This podcast episode centers around the profound exploration of soft skills in leadership, with a particular emphasis on the transformative power of empathy, communication, and relational dynamics. Gene, our esteemed guest, returns to delve deeper into the essential qualities that redefine effective leadership, highlighting the necessity of balancing hard skills with the softer attributes that foster genuine connection and trust. Our conversation offers invaluable insights gleaned from Gene's extensive experience in various leadership roles, including his tenure as the President of the American Bible Society and universities. Furthermore, we examine the intricate processes of forgiveness, accountability, and personal growth, underscoring how these elements are crucial for nurturing a healthy organizational culture. Throughout this discourse, we aim to elucidate the significance of developing a leadership style that prioritizes both effectiveness and faithfulness in one's mission.

Takeaways:

• The importance of soft skills in leadership cannot be overstated, as they profoundly influence team dynamics and effectiveness.
• Developing a team of individuals who possess superior skills in their respective areas is crucial for effective leadership.
• Leaders must learn to balance the demands of effectiveness with the necessity of faithfulness to their core values and mission.
• Engaging in courageous conversations is essential for fostering forgiveness and reconciliation within organizations.
• Leaders should cultivate a culture of accountability to ensure they remain grounded and aligned with their organizational mission.
• Taking time away from work is vital for leaders to gain perspective and avoid burnout, enabling them to serve more effectively.

Hey there and welcome back to the Clarity Podcast.

This podcast is all about providing clarity and life and mission.

And my name is Aaron Santomier and I get to be your host.

We have our friend Gene with us back on the podcast today.

I interviewed him a few weeks ago and we got halfway through the questions that I had for him.

So I asked him at the end of that if he would come back to really dive into the softer side side of leadership, the essential soft skills that transform leaders and people they lead.

Just an insightful conversation.

He is someone.

I had more questions for him.

I probably only got through half of those.

He has a ton of life experience.

He has a great way of communicating and yeah, it was just fun.

I probably could have done another episode to be honest and truthful with you.

And so when you get around people that have life experience and they've lived it out, and he's lived it out in various places, whether that's been in the university president or leading the Bible Society.

Just full of insight and just really enjoyed Gene coming back with us on the podcast.

Do want to ask you to continue to subscribe to the podcast.

I know the podcasts I subscribe to, the ones I listen to, they show up on my feed, show up on my phone, and know what I'm going to be listening to throughout the rest of the week.

And also please continue to send in your questions for Back Channel with Foe.

That's where we get to sit down with Dick Foth and we get to learn from him.

Well, we're going to go ahead and jump into the interview with Gene.

Well, there's no time better than now to get started.

So here we go.

Greetings and welcome back to the Clarity Podcast.

So excited to have a friend back with us on the podcast.

Gene, welcome back.

Thank you.

It's great to be with you, Aaron.

Gene, last time we spent some time together, I asked you lots of questions about governance and we were going to discuss your book, the Softer side of Leadership, but I didn't.

I asked you too many questions on the other subject, so you agreed to come back.

So this is the return episode.

So, Gene, for those who didn't get to listen to that first episode, could you share a little bit about yourself and then maybe go ahead and share about the Genesis story and the desire to write this book, the Softer side of Leadership?

I'd be happy to.

My background in terms of where I've worked and service served vocationally is initially in Christian higher education.

I've been in the higher ed world for over 30 years, but two presidencies, first at Huntington University for 10 years, and then later at Taylor University for 11 years.

But interspersed between those two presidencies, God made me a missionary to the world.

And I had the joy of serving as the President CEO of the American Bible Society for 14 years.

That's when I was located in New York.

And so I had the privilege of visiting over 100 countries and mission agencies and leaders from really around the world because we had Bible societies in over 150 countries.

And so that's where, you know, God really did a work in my heart in terms I want to show you the world.

I want to show you what I'm doing in various parts of the world.

And that was a real, a real blessing and a real joy.

And then of course that perspective is what I then brought back into the presidency of Taylor University where we really tried to take the whole global initiative and reality to a whole new level.

And so Taylor has a really interesting program for third culture kids.

So it's a very mission minded program where a lot of people identify with those needs.

And I was pleased to be able to serve during those years in those roles for sure.

Now the book, the genesis for the book, I kind of grew up, you know, as a, as a, as a lawyer.

Also as a PhD, kind of like I was impressed with quantifiable things.

If you can't measure it, it doesn't count.

That kind of a mindset.

And over the years, you know, my, my wife has this incredible other side, you know, where her focus is on the qualities of people and the interrelationships that are so, so beautiful.

And it, it's kind of like the book came out of that awakening where I real quantifying quantifiables are still very important, but the qualities of the kind of relationships we develop with one another, the kinds of empathy that we show, the way we make ourselves vulnerable, the way we inspire trust, you know, those are not as easy to measure as finances or memberships, but, but they're equally important.

