Practices of healthy boards

In few instances will an organization or a congregation rise above the quality, practices, spiritual sensitivity or missional commitment of its senior board. That is a sobering thought if you are a board member - but it is true and can be verified in almost every instance. Given that fact, there is nothing more important than for us to ensure that our boards are healthy. In fact, I would love for you to share this blog with the board you are serving on and see what it generates in discussion.

Healthy boards practice deep sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. In order for that to be true it means that they set aside regular and significant time for prayer and for the seeking of God's will for their church or organization - and then they listen for His voice. This includes regular time in the word where His voice has already spoken on critical matters. Spiritual leadership requires spiritual sensitivity and time with the One on whose behalf we lead. Without this practice we will not be His leaders in the full sense of the word.

Healthy boards always clarify the key focus of the church and then they stick with that clarity. Specifically, they clarify the mission, the guiding principles by which the organization will operate, the central ministry focus which must be practiced in all they do and the culture they are intent on creating. Once they are clear, everything they do in programming, staffing, initiatives, teaching and priorities is designed to stay in line with the missional clarity they have. Boards that do not have clarity, do not stick to their clarity or keep changing their clarity (which is not clarity at all) confuse their people and dilute their effectiveness. Healthy boards bring great clarity to everything the organization does.

Healthy boards never allow elephants to exist without addressing them directly. Elephants are those topics that everyone knows are present but no one wants to bring up because it will be uncomfortable. Here is a principle to consider. Elephants are elephants precisely because they are threats to the organization and good leaders always address threats to the organization. Ignoring elephants, trying to pretend they are not there or not having the courage to name and discuss them allows those very issues to hurt what you are trying to accomplish. Take elephants seriously. They are the very issues you must address if you are going to move forward in health. If there are elephants on your board you have symptoms of problems.

Healthy boards operate with a board covenant which spells out the rules of engagement in terms of how board members relate to one another. This includes agreement on keeping short accounts, dealing with conflict, the role of robust, honest dialogue in board meetings and the full support of decisions made once they are made. A signed board covenant allows you to create a healthy board culture, define board expectations and hold members accountable if they should go south.

Healthy boards are clear on the missional results they want for their church or organization and evaluate those results on a regular basis. This is why "clarity" is so important above. With clarity you can evaluate ministry results. Without clarity it is impossible to do so because you don't know what you are measuring. It is hard work to determine how you measure results in a ministry setting but it is one of the most important things boards do.

Healthy boards know the difference between management of day to day operations and the core directional issues, policies and thinking about the future. They delegate management of day to day issues to staff or others and keep their focus on the larger picture including the health of the church.

Healthy boards never allow themselves to be divided into factions. All board members are there to serve the ministry as a whole. When boards develop separate factions (If you have them on your board you know what I am talking about) the board is no longer serving the whole but has divided into those who support a part and are fighting for that part (or individual). This in itself is a sign that there are elephants in the room that have not been dealt with and that there is not clarity around which the whole board is focused and that there is not the ability to evaluate ministry success. Divided boards are deeply symptomatic of dishealth. To get to healthy they must really go back to the basics and agree that everyone on the board is there to serve the whole rather than to guard a part.

I have three challenges for you if any of these practices of healthy boards are not practices of your board. First, share this blog with them as a way of sparking some good discussion. Second, my two books, High Impact Church Boards, and Leading From The Sandbox are written for board members to get to the highest level of health possible. The higher the level of health of your board, the higher the missional effectiveness of your organization or church. and that is why we serve as board members. I hope you will take the challenge.

The magic of empowerment

I believe that our need to control others is a result of the fall. Wherever I travel, it seems to be a universal phenomenon.

Control rather than empowerment is the operating mode of much in both ministry and business. It comes in the form of micromanagement, meddling in the responsibilities of others, telling others how they should do what they are supposed to do, frequently changing something already done, giving too much advice, the need to constantly ask permission or get approval and in many other forms. 

All of that is sad when it happens to good people because it disempowers, discourages, frustrates, and smothers the God given capacity and creativity that could be unleashed if empowered.

Unempowered organizations or teams are a sign of poor Emotional Intelligence (EQ) on the part of leaders. The inability to unleash people is a sign of insecurity rather than that of leadership. And insecurity infects many (even high profile) leaders who think that their command and control is actually a sign of leadership. Or, that their ideas are the best and the ones that count so any others must be vetted through them. They may say they are guarding the ministry but what they are actually doing in many cases is guarding their ego's.

In reality, the higher the control factor, the higher the hubris factor - it is about them, not the mission nor the staff working beside them. Further, the higher the control, the less likely the ministry will rise above the skills or abilities of its leader since high control always brings people back to how the leader would do what is done - losing out on the magic of multiple people bringing their creativity to the table for the purpose of maximum ministry results.

