In this episode, Gene emphasizes the necessity for clarity in the roles of boards and CEOs, illustrating how effective governance can mitigate dysfunction and enhance organizational health. The conversation further explores the importance of courageous communication and the cultivation of trust within leadership dynamics. Ultimately, this dialogue serves as a poignant reminder of the need for humility and service in leadership roles, prompting listeners to reflect on their own practices and commitments to fostering unity and understanding.

Back Channel with Foth features a profound discussion on the expanding divide within political parties, as articulated by our esteemed guest, Dick Foth. He posits that this division is not merely apparent but is indeed a growing reality, characterized by an increasing extremism that stifles constructive dialogue and fosters polarization.

Takeaways:

• The growing distance between political parties in the United States is increasingly evident, reflecting a broader societal divide.
• Communication within organizations is significantly influenced by tone, often more than the words themselves, making effective dialogue crucial.
• The role of a board in leadership is pivotal, providing clarity and direction to ensure the success of the CEO and the organization.
• Leadership requires intentionality in balancing work and personal life to prevent burnout and maintain effectiveness in one's role.
• A healthy board must engage in courageous conversations and provide accountability to ensure effective governance and leadership.
• Leaders should recognize that their identity should not be rooted in their roles but in their service to others, fostering humility and community.

Foreign.

So excited to be here with our friend of the podcast, Dick Foth, on another session of Back Channel with Foe.

And then we're going to go ahead and jump into our conversation with Gene.

Dick, welcome back to the podcast.

Always delightful.

Wonderful to be here.

Dick, got two questions for you as always.

First one is from your time in D.C. what are thoughts, what are your thoughts on the seemingly growing distance in the political parties?

So from from administration perspective, it was the Clinton years and the bush 43 years, George W. Bush.

In response to the question, there's not enough time to answer this question if I did have an answer.

Secondly, what are the thoughts on seemingly growing distance?

I would say it's not seemingly, I would say growing distance.

And you're talking to a person who is not a politician nor the son of a politician.

And so I come at it perhaps a little bit differently.

If you were to ask, because we're essentially a two party system.

If you were to ask in Washington, D.C. what's the goal for your party, historically, I think either party might say something like to have a stronger, better, freer United States.

The question is, what does that?

What does stronger, better, freer, what does that look like?

And how that is to be achieved becomes the issue.

This is true in most of life.

A lot of people can say that's our goal to do.

We want to help poor people or we want to work on brain cancer issues or whatever.

That's not the part that gets the challenge.

The part is how do you get from point A to point B?

The medium is the message in that regard, as Marshall McLuhan would say.

And a lot of politics today is framed in what are perceived threats to the United States, within the United States.

Here's my simple observation.

And again, this is just my observation.

If we see political structure as a bell curve, what we have done in these last years for a whole range of reasons that we don't have time to get into here, is that the conversation has moved to the edges of the bell curve.

So what we have ended up with are extremes.

Not talking together, shouting at each other.

Nothing works if you stand across the street and shout at each other.

And whatever talking within the bulk of that bell curve is being drowned out.

It's being muted.

And the further you go to the edges, the longer the list gets of the things you're judged by.

I walked into the office of a good friend of mine who was a senator at the time he was a very conservative person.

And some folks were walking out of his office at that time and they had just remonstrated with him because of the 10 things they were concerned for.

He hadn't voted the way they wanted on one of those.

And I can remember looking at his face and he said, I don't know what to do about these people.

I was country before country was cool.

And so that's where we are.

Everybody knows that.

I'm not saying anything new, but Washington, D.C. and any entity like could be an institution of some kind.

Oftentimes it's about gaining the power to set the agenda.

So being in power is important.

You know, we say, yeah, it's important to be the President of the United States.

Well, yeah, that's important.

Part of the reason it's important because when you're in that chair, you have the responsibility and power to, to name the heads of more than 3,000 agencies that have your philosophy or however that works.

And whichever party or whatever person gains power, my observation will go to almost any length to keep it.

Once there, doesn't make any difference.

And again, don't even Talk about Washington D.C. talk about the mayor of wherever or the, or the county commissioner, whatever position it is.

You know, the, the effort and the money put forward to get there is, is then exacerbated in some instances by all the stuff you have to do to stay there.