So the, the book then tries to create a better balance of okay, if it's not either or, it's not hard versus soft, it's hard and soft.

And, and so what does that look like in the life of a leader?

If I'm getting that side right, what are the personal attributes and qualities I really need to embrace, which is the first part of the book and then the second part of the book is okay, what does that look like in embedded into an organization?

So it's it's been a fun book to write.

It was originally published by Deep River Books and then last year taken over by InterVarsity Press.

And the French translation is now ready to go.

And so God's, God's really been using it in, in, in important ways and it's, it's a blessing to see that happen.

For sure.

For sure.

Well, I'm looking forward to discuss.

We, we jumped into a few of the questions last time, but we didn't nearly get to dive into it as much.

So I got questions for you today.

One of the first ones is the idea that a leader needs to do all the work.

You've shared, you've served in various roles as president you of the Bible Society of Universities.

How did you learn to manage the tension of feeling like you had to do all the work versus, but also getting the softer side of leadership and getting the stuff done?

Yeah, well, some people think that CEO stands for chief everything Officer.

You know, a lot of leaders basically, basically take the position that, you know, I know more than everybody else.

I've got very high exacting standards and so bring it on.

You do that, you're going to burn up and you're going to burn out.

And again, is this not what Moses had to learn, you know, from Jethro?

You know, those are almost Jethro's exact words.

Moses, you keep doing this and you're not going to be an effective instrument, you know, in your work in service for God.

So you've got to figure out how to do that.

So I think, I think a lot of it is that you, you want to, you want to, as a leader, put around yourself in building your team people who are better and more gifted in their areas of responsibility than you are.

If you're the smartest person in the room, you haven't done a very good job of building your team.

You want to because you've got a lot of windows you've got to look out.

You know, you're a finance person.

You know, you need somebody who really understand finance.

If you're a, if you're a marketing person, you know, you need somebody who really understands marketing.

So I think it's, it's, it's learning that I don't have all the insights.

I'm not the smartest guy in the room on all subjects.

I may be the smartest guy in the room in certain subjects, but it's building that team around you that you trust and they trust in terms of you.

And then developing the synergy for that, that more can be done with everyone pulling their share of the load than what you can do by yourself.

So those are some interesting ideas.

Now, one of the things that goes along with that, that a lot of leaders miss, is the importance of developing people.

I think that I learned that in two ways.

Let me tell you two stories.

The first story is I was, you know, I was a young dean at an institution out in the Pacific Southwest, and I thought I was doing a really good job.

And another institution came knocking on the door and said, hey, we have a wonderful plan for your life.

It's more responsibility, more money.

It's.

You don't have to worry about the rain in Oregon.

You know, we have sunshine in Southern California.

And it was very attractive.

And I remember I had the kind of relationship with the president where he.

That was.

That was something that I could share almost anything with him, which is not always the case, you know, in a.

In a leader mentee relationship.

But I told him about this offer, and his comment was, I think that's great.

And I went, wait a minute.

You think it's great that I may leave and take this position of more responsibility?

And Aaron, I never forget his response.

He said, why would I want you on my team if nobody else wants you on theirs?

Oh, wow.

I want people on my team that are so good and so gifted that everybody else wants them.

But the reason.

Reason they stay is not only because of the call of God to be there, but because of our commitment to developing you personally and professionally as a leader.

You know, the second story, when you go to a retirement gathering as a president, I often did that.

You know, you go and honor somebody's 30 years of service, and I'm sure in your work, you had that opportunity as well.

And I always enjoyed hearing people say, you know, I really appreciated the opportunity to serve, and I'm glad I made a difference and those kinds of remarks.

But if that's all they would say, I would be disappointed.

What I also wanted them to be able to hear them say was, I can't believe how much I grew as a person and how much I grew professionally being part of this organization.

That's what happens when you have a leader who knows he or she can't do it all by themselves.

And to help carry that load, there needs to be that commitment to developing those you work with, both personally and professionally.

And a lot of organizations, they're more interested in what they can get from you than what you can give to them and growing people personally and professionally.

And that's part of what makes the chief everything officer fall apart.

You realize that you can't do it all by yourself.

You need others, strong people around you who can help carry the load and developing that second strike.

You know, you want a deep bench as leaders, you know, so that when those other people move on, you have strong people move in.

So that's also part of that mindset of the importance of developing others in the enterprise.

Building a deep bench in leadership.

I got two more not tangential questions, but questions off that.

So one of them is how do you develop the security as a leader?

Because you said you want to have people on your team that are, you don't want to be the smartest person in the room.

So how do you develop the security or this be self assured enough that you have smarter people in the room?