There is magic in empowered organizations where good people are unleashed (within clearly articulated boundaries) to use all of their creativity to accomplish what they are tasked with. And when empowered individuals collaborate with other empowered individuals that magic is multiplied and results in significant ministry breakthroughs.

If you are a leader and wonder how empowering you are - there is a simple way to find out: ask your team. If they trust you they will tell you. As you empower you grow as a leader and the ministry will grow in proportion.

Leadership and dissapointment at God

Christian leadership is not for the faint of heart and we are confronted each day with disappointments and challenges that test our own faith, our own trust, and our own view of God's divine sovereignty and goodness. It is one thing to proclaim all these truths to others. It is another to wrestle with them ourselves.

A good friend dies. Another discovers they have cancer. A ministry plan went askew. We are attacked by someone who should know better. I am talking about the issues that tear at our hearts and cause us consciously or unconsciously to doubt the very God we serve and proclaim. When pain gets personal it can get very personal. And because we are ministry leaders we often have more than our fair share of those personal issues.

We are unlikely to come out and say it. We may not even admit the truth to ourselves but disillusionment with God is not uncommon among ministry leaders. And when it happens, it often has an underlying anger that spills over in unexpected ways and to unexpected people. Our own issues with God become toxic as we struggle with the disconnect between our theology and teaching and personal experience and pain. Anger is the toxic mixture created by that dissonance. After all, there is no anger more personal than anger at God created by our disillusionment in His allowing circumstances that we believe He should not allow.

This is a dangerous moment for leaders because the underlying anger hurts those they lead and those they lead end up walking literally on eggshells.

Where do we go in those situations? We go back to some basic truths and principles that must drive our spiritual leadership and must be the presuppositions from which we think, live and minister.

1. God is good all the time even though we live in a fallen world. His goodness can always be counted on and must be trusted in for if He is not good the very character of God proclaimed in Scripture cannot be trusted.

2. God's goodness does not preclude all of us from suffering. Indeed, we share in the fellowship of His sufferings and our scars become divine scars if we trust Him in the midst of our pain.

3. God's ways are indeed inscrutable to human eyes: majestic, eternal, sovereign and divinely good in ways that we cannot understand this side of eternity. We exist as part of a divine drama on a stage so large and complex that we often can only comprehend a small portion of the story unfolding.

4. There is an eternal purpose in all things that transcends our limited understanding. But that purpose is good and will be fulfilled in the glory of God being known across our globe. Often, failure and pain are the antecedents to amazing glory and eternal success.

5. We play a humble part in God's eternal purposes and cannot personalize His ways as our responsibility. We live with the joy and pain and difficulties of this life. When we carry burdens He was meant to carry rather than us we become weary disillusioned and often angry. They are His purposes, His burdens, and a part of His inscrutable plan. We must leave them with Him.

When we become disillusioned it is usually because we have taken on responsibility we should not take on. And, have usually lost our perspective on the part God plays and the part we play in His purposes.

A leadership perspective of growth

Quality and depth of leadership takes time. Many leaders mistake short term successes for long term effectiveness. They are so concerned about their success in the moment and in proving their leadership ability that they don’t think long term toward becoming a leader of deep influence.

This is a principle young leaders need to understand: God wants to bless your leadership. But He wants you to press into Him and into those practices that will make your leadership successful and deep over the long run. The most important thing young leaders can do is to pursue the heart connection with God, building into their lives the reservoir of faith, health, grace, and skill that will carry them for the long term.

Where did the depth of Moses leadership come from? As a young leader he was impetuous and careless and ended up having to flee Egypt even though he had been raised in the royal household. God gave Moses forty years to develop his leadership heart and soul before He drafted him for one on of the decisive moments in Israelite history!

Here is something else to note. Moses looked like a leadership failure early on. Many of us do as well. But not to God. God used that failure to build into Moses a dependence on Him rather than on his own wisdom. It took time but a shallow leader became one of the greatest, deepest, wisest leaders in the history of God’s people.

Where did David’s depth come from? It came from the time he had as a shepherd as a young boy out with the sheep – where he was developing his relationship with God. Then it came through the pain of being anointed king, serving Saul well but becoming the object of Saul’s wrath, having to live like a pariah, constantly on the run, having to rely on the only help he had – God. David’s depth was forged in pain!

Or consider Joseph who was sold into slavery at about 17 and spent ten years in God’s waiting room (most of it in prison) before he emerged ready for God’s leadership assignment at about age 27. And not because he didn’t love and trust God. In fact, it was his followership of God that gave him a position of huge responsibility in Potiphar’s household, and then in the prison where he found himself after being framed. Clearly, however, God was using the prison years to build into Joseph’s leadership exactly what would be needed for his real assignment – a depth that could not be forged in any other way than through hard times.