And when, when you think about communication, which is how we vote and all that sort of things, it's far less about words than it is about tone.

Interesting.

I said to somebody on a zoom the other day, you know, conversation, communications, about 80% is tone.

And he pinged me afterwards, said, where'd you get that metric?

I said, I can't remember.

I heard it a ton of times in D.C. when I was there.

So I just went online and there's a study that's been done that in communication, 7% of communication is your words.

Another 20 some percent is your tone.

There's a lot of difference between I love you and I love you, you know, kind of difference.

But more than 50% in personal communication is body language.

Am I leaning in?

Am I open?

Do I have my arms crossed over my chest?

Right, so, so.

And my, my concern about today is that on all sides, we are starving for truth, drowning in spin.

And, you know, I had a friend in D.C. who was in the State Department who used to read five newspapers when you did that, actual physical newspapers, or the LA Times, or the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and I said, why do you do that?

He said, because all of them have angles on the truth, and if I read all five every day, somewhere in the middle, I'll find it.

Anyway, that's it.

Those are my observations about where we are.

Appreciate it.

And valuable nuggets, multiple nuggets in there.

Their second question is, is it naive to think that this growing divide could change?

I don't think it's naive, primarily because I believe in miracles and I'm ready for one of those.

Yeah, I just, I just think that what, what we don't understand about the current tension, it's always been this way, but it's more this way today, is that there are millions of dollars being spent on each side of, quote, the divide to make sure the divide does not get closed.

Yeah.

Because if we don't close the divide, then we win.

Yeah, that's true, theoretically.

So anyway, I believe in miracles and I'm ready for it.

Amen.

Well, Dick, always enjoy having you on the podcast.

And for back channel with folks, we're going to go ahead and jump into our interview with Gene where we talk about leader care and the importance of that.

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 be here with a new friend of the podcast, Gene.

Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you.

It's a joy to be with you.

Aaron.

Yes, Gene.

I got to learn from you when we were at a conference together.

Well, you were the presenter in Orlando, Florida, and it was a valuable insight.

You know, as I shared after I've done 330 some odd episodes of these podcasts and I'd never had the opportunity to have somebody on to speak on these, this specific topics that we're going to talk about today.

But before I jump in with all the questions I have for you, will you share a little bit about yourself?

Grew up in a dairy farm in eastern Pennsylvania, went on to college at Taylor University in Indiana, did a bunch of graduate degrees, and then I end up serving, had the privilege of serving in three separate presidencies for 35 straight years.

21 of those years were at two Christian, different Christian universities, and one was for 14 years as the president of the American Bible Society, then located in New York.

But I've also had a chance to an opportunity to chair a lot of boards, including the United Bible Society's Global board in England and a variety of other experiences like that.

So I, I think I've, I think I can see out of both windows here, the, the window of what boards expect in leadership.

On the other hand, what CEOs deserve in a leadership role and getting that balance right is really what led us to that ECFA pre session in Orlando as part of the Missio Nexus gathering.

Yeah, and the importance of the care of a leader.

It was honestly the first time that I had really sat down and thought about the important role that, that the board plays in caring for the leader.

And yeah, just, it was insightful, valuable conversation and yeah, I valued it very much.

So, so the first question I got for you, Gene, is what role does a board play in the health of a leader?

Think of the board CEO relationship as kind of a leadership team.

The legal responsibility for the organization falls not to the CEO but to the board.

When a board is established by articles of incorporation and by bylaws, it's the board that has the responsibility to make sure things happen in the right way and they hire their only employee and which is the CEO, who then has the role to implement what happens.

And so think, think of the CEO board relationship as kind of like a leadership team.

And that doesn't mean, you know, only one side gets to play the game.

Both sides need to play the game.

And holding those two responsibilities, and they are different responsibilities, but all pointed towards the same game.

Think about the relationship that way.

So the board sets parameters.

Think about this, it sets, it determines the direction of the enterprise.

Think in terms of a strategic plan, think in terms of the mission, think in terms of the vision.

The CEO obviously has input into that process, but the end game of where the plane lands, so to speak, on those issues, mission, vision, the strategic plan, the direction of the enterprise, that is a board responsibility legally.

And so now the task that the board has though is to make sure that they empower the CEO to carry out in appropriate ways the kinds of things that a CEO has got to.