Because I've seen in the past leaders want to be the smartest person in the room because they don't maybe because of insecurities.

Any thoughts on that or is that an unfair judgment?

Well, no, I think it's a really interesting question because I think one of the things that a leader has got to start with is.

How do you view yourself as a leader in terms of your identity.

When leadership and your role becomes your identity and you're going to rise or fall based on whether or not people like you in your leadership role, then you want to do everything you can to make sure the deck chairs are all organized properly and that your getting, you know, the accolades that you need because it's your identity.

Because if that identity, if you lose your identity, you know, then a lot of other things begin to crumble.

I tell, I tell leaders, I, you often talk to a leader and they, they will say something like this, well, I am the president or I am the executive director as compared with I serve as the executive director.

You know, when, when, when the, your identity is linked to your role, what you, and there's a risk in that for the organization.

And here's the risk and, and why leaders have to be alert to this.

The risk is that you will, you, you need to keep that role to keep your identity intact.

And so if you start making decisions that push against what the people want.

Yeah.

Which we're called to do all the time in our responsibilities as a leader, you know, you end up caving in, so to speak, and you end up making wrong decisions that are not in the best interest of the organization or the mission.

So you, you need to be sensitive here.

You know, I need to be able, you need to be able to make the call that's in the best interest of, of the mission and the ministry, God helping you, whether or not people are happy about it or not, because when.

And you can make those decisions because your identity is not the role if people don't like it.

And so the board starts saying, well, you know, people don't trust you or whatever and you need to move out, you're okay with that because your identity is not in the role.

So I think one of the key ways to do that is to make sure that your identity is in Christ and who he made you to be and the gifts that he's called you to exercise rather than in the role in which you serve.

Because when you put your identity in that role in which you serve, that really becomes a house of cards that begins to tumble pretty quickly.

Reputation, what people think of you goes right to the front.

You work hard to make sure people like you, which means then you conceivably compromise on some of the high quality decisions that you will be called to make as a leader.

So that's one thought.

And that's one thing that I've learned from you.

I learned a lot of things from you.

But when we were together, you shared in Florida and I did change my language because that the role I now say I currently serve as.

And so it is because for me, it helps me know I'm serving in this role and I'm currently.

Because it's not forever.

And so it's, it's.

But I learned that from you.

It's a, it was a change in language that I put into place.

And it reminds me every time I say it, you know, I'm serving in this role.

It's not who I am and I'm currently doing it, meaning it's not going to be mine forever.

And I don't mean that they call.

You to do something totally different or.

Exactly right.

And, and while you're in that role, you have a responsibility, of course, you know, to serve the mission, to develop the people our Lord is entrusted to you.

Yeah.

And things of that nature.

That was a good ECFA conference that you're referring to.

It was a blessing.

It was a blessing.

All right, I got another question for you.

Getting away from work.

What have you found that helps you in this area?

Getting away from work?

Well, let's talk about, let's talk about the why first.

Why is it even important for leaders to do this?

I, you Know, I've talked to a lot of leaders of organizations from around the world.

I remember one of the leaders that we talked to in Brazil.

And of course, Mary Lou, my wife, would often travel with us in.

In on some of our mission trips, and she would.

I'm talking with the head of the organ and good people.

And of course, oftentimes they were male, and she would spend time with the spouse.

And one of the things she would hear often is that my husband is married more to the ministry than he is to me.

Ministry has become his mistress.

And I think that is a sad.

First of all, it's not isolated observation.

I hear that from a lot of leaders, and Mary Lou hears that from a lot of spouses.

I think that's one of the problems that we need.

We get so consumed in our work.

You know, we love what we do.

It changes lives.

It changes hearts.

You know, it.

It.

It helps advance the kingdom.

But.

But here.

Here again is again, this.

I'm speaking to the why we dare not confuse in our work the difference between being effective and being faithful.

We often assume that effectiveness is our bottom line.

Effectiveness is important, but never at the expense of faithfulness.

Let me give you an example, and then I'll talk about, you know, how.

How we can consider doing that.

Do you remember the story in the Old Testament of Moses?

Yeah.

People needed water.

Yeah.

God told Moses to speak to the rock.

Yeah.

Moses and his frustration.

Struck the rock.

Now, did they get water from his striking the rock?

Yes, he did.

He was effective.

He met the needs of the people.

But was he faithful to what God had called him to do?

The answer was no.

He sacrificed faithfulness to God's call.

To effectiveness in terms of meeting the needs of people.

And as a result, as we know, God said, and as a result, you will never enter into the promised land.

You know, I look at that story and I go, man, that hardly seems fair, you know, given all the work that Moses did.

But the point nevertheless is that faithfulness should never be trumped by anything else, including being effective.