God is more concerned about the depth of our heart and resulting leadership than the outward success of our leadership and depth takes time. Early in my leadership career I faced what I considered a great failure. God did not! He used that episode to humble me, teach me reliance on Him, press into his grace and that “failure” has informed the last twenty five years of my leadership. Depth does not usually come from success but from failure and pain! It is in the tough times that we are forced, like Moses and David to go deep with God. What looks like failure to us is often just part of God’s plan to develop us as leaders.

My own conviction is that when we neglect building depth into our lives in an intentional way, God will provide us with the opportunity by giving us Moses or Joseph wilderness experiences to encourage us to force into Him. He knows that our long term ministry effectiveness is dependent on it so it is one of his strategies for our leadership development.

As I reflect on my leadership career I can attest that the greatest lessons and growth have come from periods of the greatest pain. I believe there is no other way to develop a leadership of deep influence. That quality of leadership does not come from easy success but hard success along with plenty of tough failure. And remember, early failure does not mean long term failure. Often it is the early failures that actually make it possible for us to be successful in the long run – if we use that failure to develop depth.

Take a moment and reflect on the times in your leadership where you have faced the most difficult moments and how God used those moments to make you a better, deeper leader.

The Emotional Intelligence of churches and ministries

Here is an interesting question. We talk much about EQ (Emotional Intelligence) as it relates to individuals but do ministries also have a corporate EQ? I believe that they do: It is the combined EQ level of its leadership and staff and it has profound implications for the overall effectiveness of the ministry. My observations come out of two decades plus of working with ministry organizations.

Here are some of the markers of good and poor organizational or ministry EQ.

How we handle conflict
This is a biggie! I once worked with a troubled church where any disagreement with the senior leader was seen as a lack of loyalty and works like "submission" and "obedience" along with ubiquitous scripture references were bandied around frequently. Then there were "charges" against those whose behavior was seen as "sinful" and "admonitions" to those who had crossed some line.

While this may seem extreme - and it is more common than it should be - there are many ministries that don't know how to deal with conflict, differences, or simply resolve differences quickly and without major drama. The upshot is not only relationships that do not get healed but often conflict escalates rather than de-escalates, becomes a matter of obedience or submission (so now we are in the realm of sin and righteousness) but it steals amazing amounts of time from what could be productively spent elsewhere. 

I am always way when Scripture plays a big part in ministry conflict - used as a defense or hammer. What it often reveals is the defensiveness of the one using it and the spiritualization of what is often just a difference of opinion.

How we handle candid dialogue
This is the corollary. There are organizations that reflecting their leadership are "defensive" organizations, unable to tolerate, invite, listen to and value differences of opinion. Healthy organizations allow the free flow of opinions, ideas, viewpoints and convictions rather than stifle them.

When healthy EQ is present, these organizations actually realize far greater innovation and effectiveness and there is a spirit of freedom. When unhealthy EQ is present there is often fear in expressing one's opinions because it leads to conflict (above) and the inability of the organization to deal with that conflict.

How we treat people
In healthy organizational EQ, staff are valuable individuals who do ministry with - not for - their leaders. There is an egalitarian ethos where all are treated with dignity and their opinions valued no matter where they fall on the organizational chart. Whenever staff feel that they are used for the benefit of leadership or the mission there are EQ issues that are being played out.

A good test in any organization on this score is how we treat people who are at our level or below (organizationally). If there is the same honor and value placed on those who fall below us on the org chart ans there is on those above us it is a sign of good EQ.

How we deal with criticism
This goes to the issue of candid dialogue but to a different level. The ability of people to speak to dysfunction or push back in a healthy manner on one another is a critical EQ issue, especially for leaders who are most often impacted. Healthy organizations have a "nothing to to prove, nothing to lose" attitude that responds to critique non-defensively rather than with defensiveness. When that stance is taken, there are no issues because there is no defensiveness.

When leaders respond defensively there is usually a built in probability of conflict where there did not need to be. Church leaders often get themselves into trouble here by taking critique personally and circling the wagons to defend themselves. Why is that necessary and why should those who attend the church not have the ability to speak into issues that concern them? How leaders respond to critique is a sign of the EQ of the organization as a whole.

Organizational pride or humility
Ministries can be prideful or humble. The truth is that pride is always a sign of low EQ and it negatively impacts the organization because it is not able to see itself objectively. I have worked with churches, for instance, who went through an era where they were a "big deal" in their community. Decades later, even when facing decline of significant issues of health their perception of themselves is that they are still that "big deal." Unfortunately it keeps them from seeing themselves as they truly are and being willing to take a good look in the mirror.

