationship is important, being willing to ask and respond to hard questions will determine whether you are actually holding one another accountable or just getting together as friends, Bible study partners or coworkers. While trust building is necessary at the beginning of every meaningful relationship, the sooner you are able to get to the point of asking each other hard questions, the more you will grow through the relationship.

For example, If you are in accountability for deepening your spiritual life, you need to give each other permission to ask whether you have read your Bible, prayed, and applied God’s truth in love in your everyday spheres of influence. This is a “basic level” hard question. It’s a hard question, because it calls you to be honest at the level of daily personal growth. If you committed to reading your Bible every day last week, and you only read it twice, then when the question is asked, you will have the option of telling the truth and admitting your failure in this area, or lying and being a failure in the who concept of accountability.

As your accountability partnership grows you will ask harder and harder questions. For example, in order to move from basic level hard questions to intermediate level hard questions, means moving from the level of activity and performance, to the level of character. You may ask each other, such questions as: Did you cut any corners, or cheat anyone this past week? A yes answer would mean you wasted your company’s time during working hours, or you didn’t invest your full attention with your children when you were talking, playing, or working with them in the past week, or you didn’t show up to your small group, or you didn’t engage if you did. Another question you might ask would be: Did you purposefully participate in any conversations intended to hurt another person’s standing in your company, peer group, family, etc…? You can see why this is a hard question. No one wants to answer yes to this one, but we can all find ourselves engaging in this kind of behavior if we’re not intentional about growing in our integrity on a daily basis.

The hardest question of all ought to be asked at the conclusion of your conversations: Did you lie to me today? While this is a catch all hard question, it ensures that we operate in the arena of honesty. Otherwise, we aren’t holding one another accountable. I know how difficult it is to tell the truth when we’ve messed up in any area of our lives, or the same one ever and over again, but if we don’t we will never grow out of the negative or sinful behavior that is keeping us stuck where we are.

I need to underline the truth we have mentioned a couple times already: trust is the basis for every human relationship, and we aren’t likely to respond to such hard questions in a completely honest manner until we trust our accountability partner to keep the information to himself or herself. The only way we can determine whether he or she will do that is to put ourselves out there and tell something that we have done that is not good. While that can seem brave to some of us and foolish to others, the truth is it is absolutely necessary, or we’re deceiving ourselves when we say we’re in accountability.

Having been in the same accountability relationship for more than twenty years it is easier to admit my shortcomings than it used to be, and to answer the hard questions truthfully, but at times the temptation still exists to respond in a less than honest manner. It’s simply a matter of persevering in the relationship and building on the trust each gives the other, until it becomes easier to tell the truth, even when the truth isn’t pretty. We know we have “arrived” in our accountability relationship when we can celebrate the victories of our partner and tell the times when we really messed up, and our partner responds with affirmation of the victories and correction and encouragement for the messes.

The bottom line is life is messy. The only way to overcome the messiness is to wade in and clean it up. My experience is that happens best in accountability relationships, because over time we help each other clean up the messes together, and we move to deeper levels of growth, productivity and maturity than we will ever do on our own. It all hinges on our willingness to ask and answer the hard questions our accountability partner asks with honesty and humility.

Here’s to leading better, by asking and answering the hard questions that will lead to growth in our lives–today and into the future!

What Accountability Looks Like: A Structured Approach

Yesterday we opened the topic of accountability for leaders. Today let’s focus on what it looks like to have a structured approach to an accountability relationship. While I’m more of a non-structured type of person by nature, I have found that at the start of any formal relationship it’s better to have structure. Over time the structure may relax, or it may always stay in place as a framework for effective accountability. After all, an accountability relationship will become a friendship over time, and your accountability partner may even become one of your best friends, but the purpose of the relationship is mutual growth through accountability.

The type of accountability relationship you’re developing will determine the type of structure that works best for you. For example, when my accountability and I started to meet our goal was to become more effective followers of Jesus as men, husbands, dads and through our work. While that was an ambitious emphasis, those roles overlap in everyday life. Because our goal was mainly growth and accountability in our spiritual lives, we used specific books designed for either Christian growth or accountability as the basis for our meetings. One of the books was titled Discipleship Essentials. The book contained twenty-four lessons designed to help the participant develop essential skills for living as a disciple of Jesus Christ. We worked our way through the lessons, and also asked each other specific questions of each other in each area of our development. (More on the types of questions we asked tomorrow.)