Now, that being the case, that means I don't have to do everything that I want to get done.

You know, I think I do.

There's a difference between completing everything God calls you to do on the one hand versus completing everything that I want to get done on the other.

Jesus in John said, father, this is part of the high priestly prayer.

Father, I have completed everything you gave me to do.

Now I tend to focus in leadership on, Father, I have completed everything.

That's what I want to do.

But Jesus qualified it by saying, father, I have completed everything you gave me to do.

That's what leaders need to focus on, being faithful to what God has called them to do.

And he's not calling you to strike the rock if he's asking you to speak to it.

He's not asking you to do ministry at the expense of marginalizing your marriage and your family.

He's not calling you to do ministry.

You know, if you are burning the candle at both ends, so to speak, and you're destroying your body, these are the kinds of things that I think leaders get caught up into now.

That's why we need to focus from time to time of pulling away from our work to get into that alone space where we can really hear the voice of God.

You know, if you study, you study the life of Christ in the Gospels, and Jesus was not always doing ministry.

Now, keep in mind, this was somebody who was the son of God who said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

I and the Father are one.

I could do nothing apart from my Father.

And yet he is taking time out of that schedule to be alone, to pray, to be with his Father.

What makes me think that my life is so important and the work that I do is so relevant that I don't have time.

To practice that kind of faithfulness in my life?

And so I think one of the things that.

God calls us to do, you know, during our moments.

In a preventive way, you know, is, is, is, is to take time so we can see the big picture.

Too often, leaders get caught living in the weeds.

And I, I know what's going on in the weeds, but I can't see the big picture.

And so I lose myself.

And so when I get away and I, I, I, as you know, I have a whole chapter in the book on, on ways to do this and the importance of sacred space.

When I do that, God.

God renews my vision.

He lets me see the bigger picture from, you know, and he did that with, with people from time to time in the, in the scriptures.

Elijah would be a, you know, First Kings 18, you know, where he had just had that great experience on Mount Carmel.

You know, fire came down and burned up the, the sacrifice and the altar and all the water around it after multiple, you know, dousings of water, a moment of great victory.

But it ended up being a moment of great depression.

Yeah.

Because Jezebel said, okay, you're a dead man.

Yeah.

You know, and you remember how God took him away, wasn't in the busyness of his work.

He pulled him away, had him go on a distance.

And there, even in the distance, you know, he, he experienced the earthquake.

Yeah.

He experienced the fire, he experienced the wind.

But God wasn't in any of that.

He was in that still small voice.

And if leaders don't take the time to pull themselves out of the franticness, the frenzy, the goodness of, of Christian ministry and all that that involves, we're going to end up like Elijah.

We're going to get burned up and, and burned out.

You know, a couple basics, ideas.

One very basic one, it's a God directed, I think, idea is, is honoring the importance of the Sabbath.

Yeah.

You know, how many, how many leaders in Christian ministry don't honor the Sabbath?

I mean, I'm not, I'm not talking, Aaron, about some legalistic mandate here.

I'm talking about the concepts of one day and seven of, of, of backing away from our work.

I mean, here's the thing I found in Christian ministry that was, it was one of the worst days of the week because often we were traveling somewhere on Sundays, you know, to prepare for meetings that were being held, you know, either started Sunday night or started early Monday morning.

And so we weren't even sensitive to our schedules to give me the opportunity to honor the Sabbath, I think, you know, here's the other thing that happens as an executive director.

Okay, it's Saturday.

Great.

I can catch up on emails.

So what I'm doing is I'm doing emails, the things that I haven't been able to get to.

And what I'm doing is I'm sending them to all my direct reports.

Now what I've done is I've stolen their Sabbath because if they're getting emails from me on Saturday or Sunday, God forbid, they're going to say, well, the President's going to want that by Monday.

I need to get to this.

So whatever my wife or my husband and I had planned for the weekend goes out the window because I'm sending out emails.

And God convicted me of that.

Aaron, you know, if I want to do the emails, fine, but don't send them out till maybe after midnight Sunday night so nobody sees them, because I was robbing that Sabbath idea.

And I think the three elements of the Sabbath that I have found really, really important.

If you look at the idea of the Sabbath and God's idea for it and all the rest of it, that's another whole topic.

But there were two or three things here that I think were really important in that Whole idea of the Sabbath, Sabbath 1 is cessation of work.

Just stop, don't do work.

You know, free your mind from work in order to free your mind for other kinds of things, devotional readings or whatever else that God brings in, your journal writing or whatever.

So cessation of work one in second.

Second it involved relocation.

Okay.

You know, which I think is part of why the focus in the New Testament, especially on community and gathering together as believers.

You can't do that in front of a TV screen.

Yeah.