Got to handle.

The problem comes is when there's not clarity between those roles and the CEO ends up guessing, well, I think this is what the board wants.

Well, I don't know what they want, but you know, I'm going to give it a shot.

That's not fair to the, to the, to the CEO if a board isn't clear on those points.

So I think one of the roles that a board has is to provide clarity.

Okay, it has a role to set parameters.

We're going to go this direction, not this direction.

We're going to achieve these priorities, not those priorities.

And so I think all of that helps the CEO carry out their roles and their responsibilities better.

Hmm.

And yeah, it's.

And honestly, I'd never heard it articulated the way until you delineated those roles and responsibilities.

What are some things you found to help?

What, what can boards help to do to provide that clarity?

Because you said sometimes it's unfair for, for the CEO to be guessing what they think the board wants, and vice versa.

Is it through communication, is it the frequency of communication, or what are some things you saw that help provide that clarity?

Well, the answer is yes to all of your suggestions.

But I think one of the key things that a board has a responsibility to do is to clarify at the beginning of the CEO's role what success will look like.

In other words, it's answer, you know, the CEO is saying, well, if I've had a great year this year, what is it that I will have accomplished?

The CEO shouldn't have to guess at that.

So I think one of the early responsibilities that a board has is to be clear about expectations.

The story I think I told in Orlando was, and I actually had this experience where I asked that question of a board where I was the CEO, and the board response was, well, we don't know, but we'll know it when we see it.

A CEO, a president, executive director, will not do their best work in that kind of environment.

But is to be clear as to what the expectations are.

And then the board shifts to the side and says, okay, now how can we help you in our various boards, board roles and responsibilities to help make you effective in order to achieve that?

So that, that is the first thing that, that I would, I would argue is, is a board responsibility is to be clear about the expectations of what success looks like in the role.

Yeah.

And doing that from the beginning.

And doing it from the beginning.

Right from the beginning.

All right, next question I got for you.

So, you know, part of what we were there with ECFA is their disrecognition that they want leaders healthy.

And when a.

Leaders, when there's a leadership failure, that impacts the organization, the vision, the mission, and also impacts them financially.

So when a leader does.

If a leader fails.

Let's put that.

If a leader does fail, does that mean the board has failed also?

Are those, Is that, you know, those.

Is there a correlation or is there causation or is it.

Yeah, or one or the other.

Maybe there's another agent that I'm not thinking of.

Yeah, I think there is a relationship.

I would probably not call it board failure as much as I would call It.

Board dysfunction.

Okay.

That.

That is to say, usually when there's leader failure, there's board dysfunction of some type, such as we.

The board didn't really make it clear as to what success looks like.

And so the CEO is out there scrambling on his or her own, trying to figure it out on their own.

The board failed in its responsib ability to hold a leader to high levels of accountability.

That's a responsibility.

One of the questions that a board has got to ask is, who can say no to you and make it stick?

A lot of boards get that wrong.

They have the fear that, well, if we say no to the CEO, the, the CEO will quit.

I. I know one situation where the board wanted to do a 360 evaluation on a CO, which is just not abnormal.

That's just a good business practice.

And the CEO said, well, if you do that, then you look for another president.

So the board went, oh, okay.

That's an example of board dysfunction.

It's when you start having those kinds of situations, one on top of the other, that leads to dysfunction.

And here's the reality.

Psalm 19, verse 12 speaks about the reality.

This is the psalmist writing.

He said, lord, I. I need.

I need somebody to.

This is my paraphrase.

I need somebody to get into my life because I am unaware of my hidden faults and everyone else can see them.

But.

But the leader often is blind, has blind spots.

And so that's why you need that engagement of others.

And I think a board can help there.

So it's.

It may not be the absolute reason why.

Why the CEO fails, but often there's a relationship where the board has stopped being.

Exercising.

Being.

The board stopped exercising good governance.

So I think there is a relationship between.

Between that.

As you've heard me say before, when there is a leadership failure, my question tends to be, okay, where was the board?

And I think if you look at all the ones that hit the headlines in the last couple of years, that's a fair question.

Where was the board?

And it's not.

It's not.

It's not unexpected that after you see that, often the whole board will resign because they know the error of their way.

They just gave too much leeway to the CEO and did not hold that person to accountability.

