What Kind of Staff Culture Are You Exporting?

Your staff culture has to represent the culture you’re trying to create in the wider church. That’s one of the biggest misses in contemporary church work. You have a business-run, top-down, bottom-line culture yet you’re trying to bring around a loving, transformative culture in your community. It just doesn’t work.

John Peacock, Willow Creek Community Church

Obviously, working for a church I feel the weight of this in a very specific way, but I also think the overarching thought plays out in the marketplace as well, in every type of organization. You simply can’t create a macro-culture that doesn’t reflect the micro-culture inherent in your leadership. You might try to fake it for awhile, or cover it up with advertising, marketing, and lots of words, but eventually people will feel the dissonance of who you say you are versus who you actually are.

Is the nature of the relationships around this [leadership] table worth exporting to the rest of the church?

Randy Pope, Perimeter Church

Again, church or marketplace, it doesn’t matter — if you’re leading, by definition it means others are following. Are the motives and actions of your leadership what you want to instill in people? Are you leading them where you want them to go?