You know, or a mobile screen.

Now, again, there's, there's exceptions.

I, I get that.

But I think the body of Christ needs to be together.

That, and, and going to a place, you know, a church facility or, or whatever, or church at me, seeing your house or whatever that is for you.

But I think the idea of relocation and then I think the third thing that, that we talk about is the whole idea of transcendence.

I mean, the idea here of cessation of work and relocation was for.

To get people's minds out of what preoccupies them for six days a week and on that seventh day, to really focus on the God who loves them, the God who cares for them, the God who meets their needs, you know, And I, I talk to a lot of believers who, while out of the service.

Well, that service is not for you.

It's about him, you know, and, and that, that idea, you know, and, and I need to have that fresh vision of what God calls me to.

Yeah.

In my work.

So there's other ways.

You know, on a quarterly basis, you can get away for a period of time.

Actually, I, if you're interested in this, we can do another session just on some of the, you know, you know, the, this, the small.

The small.

Just, just on your commute time instead of listening to the news or PBS or whatever it is, you know, put in scripture, audio scripture, and listen to scripture or that can be a prayer time or like when I work out, I, I like to work out on an elliptical.

I listen to gospel praise music and boy, just lifts my spirit, gets my mind off of where I'm at, onto something else.

So there's, there's little things you can do like that too.

But I, I think that's really important.

If you let.

The point is if you let, Let work consume you and if you, if you take away sacred space from your life, your work will consume you and you will burn up and you'll burn out.

Yeah.

No.

Awesome.

I'm going to jump down to a question I have for you here on.

You share about the.

The forgiveness cycle.

Yeah.

Could you.

Can you share about that forgiveness cycle?

Yeah.

Well, let me.

Let me ask our listeners to think with me about this topic.

How much spiritual vitality.

Is resident or.

Or sapped in the ministry God has called you to, because there are a bunch of people.

In that enterprise who aren't willing to forgive.

You know, we harbor grudges.

You know, somebody did something to me.

I remember back then, you know, and.

And we think that, you know, a failure to forgive is no big deal.

You know, it's.

It's.

Yeah, I have cold in the morning, and I'm not willing to forgive the same.

No, they're not.

I mean, what I want to say here in a few minutes is that forgiveness is massive, you know, and my unwillingness to forgive people has spiritual consequences.

You know, the scripture is very clear on this.

Jesus taught this.

I mean, let's take the Lord's Prayer.

You know, I think it's the Matthew version.

And if you don't, at the end of the prayer, if you don't forgive others their sin, neither will I forgive you your sin.

He tells the story of the man who had been forgiven much.

And, you know, he.

Somebody owed him a debt, and it was a very small amount, you know, and.

And yet he refused to extend forgiveness, you know, for the.

You know, for the.

For the small debt.

And Jesus basically said, let's go.

I'm going to restore his.

His unforgiveness.

I'm gonna.

I'm gonna take.

I'm gonna restore it and make him unforgiven, put him back in jail and that.

You.

You.

If you want a scary scripture to think about, I won't even get into it because I'm not a theologian, but I leave that to bas pastors.

But I think the point is forgiveness is at the heart of the Christian message.

You know, the idea of Easter, the whole story of Easter, I mean, the whole story of Christmas, it's a forgiveness motif.

And so the idea basically in scripture that we get is that forgiven people vertically need to be forgiven people horizontally.

Yeah.

And there are consequences.

David said, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.

You know, that's part of it.

You know, even when I'm offering my gift at the altar, if I remember somebody that has something against me or I have something against them, what I do is I stop and I go make it right.

I don't even complete offering the sacrifice because Jesus said, that is so critically Important now, the forgiveness cycle, I think there are.

There are four or five elements in there that I think are really important that we.

That we have to understand and get.

And we see them all in the scripture.

Okay.

I think the first thing that we have to understand, the first step, is the need for us to have courageous conversations.

That is at the heart if we're not willing to have courageous conversations.

You know, like if you're at the altar and remember somebody has something against you, you know.

You know, or many of the other passengers that talk about forgiveness.

Well, how many times do I forgive?

You know, Peter's question.

Seven times, right?

Jesus.

Oh, Peter.

No, it's 70 times seven.

And, you know, it's.

Forgiveness needs to be a way of life.

But at the heart of that, we have to be willing to engage in courageous conversations like the Apostle Paul did in many of his letters.

He said, these things are hard to write to you, but I care about you and I love you, so I'm going to take the risk.

You know that this is the right approach to take.

So the first step, without going into a lot more depth, is the need to have courageous conversations.

I think the second thing is, is that we need to actually go through and forgive people, you know, just as Christ, you know, for God's sake, forgave us, you know, but we need to do that at the horizontal level.

Now, a couple of interesting things here.