At times we also chose specific books of the Bible to read through and then discuss in our times together. This was not a Bible study per se. The goal was to glean and discuss the principles from the texts we read that would help us develop us men, husbands, dads and in our work. Sometimes we read the texts ahead of time and came prepared to share what we had learned. At other times we read the texts together and discussed them as we went. Once again, this was a specific type of accountability for the purpose we had decided.

You may have an accountability partner who helps you with spiritual growth, or it may be a matter of maintaining personal integrity, or work productivity. It’s important to establish the purpose of your accountability relationship and at the outset to have a structured approach for your times together. As mentioned above, over time the structure may relax or you may maintain it depending on your personalities and the effectiveness of your times together.

While talking about structure, one of the most important matters to establish is timing. Both how often you meet and how long you will meet each time needs to be established and honored. For example, if you are going to meet weekly for ninety minutes, then you’ll need to make every effort to carve out those ninety minutes every week. Over the more than twenty years Bill and I have met, we have not missed many weeks, and when we do it’s because of vacations, or unavoidable work or personal conflicts. Sometimes when we can’t meet on our established day, we’ll meet at another time during the week. In addition to making the weekly or bi-weekly meeting a priority, honoring the sixty, ninety or whatever number of minutes you establish for the meeting is also important. Don’t have an open-ended time frame for your meeting, particularly if you are a schedule-conscious person. It’s in everyone’s best interest to treat your accountability “appointment” as an appointment rather than as a casual get together. Flexibility is fine, but at first establishing a structured time slot and honoring will help your accountability relationship get established, and be something to which you look forward each week.

When Bill and I first started meeting we would purposely have some time to catch up on the events of the week, then turn to our study, then ask the established questions and then pray together. We didn’t have a printed schedule, but that was the schedule we had in our minds. It helped us to keep within our time frame and also to make sure we were holding one another accountable in the areas we had established. If this all seems too structured to you, you probably have a personality similar to mine. It seemed a bit artificial, and over time my time with Bill has become much more casual in the structure, while still covering the important aspects the structure established in our relationship. As we’ll see on Friday, every accountability relationship changes over time and the way you structure yours will be part of that change.

Here’s to leading better by establishing or maintaining an accountability relationship as a regular part of your life’s schedule–today or as soon as you can establish one!

Why Leaders Need Accountability

Today is Tuesday, my accountability day. Nearly Every Tuesday afternoon I meet with Bill, my accountability partner, to review how life has been going, and to focus on any areas of life where we have been struggling or purposing to do better. Accountability is at the heart of great leadership, because none of us has so much integrity that we can weather the storms of life alone. Bill and I have been meeting for more than twenty-five years. At first, I was mentoring him in the truths and actions of following Jesus. Over time it transitioned to a mutual accountability relationship. Bill knows where I struggle and where my victories are coming at any point in time. He has seen major breakthroughs in my life and he has also seen areas where I have worked and worked and worked without much visible progress at times.

You may be thinking, “Isn’t that a lot of information for another person to have about you?” Yes, it is. When I was a seminary student several decades ago, a number of the professors cautioned against making friends with the folks in the churches we served. They said it wouldn’t be wise for any of the parishioners to know too much about us, because it could interfere with our ability to lead. In addition, if they got upset they could tell the rest of the church members our “secrets.” I understand the concern and the cautions, but have rejected the concept from the beginning of my time as a church leader. Here’s why: anyone who watches me knows I don’t have all the spots on my dominoes. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. While Bill knows a lot of things about me that I wouldn’t want shared at a church dinner, no one would be really surprised to learn that Pastor Chris isn’t perfect. They see that every time I stand up to share a message with them.

The challenge with finding an accountability partner is the person has to have enough courage to tell you the truth, enough love to do it in a way that you know they are only telling you for your ultimate good, and enough discretion that you can work through matters you really don’t want to be shared at the water cooler, the church picnic, or anywhere for that matter. Trust is the basis of every relationship, and accountability relationships require a great deal of trust. That trust builds over time as each partner demonstrates the ability to keep a confidence, to be there when needed, and to know when we need a pat on the back and when we need a kick in the rear.