And so I think there is some culpability there on the part of the board.

It depends on degrees, but I would say that it's the relationship.

There is a relationship.

There's often a relationship between CEO failure and board dysfunction.

Wow.

And so what are some ways that you can healthily approach that if, say, there's somebody on a board and they feel like there's things that they want to bring up to the CEO and then it shut down, or this, as you Talked about the 360 and the person said, well, just, you need to find a new president.

Are there healthy ways that you can engage in those conversations so that it doesn't heighten tension and increase conflict and rather that.

Or is that just inherent personal dysfunction from the beginning?

Is that a fair question?

Yeah, it's a fair question.

There's, there's, there's, there's no magic bullet here.

Sure, I'm, I'm going to recommend.

But, but the observation I would make, Aaron, is, is that this is where being clear at the front end.

Okay.

Even before day one on the job starts, here's how we define success.

Here's how we will choose to evaluate you.

Three sixties will be part of the process we want doing.

We want to, as a board, engage in forthright and open and candid conversation with you.

You know, maybe not the full board with the CEO, but maybe the chair and the vice chair with the CEO come to expect that we are practitioners of what the proverbs teach about that.

The wise welcomes that kind of confrontation, courageous conversations.

Just like David maybe didn't like what Nathan had to say to them, but he, he went, oh my, you know, that's me.

That's part of the expectation.

But if a board never articulates with clarity from the beginning, and a CEO starts running off and, and, and setting a different agenda and the board is, well, we'll lose them, then that's when the problems begin.

And so I think getting that clear right from the beginning, now, what if we're three or five years into the tenure of a CEO and, and now you have a board that is kind of like, okay, comes to, we come to our senses.

I think the best way is to be very straightforward.

I mean, one of the things that healthy organizations and churches, I would add, model is the, the, the regularity of courageous con.

We were not afraid to ignore the elephant in the room.

We're not afraid to really discuss the really difficult, the awkward issues.

When I work with boards, I usually recommend that a board always has two executive sessions as part of a regular board meeting.

The first executive session is with the CEO.

That is to say, you know, the CEO may want to update the board on some pretty important issues without the rest of the staff who usually attend, you know, with the CEO at a board meeting.

But Then a board needs to take time to have discussion on its own in terms of what are the difficult issues.

And, and, and even when the, the CEO is a ex officio member of the board, I think that's still a good practice for boards to executive session without the CEO and, and then a board, a good board can begin to discuss, you know, in, in meaningful ways.

Are there issues that we need to attend to?

How do we approach them?

Exercising godlike quality, you know, doing this the, the right way as we address those issues.

Now if the CEO says if you have an executive session without the CEO, I'm out of here, eventually the board is going to have to say, yeah, well we wish you well.

Yeah, you know, I mean, because as long as that is the card that's being played, then the, the board doesn't, is not exercising good governance.

It's not doing its job.

And in essence the CEO is running the enterprise.

That, that creates a problem and that leads to some of the, the leadership failure that we talked about a few minutes ago.

Yeah, that definitely that dysfunction you share about five W's of board members.

And I'm all for memorable things.

So this helps remember kind of when you're looking at board members and, and sometimes what the role that board members play.

What can you share what the five W's are and how does one prioritize these five W's?

Yeah, that those are.

Again, you've asked enough questions and what you said to me in advance that we have multiple sessions and to go into great depth.

In fact, I do Leadership seminars might take about an hour to go deep into all of these sessions.

The five W's are board work.

That's the first of you.

That is, that is where the work of governance is done.

You know, where there's generative thinking.

Good board meetings are not dominated by staff discussion.

They're dominated by board discussion.

Think in terms of 80% being done by the board and it's, it's the board discussing the, the various policy issues, directions, the kinds of things we talked about earlier.

So that's the first W is, is, is the work of the board.

The second one is the board is called to exercise wisdom.

Proverbs talks about wisdom, discernment, understanding, knowledge, good judgment and common sense.

I mean a board, if I can substitute all of those under the word wisdom, that's part of what a board does.

I mean part of it is listening to the Holy Spirit, you know, you know, it's kind of like the Elijah story wasn't in the earthquake.

It wasn't in the fire.

It wasn't in the wind.