The secular world almost does a better job of recognizing the importance of forgiveness than we do in the Christian world.

We.

We have a lot of conversation in our circles about vertical forgiveness, not enough con conversation about horizontal forgiveness.

I was at the Mayo Clinic doing my annual physical, and they had a list on the wall of.

Of the 10 best practices that you can engage in for good health.

And I was surprised to read number two was practice forgiveness.

Seriously, there are positive health consequences if you forgive people, let alone the spiritual dimension, you know, the power that's released when people forgive each other, when husbands and wives forgive, when parents and children forgive, when neighbors forgive, when people within a church forgive.

It unleashes a power I think God designed.

He knew this because he's the one who said, I want you to do it.

You know, that's unreal.

But the thing that a lot of people forget is that.

Forgiveness isn't the end of the game.

There are things that go there.

There are.

When you.

When you pound a nail into a piece of wood and you pull it out, there's still a scar left.

There are still hurts.

There are still.

There's still damage.

And I like to say it this way.

Forgiveness and consequences are not mutually exclusive.

Okay.

No.

My 16 year old does something really stupid when he was 16.

He's a lot older now.

Does really something with a car.

I forgive you, son, but you can't drive the car for, for the next three months.

Yeah, you know, you have taken the keys.

I mean there are always, we see it all the time as parents.

But that, that's also true for, true for us.

And I think oftentimes, you know, there needs to be counselors, there need to be other people, you know, therapy, et cetera, et cetera, to work through some of the damage and some of the hurt.

But I think the element of forgiveness.

But now here's, here's, here's, here's, here's the next couple of steps.

So you start with courageous conversations.

You then practice forgiveness.

That's part of it.

But I think that does not bring restoration and reconciliation.

In fact, I would do the sequence this way.

Courageous conversations lead to forgiveness, lead to reconciliation, lead to restoration.

Often people think, well, because I forgive you, we're going to go back to the beginning as where things were before the event happened.

And we're going to go right back to the status quo where it was.

No, it doesn't happen that way.

The example I like to use is the story of Joseph and his brothers, which is one of the great stories that illustrate all of these points.

You know, it's, it's like the people, I think our listeners will, will know this story of Joseph being sold as a slave to Potiphar, being there, framed, if you will, thrown into prison for more than a decade and then became the, the top or the number two person in Pharaoh's country.

And then the brothers that come down, if you, you know, I like to ask people, when, when did Joseph forgive his brothers?

When were Joseph and his family reconciled and when were they restored?

Because I think we see all of these differences in this story.

I like to think of it this way.

Aaron, is that Joseph.

My, my, this is my perspective people can disagree with.

I think God.

Joseph forgave his brothers right, almost right from the very beginning, you know, because God wouldn't have blessed Joseph's work in Potiphar's household, nor would he have blessed his work in the prison.

You know, we know that God blessed his work if he had regarded iniquity in his heart.

So I think Joseph got that right from the beginning.

He expressed forgiveness.

Now, when did reconciliation take place?

That didn't take place, you know, until later, you know.

And you remember the courageous, really difficult conversations Joseph had with his brothers, you know, when they came back, you know, to buy grain, and then the silver cup and all of those scenarios.

And I'm going to hold your brother in prison here, you know, for a period of time until you come back and bring Benjamin, you know, all of that was part of the courageous conversation.

Joseph had already forgiven his brothers, but it did not lead to reconciliation, I think, you know, until he finally revealed himself.

I am Joseph, your brother, you know, powerful scene, you know, in the text.

Now the family is reconciled, but they're not yet restored.

That didn't happen on.

For more than a decade later.

I think the text says that Jacob lived for another 16 years.

And what happened at Jacob's death, the brothers, okay, now we're gonna get it, you know, our dad is gone.

And that was the reason why.

And they went to Joseph and pleaded with him.

Yeah, that he would not take revenge on.

And Joseph, they made marvelous verses here in terms of, you know, you intended this for evil, for God intended is for good, you know, to preserve you, et cetera, et cetera.

And then the text says.

And Joseph spoke words that comforted their hearts.

Now we have restoration.

Now we've worked through the steps from courageous conversation, forgiveness, reconciliation, and now we have restoration as a family, you know, and I think that's a.

That's a.

A wonderful model, you know, for us to look at that illustrates the complexities of this forgiveness at the horizontal level.

But again, why are we surprised here?

Again, you know, God has given us, you know, a model.

So I think that's the kind of thing that's in the chapter in the book that talks about the forgiveness cycle and things we need to be alert to in our leadership in that whole area, for sure.

And what a thing for the church to be if we can be known for people that are forgiving.

And as you pointed out eloquently, you know, we're vertically forgiven and.

And so that we can be people that operate in forgiveness horizontally.