How do you find an accountability partner? My suggestion is that you look in a place where folks are already gathering for a positive purpose. What do I mean by that? You may find your accountability partner at your local place of worship, or at work or school, or in a community organization that exists to provide help and services to people or the community at large. What I’m saying is you probably won’t find you accountability partner at the local bar or casino. Certainly folks go to bars and casinos just to relax and have fun, but that isn’t generally the primary motivation. I’m not being judgmental, simply reminding us as leaders that an accountability partner is going to be someone who is committed to our mutual growth and development as people and leaders. Therefore, we want to find someone who has made those matters a priority.

If you’re still thinking that it’s too risky to “spill your guts” to another person, because you’ve tried it before and been burned in the process, I get it. Even the best accountability partner will let you down occasionally, especially if the relationship lasts for decades. In those moments you’ll have to decide whether the relationship is beneficial enough to offer forgiveness and then to rebuild trust from where the break occurred. Mark Twain once said, “If a cat jumps on a hot stove, it will never jump on a hot stove again. It will never jump on a cold stove either.” The point is clear: we are all going to get burned at one time or another. When we do in an accountability relationship, we can make a blanket decision never to get burned again, by never entering another accountability partnership, or we can reinvest in our accountability partner or find a new one.

So many times when it comes to matters that are as important as making certain we are held accountable for our growth and development as people and leaders, we “decide” to do nothing by default. We recognize it will take time and effort to develop a meaningful and mutually beneficial accountability relationship, so we just decide it isn’t worth it. Or we “intend” to find an accountability partner, but the intention never develops into action. Having experienced the manifold benefits of my accountability relationship with Bill for all these years, I know how vital it is to make the decision and then the commitment to be accountable. Without a doubt, if build had not been there over all these years, I would have made some serious mistakes, and all of my meaningful relationships would be less meaningful. Both of us have grown as men, husbands, dads, and leaders through holding each other accountable. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about what that looks like in much more practical terms.

Here’s to leading better by entering into or deepening our accountability relationships–today!

Casting Vision

I have often been told that one of the leader’s primary tasks is casting vision for the company, church, or organization. Casting vision is never a once and done activity because vision “leaks.” It’s easy to forget why we do what we do, and unless we remember why we’re doing what we’re doing we often tire of doing it and are prone to giving up on the task over time. In order to cast a vision, we must be clear about what the vision is ourselves and the vision must be worth pursuing in the first place. After all, if we have a clear vision that is not worth pursuing, the people in our organizations won’t be motivated, and even if we have a vision that could move mountains if people understood it, but it isn’t clear enough for people to understand, we won’t have many followers.

If we want to understand the crucial importance of having a clear vision and casting it effectively, we need turn no further than the ancient words of King Solomon of Israel: Without a vision, the people perish. The statement was made 3,000 years ago and reminds us that a nation, a business, a church or any significant organization will not continue for long without a clear, compelling vision. The greatest people movements in history have followed the development of clear, compelling visions that have been communicated effectively by great leaders.

So what is the movement for which you are seeking to cast vision? Is it the development of a product that will make people’s lives better physically, emotionally or spiritually? Is it the promotion of an idea such as freedom, or of an action such as learning? Until we are clear about what it is we are seeking to do and why, we will never be able to tell others why they ought to participate in the cause, but once we know what we’re seeking to do and why, we must communicate clearly to those we hope to influence to participate so they will not only join our cause or organization, but commit to accomplishing the vision over the long haul.

At New Life our vision (which we call our mission) is To share, grow and live the new life of Jesus Christ with the world–one person at a time! As you can see the key elements of the statement communicate what we are seeking to do: share, grow and live the new life of Jesus Christ, and our target audience is the whole world. We also recognize that in order to reach the whole world, we must reach one person at a time. The vision is so big–reaching the whole world–while at the same time broken down into a reasonable approach–one person at a time. You may be thinking, “Your statement doesn’t say anything about why you’re doing what you’re doing.” It doesn’t. When we cast the vision we always remind people that we do it, because the decisions we make now matter for eternity. That’s why we want to share, grow and live the new life of Jesus Christ with the world–one person at a time. What we do with Jesus Christ determines the course of our eternity.