Proud ministries don't partner well with others (they have an attitude that they can always do it better), resist any good ideas that are not their's (thus if they didn't produce it - it is not worthy), talk among themselves about how special they are and how pedestrian other ministries are and have an elevated view of themselves. Humble ministries partner well, are always looking to learn from others, understand the small place they play in the grand scheme of God and rather than lifting themselves up simply seek to do the best they can and encourage other ministries along the way.

It is worth some thinking and dialogue within your ministry as to what the EQ of your ministry is. Of course it takes humility to be willing to do that just as it does for us personally.

Is my leadership about me or about Him?

One of the fundamental differences between Saul’s leadership and David’s leadership in the Old Testament was its focus. For Saul, it was about him. He was king, he had the power and he believed that he could make the critical calls without heeding Godly advice or even God’s advice. Essentially leadership was about him. It was a self centered leadership and a selfish leadership.

Leaders who believe that it is about them become arrogant leaders who believe their own press and believe that since they got into the position it must mean that they are pretty good and have the wisdom to make the calls. One sees this in political leaders on a regular basis – and among many business leaders.

leaders in the God’s arena, however, know that we play by a different set of rules. For us, leadership is a trust. Peter makes this clear when he says to elders of the church, “Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers – not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away” (1 Peter 5:2-4).

What is intriguing in this passage is that Paul eliminates the motives for leadership that drive leaders – money, power and personal agendas. In fact, he makes it clear that our leadership is simply a “trust” given to us by the true leader of the church – Christ. And, he says that the core of our leadership comes from who we are and the depth that has been developed within us when he tells us to lead by being examples to the flock. He is saying that the most powerful influence, the deepest influence that we will have as leaders comes from our lives, and our lives are simply the outward expression of our inner core.

This frankly is the missing element in many who give leadership to the church. They may be good leaders but their lives do not reflect a deep inner core of spiritual maturity, wisdom, understanding and attitudes that come from a deep place within themselves. Often it is not a leadership of deep influence but rather a shallow leadership that is more about their agenda for the congregation than God’s agenda. Not necessarily out of lack of desire to serve well but because the spiritual depth has not been developed that naturally spills out in their thinking, actions and attitudes. It is a leadership that has not been marinated in the things of God.

The reason the distinction between leadership about me or Him is so central to our leadership role is that as leaders of ministries, God has an agenda for how our church or organization can specifically contribute to His work in this world. Understanding that agenda and how we can serve His plan can only come out of relationship, dependence and an understanding of what God wants to do in our world. It is not primarily about our wisdom but about His presence and our understanding of Him informing all that we do as leaders under his Lordship.

Deep influence is about influence that has been deeply informed by our relationship with God, our understanding of his character through scripture, the wisdom that comes from above rather than simply from ourselves, and the personal character, wisdom, and dependence that spills out of our lives because of the deep waters within. The deeper our leadership is informed by God and His agenda and His character within us, the deeper our influence. Our influence is actually His influence lived through us!

This last truth is the greatest reason that we ought to do all we can to go deep with God. Our influence is connected to His influence. We become His agents of influence when our lives are deeply connected and informed by Him. Our leadership is an extension of His leadership which is precisely why Peter calls elders in the church shepherds who work for the Chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:2-4).

Our leadership is an extension of His leadership. Any eternal influence we have is an extension of His influence. Our effectiveness as leaders is directly connected to the depth of our connection and relationship with Him. Clearly, our leadership is therefore about Him and not about us. The question is whether our leadership reflects that truth.

The rear view mirror

Some things belong in our rear view mirror rather than our worrying, feeling guilty or obsessing about them. Here is a truth that many of us find hard to accept: Some situations we cannot fix, some people we cannot change and some problems we cannot solve. Often when we run up against such walls we feel guilty that we could not make it right, we wonder how we get through to people who don't want to hear and we feel anxious that we didn't do all that we could.

How many supervisors have agonized before, during and after letting someone go who needed to go! As a consultant I have encountered clients that I could not much help and watched good ministries settle for what is rather than what could be. Or, that relative who we want to help but isn't open to input. These situations can be anxiety and guilt producing and we constantly re-saw the sawdust in our mind. Or, we have finally got rid of that highly dysfunctional leader who made our life miserable but we keep dwelling on the pain.

Here is a second truth: God does not expect us to solve all the dilemmas we encounter. People make choices, organizations make choices, and some folks are not interested in hearing or changing. That is not our issue so why do we obsess about issues we cannot change?

There are some phrases that apply here: "It is done, put it behind us," "get over it," "put it in the rear-view mirror and move on." "It is not our responsibility." "We cannot solve someone's problem who does not want to hear." "Some people like their dysfunction and drama." "Let it go."

When we hang on to stuff we cannot solve we take responsibility for things that are not ours. It is wasted energy to be sure and highly unproductive to say nothing of stress producing. Let it go and put it in the rear view mirror where it belongs.