The one thing I didn't talk about that also is part of the forgiveness cycle is eventually restitution, you know, where something was taken from somebody and we give it back.

And there are tons of examples in the Bible itself.

You know, I'll just give two here quickly.

One is Zacchaeus.

Yeah, I'm going to return everything I. I took many times over.

Or you look at the story of Philemon.

Paul.

Paul said this, you know, regarding Onesimus's potential debt.

If he owes you every, anything charge it to me.

You know, there, there's, there's financial, you know, realities here too.

And that's the restitution part and the ironically is or paradoxically I should say the restitution part gives gravitas to the reconciliation and restoration part.

If you're ready to take care of the money damages that I incurred, maybe you are serious about this whole forgiveness thing.

So anyway, that's, that's the add on.

Good deal.

Good deal.

I got one or two more questions for you.

How have you learned one of the chapters in the book is or you share about feedback?

How have you learned to receive feedback without becoming defensive?

Well, that's a, that's a really good question.

And, and again it goes back, I mean preliminarily it goes back to discussion in terms of do I see my identity in my role or is my identity separate from my role?

You know, I think, I think the, the basic answer to your question is is.

Is again a biblical one.

If I understand the scriptures.

God calls me as a leader to be sensitive to and alert to.

And I need to see the benefit of, of criticism to be an effective leader, not a, not as a one off or how dare you.

I'm God's anointed, which often is the mindset that some leaders communicate.

How can you dare you raise any questions about my work?

Let me, let me, I'll just, you know, I have a, from time to time I post on LinkedIn and my current, my current LinkedIn post is on this very topic.

You know, and I build it around Proverbs 12:1, which says something like it's stupid to hate correction.

If it's stupid to hate correction, then I need to welcome criticism to welcome correction.

And, and we'll see that that's not a one off.

You know, in, in the Scripture.

In fact I, one of the other things that I talk about is in is.

Is.

Is is Psalm 20 or not Psalm 27, Proverbs 27 and particularly verses 6 and verse 7, 17 where the writers talk about faithful are the wounds of a friend.

Do we.

When a friend wounds us.

And I'm that can be in a personal situation or an employment situation because hopefully people in, in the work situation are friends.

You know, do we see that as that person who's thank you, I, I needed that that correction.

You know, the.

And verse I think 17 follows in that very same chapter as iron strikes iron.

There are sparks that fly.

Yeah.

When that happens.

But nowhere do we see anywhere in the scripture that says you can't you can't raise questions in terms of the leader.

You know, I mean, that's part of the deal.

Part of the reason why that's important.

Is that leaders have dark sides.

Leaders are often unaware they don't see their own faults.

They create this image.

We create this image in our minds of how we think we're doing.

And rarely do we ask people to weigh in, hey, how am I doing?

I mean, how's my work being done?

That is, ooh, if they say something that might hurt.

Well, that's precisely the point.

I mean, how are you going to correct, how are you going to correct faults or the blind sides that you have if you're not willing to be there?

So I think again, the scripture comes at this by saying smart leaders, you know, not only are open to criticism and feedback, they welcome it.

They see that it's necessary and needed.

I mean, if a board says to me, well, I, I think it's time for us to do a 360, you know, I won't take, you know, what a 360 is.

It's all around where we ask others to weigh in with how I'm doing.

I, I know a lot of leaders who simply say, you do.

You do a 360 and I'm out of here.

Wow.

That's not.

Proverbs 12, one in action or a lot of other verses.

That's kind of like building my own empire and my own castle and my walls are around it.

I think wise leaders need to be.

Because of our dark side tendencies sometimes or our blind spots, we need others to be able to identify them.

And again, be respectful.

You know, don't just bring out the big guns and start blasting away.

I've had that experience too, which is not terribly good.

But be open to the kinds of feedback that, that other people see in your life, but you don't.

You're going to be a better leader because of it.

Yeah, and that's, that's my, my last question.

It's along a similar vein with that, but I think it's vitally important you share that a leader, that if a leader has no one who can say no to them and make it stick, there's probably little accountability.

Can you just share more about that, that idea of a leader having somebody that can say no to them and make it stick in the importance of having accountability in, in the life of a leader.

Well, I'll start with where you just ended up.

This is an accountability question.

Okay.

You know, the, the question that every leader has Got to ask, if I'm a board, I've got to ask this of, of the leader.

Who is my leader accountable to, who holds me to account?

We all know that if I'm held to high level levels of accountability, the and that means I'm open to criticism, that I'm, I welcome feedback.

I don't resist it.

You know, I have a good understanding.

I embrace the idea of humility.

It's not about me.

It's about the mission.

It's the work that I hold.

When I, if I bring all of those attitudes into the workplace, then it's an easy jump to go from I have no accountability.