You may or may not believe anything I wrote in the previous paragraph, but what I hope you see is the vision is clear, and has a compelling reason for being accomplished if you do believe the premise that the decisions we make now matter for eternity. As we cast this vision at New Life people are free to accept or reject it. We welcome questions from people as they are forming their decisions and commitments. We challenge folks to go all in with their commitment and provide biblical reasons for doing so. Since we are a Christian organization that trusts the teachings of the Bible as truth, we have a body of information that forms the basis for fulfilling our vision. In effect, we cast vision every time we share a message during our weekend worship services, because we show how the biblical passages impact what we do and why we do it.

The first step in casting vision then is to determine what it is you are attempting to do and why it matters. If you can’t answer those two basic realities–what you are doing and why–then you will never be able to cast vision effectively, because you don’t have a vision to cast. Once you have determined those two realities you will need to remind people of them regularly. How often? Daily isn’t too often. Absent a clear vision for life, people drift. While a small percentage of people seem to be naturally organized and ordered in their lives, the vast majority are waiting for someone to give them something to do and a reason to do it. Leaders see the what and the why clearly and help others to see them and join in the quest to accomplish them.

If you’re thinking, “Isn’t that manipulation? Seeking to get others to do what you want them to do?” It can be. True leadership is not manipulation, because true leadership pursues a vision that is not just in the best interest of the leader, but serves the “common good.” Businesses that seek only to make a profit, or churches that are seeking only to survive, or any organization that has a purely selfish reason for existing will ultimately be manipulating people whether intentionally or unintentionally, because the cause is not for the common good.

So, in order to cast vision, we must have a vision worth casting–a what and a why that matter. We must be clear in casting the vision, which means we have a body of information that forms the basis for our communication of the vision, and we must present it clearly. When we do those things people will understand our vision and be able to determine whether it’s worthy of their commitment. Once they do make a commitment to pursue the vision with us, our task of casting vision continues to be vital, because vision does leak, and we need to help those who are pursuing it with us to remember both what we’re doing and why over the long haul.

Here’s to leading better by developing a clear, compelling vision and communicating it effectively and regularly–today, and for a long time to come!

Leading When You Don’t Feel Like It

One of the greatest challenges I have faced over the years as a leader is leading in those times when I don’t feel like leading. You may have never come to that moment, but having been in some leadership capacity for more than three decades, I have found times come when I just don’t feel like leading. For me those times have been during discouraging times, during times of grief and loss, and during times when I’m simply wiped out from days and sometimes weeks of pushing without a break. We’ll devote a post to each of those kinds of times, because something tells me I’m not the only one who has experienced them and felt like giving up or at least taking a break from leadership during them.

Today, let’s address leading during discouraging times. Probably the single, longest discouraging time when it comes to leadership for me was the period from 2003-2008–yes it was a long time of discouragement. The time came when we moved our worship services from the small, comfortable church building in Ivywood to the massive (by comparison) auditorium at Knoch High School. We made the move because we had outgrown the tiny Ivywood property, and since our mission was to share the new life of Jesus Christ with the world–one person at a time, we knew we weren’t going to be able to reach more people even in our own community and region with the limitations we faced there. The leaders assumed we would lose some people in the transition, since it wasn’t common in our community for a church to meet in a school, and we already had a “church” property, but we saw fulfilling our mission as worth it. We were worshiping about 225 people per weekend back then, and I assumed we would lose about thirty people to the transition.

When we moved our attendance dropped immediately to about 170 people per weekend and then over the next year or so it dropped to a low of about 150. That meant during a two year period we lost 25% of our people, and we didn’t seem to be gaining many new people–the reason we had made the transition in the first place. During that extended period of time when we didn’t seem to be reaching new people, and many of our established folks were no longer with us, I became discouraged. At times, and those times were quite often, I felt like quitting. During that time I forced myself to remember one of the principles that has helped me countless times over the years: doing what feels good in the short run will not serve you well in the long run. Especially since I serve as the leader of a church, the tendency could be to lead from emotion or feelings first, because many times spiritual experience doesn’t feel good. The truth is many times obeying God does not feel good.

Many times over the years from 2003-2005 in particular, I found myself feeling discouraged, feeling like quitting, feeling that starting New Life had been my idea and not God’s idea. Have you ever been in such a situation? Have you ever felt for an extended period of time that the business, church or other organization you were (or are) leading wasn’t going to make it? During that time when the feelings of discouragement came, I looked at the facts. Sometimes that didn’t help. The metrics of the situation showed a failing cause on the surface: fewer people, fewer people trusting Jesus as Savior and Lord, fewer people being baptized… The folks who remained with us weren’t always as enthusiastic as they had been when New Life began. It was easy to find things about which to complain: we didn’t have a building to use during the week, so everything became more challenging. The auditorium was often cold, and the sound wasn’t great in addition to the problem of it seeming to be so massive with its 750 seats and only 150 of us sitting in them.

To be honest, all that meant I spent more than a little time wondering whether we would be around in a month or a year. I wondered what we had done wrong, and occasionally even whether the move had been a mistake. During that time two key realities kept me focused and moving forward through the discouragement: the mission of New Life and faith. I knew God wanted us to reach more people who didn’t know Jesus. I knew God wanted us to focus on becoming a church that would serve as many of those people as possible in our community and region in Jesus’ name. I knew New Life was going to become a church of influence over time, so I had to exercise faith. After all faith is the assurance of things we hope for, and the conviction of things we don’t yet see.

Faith is an easy truth to consider, and sometimes a difficult one to exercise and live in times of discouragement. Thankfully, faith is a spiritual gift as well as a component of every believer’s life, so I prayed for God to increase my faith and He did. Slowly, but surely, we experienced some victories in our life together. Some were small, such as when a new person or family would join us. Some were large, such as when we were able to purchase a twenty acre plot of land in 2005. Each victory showed us that God was with us and that He wanted New Life to exist. Those moments gave me the ability to press forward even though I often still didn’t feel like it.

As I look back on that extended period of discouragement today, I’m so grateful to God for His encouragement, and for the encouragement and perseverance of so many folks who also believed in New Life’s vision and stayed with us through those difficult years. As I noted in a previous post, if we think we’re leading but no one is following, we are only taking a walk. I thank God that a group of dedicated folks continued to follow my leadership as I followed Jesus during those discouraging times. I pray that you have some folks like that surrounding you when the discouraging times come in your life. I say when the discouraging times come, not if they come, because discouraging times come to all of us. Always remember during those times that feelings are a poor anchor. Continue to be guided by your mission, your core values, your culture and most of all by God. Then whatever the outcome you will be able to lead through discouragement.

Here’s to leading better by remaining anchored in what really matters during times of discouragement–today or the next time discouragement comes!

Your Culture Document

Yesterday I wrote about creating a leadership culture and at the end of that post, I mentioned that today, we would look at your culture document. First question: do you have a culture document, that is have you taken the time to think through and write down the elements of your work, church or even family culture that are too vital to leave to chance? A great place to start is with the three things you can control: your allegiances, your attitudes and your effort. New Life’s culture document makes it clear that we’re serving Jesus Christ, who we believe is the King of kings, and Lord of lords, so we’re quite serious about our ultimate allegiance. Your allegiance may be to your company, to your family, or whatever it is that tops your list.

When it comes to attitudes, the culture document is the place you make it clear what kind of attitudes are and aren’t acceptable. For example, our document makes it clear that we are not “hired hands,” that is we don’t have an attitude of punching the clock when it comes to our work. We believe that the Kingdom of God doesn’t fit in our job description, so we may have times when we’ll need to work through a schedule time off. In my case, I’m officiating at a funeral today, even though I’m on vacation this week. To me, I’m making the right choice, and I’ll take some time next week to make up for the off time I’m missing today. You may not have that kind of flexibility in your place of work, church or endeavor, but it’s important to decide what your attitude is toward getting the job done.

Another area where attitude is important is when it comes to whining. We have a no whining policy for New Life staff. If you receive a pay check you lose the opportunity to whine. That doesn’t mean you can’t be critical of a process or situation, only that dealing with it includes finding constructive approaches rather than whining. Again, you may have a different attitude toward negativity, but whatever it is, having something about it in your culture document will help assure that everyone’s on the same page. After all, it’s hard to stay on the same page unless there’s an actual page on which to stay!