I have nobody in my life who can say no to me and make it stick to I welcome accountability.

So my point is that every, every leader has to wrestle with that question.

How will I hold myself?

How will I be held to high levels of accountability?

Now the interesting thing here is that, you know.

In terms of our own culture, you know, God usually doesn't bring instant judgment.

Yeah.

To somebody who screws up.

I mean, you know, the Moses story that we talked about would be one example.

The Ananias and Sapphire example in the book of Acts would be another.

You know, they lied to the Holy Spirit and boom, they were gone.

I don't see that happening very, very many times in leadership circles today, you know, when a leader makes errors.

But I, but I think that's where that whole idea that accountability side and accountability to those that you serve, you know that which brings in that whole leader follower dynamic that we've talked about on other occasions.

I do my best leaders, leadership when I am held to high levels of accountability.

Let me give you an illustration.

This is, this is one.

And I think other leaders who practice this could give other stories.

When I was in one of the presidencies that I was in, I didn't do it in the first one.

I should have, I didn't have the presence of mind that, you know what, this will be really good for me to do.

I brough the chairman of the board, the CFO and the primary audit partner who did the audit into my office.

And I said to the chairman, and I said to the audit partner, I said, I want you to listen to the conversation I'm about to have with my cfo.

I said, because sometimes leaders tend to be really sloppy with finances, you know, and well, yeah, God's got it.

And, and yeah, why, why file that report?

Etc.

I said to the cfo, if you ever see me getting anywhere close to violating any kind of Ethical, healthy financial standards.

I want you immediately to get on the phone and call the chairman of the board.

You know, you don't have to.

Matthew 18 that even it goes is rather than just calling me up and say, gina, a lot, a lot of CFOs are going to be a little bit, well, gee, if I say that to the c. The president, he's going to be mad at me.

I won't.

Oh, that conversation.

I wanted it to be clear then to, to all parties that I wanted to be upright and forthright in, in, in, in areas of my life in terms of accountability.

And I think, you know, I'm not alone in that, fortunately, but there are lots of others who do it.

But I think we get our best leadership when there's accountability.

I think if you don't have that accountability, you are on a slippery slope.

And it's not a matter of, of when you're going to slide down that hill.

It's, it's, it's.

It.

I mean, it's not a matter of if you're going to slide down that hill.

It's a matter of when you will slide down that hill.

So I think, I think good leaders, you know, welcome, you know, feedback, criticism, as we just talked about, but they also welcome high levels of accountability rather than fight them, you know, and I think, I think that's part of it.

Aaron, when you think about it this way, way.

God's spirit doesn't lead people who are committed to walking in obedience, in opposite and divisive directions.

H.

He'll give us both the sense that God's in it.

Yeah.

What do we do about the Gentile problem?

Quote, unquote.

The Jerusalem Jews had that attitude, you know, Gentile believers where Paul was working, you know, what do we have to buy into all that Jewish stuff, you know, and you can see it was a pretty tense meeting.

But I love the verse in verse 28, when they're communicating the message, the results of their deliberations, they use language like this, the whole Holy Spirit and we are in agreement.

And all of these issues that we're talking about here, whether it's role identity, whether it's confrontation, whether it's forgiveness, that needs to be our bottom line, that we are walking in agreement with the Holy Spirit, not the other way around.

And I think that is what keeps organizations healthy.

That's what keeps Organizations on track.

And that, I think, is what keeps us from defaulting to effectiveness at the expense of faithfulness.

Wow.

Wow.

Gene, it's always an honor to spend time with you.

Will you pray for us today?

I'd be happy to, Lord Jesus.

I pray for those who are listening to this conversation.

I pray that you would sensitize not just their minds, but their hearts to what we've been talking about.

And people would be asking, how can I be more faithful to what you call me to be in the leadership assignments that you've entrusted me with.

Lord, I pray for families, I pray for kids, I pray for marriages.

I pray for organizations that are striving to honor you in.

In their work.

My prayer in, in every situation is that we would embrace being faithful to you even more than our desire to be effective.

You, you will multiply.

You can do things that go way beyond we can, whatever we can imagine or think because you promise us that.

But you always ask us, in doing that, to be faithful.

We don't have to sacrifice our lives, we don't have to sacrifice our families, and we don't have to sacrifice the people in the organizations where we work and serve in order to be faithful and follow.

So, Lord, we pray for all of us that we would continue.

To give you praise for all that you do, even as we lay ourselves before you and say, lead me, Lord, like Elijah, to hear that still small voice saying, here's the way.

Walk here, give you the praise and the honor and glory for all that you do and all that you are doing, all that you have done, and all that you will do in the days ahead.

Guide us and direct us all in your name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Sam.