When it comes to effort, everyone wants employees or staff to give their best, but it isn’t realistic to expect someone to be at the top of their game every minute. The key is to include in your culture document that best effort is expected, and when someone isn’t feeling well physically, or is going through a challenging time personally, the document may address the need for team efforts in such situations, or specific responses to make when a coworker is performing at less than his or her peak.

As with all documents of this type, a culture document is always a work in progress. As I mentioned yesterday, we want to include that we are great at celebrating successes, but right now, we’re not. We’re monitoring our progress and one day we’ll add it to the document when the time is right. The key is to start somewhere and move one step at a time to the point that your culture document offers a clear representation of who you are and what your doing as an organization.

Here’s to leading better by making the first step, or the next step of progress on your culture document–today!

Creating a Leadership Culture

Back in April several members of our leadership team had the opportunity to sit in on a Q&A session with the lead pastor of a church that is much larger than New Life. During the session someone asked, “Which do you think is more important as church leaders: casting vision or setting the leadership culture in your church?”

Without hesitation the pastor said, “Culture kicks vision’s butt every, single time.” I’ve thought about that statement frequently over the past several months, because leaders often tell one another that casting vision is the leader’s most important task. After all, if the company doesn’t know whether it’s headed, how is it going to get there? If the church doesn’t know what it means to “win,” how will it know if it has? Vision is vital when leading any organization, because the people within the organization need to know why it exists before they will get on board with how to get there.

Having said that, the leadership culture within an organization determines what are and are not acceptable allegiances, attitudes and efforts, and since those are the only three things we can control, developing a culture that lends direction to what is and isn’t acceptable is crucial. For example, if you’re leading a business, and your R&D department has the attitude that no matter what they do they will always be behind your competitors, you have a major problem. If you’re leading a church and your youth ministry department or leader has decided that the best way to get young people to come is to align with the most popular rock bands (or whatever kind of music is popular in your area), and to reflect their attitudes and beliefs, you may well attract a crowd, but to what end?

One of the things we say often at New Life is that any paid leader must come “with the batteries included.” We learned that phrase from Michael Hyatt, but the concept is easy to understand. If someone is being paid to lead in your organization, whether it’s a business, a community organization or a church and you have to push them to exert the necessary effort to succeed that’s a major problem. That kind of attitude and effort is contagious. It will poison a culture if it’s permitted to exist. Sometimes we don’t want to appear to be harsh or uncaring, particularly in the church, so we permit that kind of behavior to continue longer than it ought to be permitted, which isn’t long. We hope the person will change, or perhaps we even challenge the person to change, but we don’t set specific standards and enforce them, so the person continues to poison the culture with his or her weak performance.

If you’re thinking this sounds cold coming from a pastor, remember this: the Church of Jesus Christ represents the God of the universe, and one day each of us will give an account of our leadership to Him. (I know you might not believe this statement, but for those of us who do, what more do we need in order to be motivated to develop a culture of excellence in every area of our churches?) That means if we have responsibility for a direct report who is not motivated, or who is exhibiting behaviors that are in direct contradiction to our organization’s culture we must address those behaviors sooner rather than later. (That last statement is part of an organization’s culture, because over time it becomes clear to staff whether there is accountability for their behavior and actions, whether the expectations are clear and will be enforced, or whether the policies and procedures are just pieces of paper that have been developed to satisfy an agenda item in the organization’s to do list.)

If you haven’t given much thought to the concept of your organization’s culture, it is essential that you sit down and do so. This is something that will take time, because you must come to clarity on what constitutes a win for you, and what personal qualities as well as processes and procedures are necessary and acceptable in obtaining that win. One of the things we realized we want to have as part of our culture at New Life, but don’t have yet is an ability to celebrate our wins. We attain wins often, because we have identified what they are, but after we accomplish one our tendency is to move on to the next goal rather than stopping to celebrate. We addressed that during our 15th anniversary in July, and did a great job of celebrating, but taking time once in 15 years does not constitute a culture of celebrating our wins. We’ll continue to address that area until it becomes part of our culture and then we’ll add it to our staff culture document. Yes, we have a staff culture document. More on that tomorrow.

Here’s to leading better, by taking time to consider our organization’s culture and if it’s the one we want, or we need to make adjustments–today!