It was in that still small voice of God to Elijah saying, here's the way, you know, walk here.

And I think that's all part of good, exercising good wisdom.

And there are some really tricky issues that boards have to have to deal with in a variety of ways.

Could be personnel issues, could be policy issues, could be a variety of things.

But I think boards have to exercise wisdom.

The third thing that I think good and best board practice involves is that every board member shares of their wealth.

Now, there's no.

And that's the third W. Well, there's no magic limit here that I'm going to say has to, has to be the case.

I usually say if you're going to be on a board, it ought to be, you know, after your church, one of your highest priorities in terms of your giving.

And the reason I say that is Jesus himself made the comment that your, your heart is going to follow your treasure and not the other way around.

We, we sometimes get that wrong.

But where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

And, and what you want as the CEO is that you want people who bring not just their heads, but their hearts into the ministry that, that you lead, help lead as a CEO.

And of course, that involves your treasure.

Jesus linked the heart and the treasure.

Now, again, every board member, I think, needs to give something, you know, a hundred dollars a year and maybe even, you know, whatever a board has to wrestle through as to what that is.

Some boards have very high numbers, which means they only attract, you know, a certain group of, of people.

But I, but, but, you know, the scripture always talks about proportional giving.

Okay.

And, and I think that's a good standard, you know, for board member contributions as well.

So that's the third W as well.

I think the fourth one is, is witness.

And, and, and what, what we, what I mean by, by witness is that the fact that a board needs to live its conversation.

If the board says, we want this place to reflect the kinds of, of, of qualities that are in that.

Some of the great revelation passages of people from every tribe, every nation, we want that to, to mark our board.

And then you look at the board and it doesn't reflect that.

Yeah, that's not a good witness.

And so the witness is to making sure there's an alignment between the words that a board says.

Okay, here's what we believe.

Yeah.

On the one hand, versus the action that comes out of the board on the other hand.

And, and that that's Our witness.

And of course, is that not true of our witness in the workplace?

You know, our words and our actions need to be in alignment.

And then the, the fifth W, as we call wallop and wallop here is, is.

It's kind of a cute name, but it means that you're going to take, take advantage of the relationships that you have outside of and away from the organization where you service a board member to share the good news of the organization.

So if you're in a corporation or if you're in a larger church community, you're gonna, you're gonna take the opportunity to share the good news of the place where you serve as a board.

And so that's not board work, that's not governance, it's not board wisdom, it's not board wealth, it's not board witness in the way that I've described it.

But it is an important role because you're, you're, take, you're, you're, you're, you're using your networks to share more broadly about your work.

And hopefully some of them, you know, people hear that story and say, maybe I need to get involved.

Maybe I need to send my kids there.

If it's a Christian college, university, maybe I need to support it financially, you know, with the resources God has.

So those are the five W's, Aaron, that we talk about in terms of, of, of what a healthy board needs to bring together around that board table.

When for board members, do they need to encompass all five of those things?

Or is it on varying levels?

Or maybe they have certain strengths in one area, not the others?

And then, yeah, if you're looking for board members.

So I love the framework because it lets you.

And a lot of times, at least when I've asked to be on boards, you know, I'm, I, I do.

I didn't know the right questions asked.

I just knew I needed to ask some questions.

But I love the 5W's because then it gives me the rundown through say, hey, this is, you know, in these areas, how do I fit and where am I?

What, you know, what am I bringing to the table?

But are those questions you just asked directly ahead of time or when you're looking for board members or.

Any more thoughts on that?

Yeah, I do a lot of boards have a special committee of the board call a board governance committee.

Okay.

Or some of them call it a committee on, on, on trusteeship, depending on what the, Are they trustees or directors?

And this, this group, this special group of the board, or it could be an Executive committee, or it could be some other leadership group that the board puts together, actually debates and argues those questions.

What does this mean?

And so I, the metaphor I like to use when thinking about a board is I want.

It's like putting together an orchestra.

Okay.

You know, you, you don't want everybody.

I mean, the, the, the scripture basically talks about we've all been given different gifts.

And so you don't expect every believer to have the exact same gift any more than you'd expect every board member to contribute in the exact same way.

But in an orchestra, when you put together an orchestra, you don't want all trumpets in an orchestra or all violins or all woodwinds or all timpani or, or percussion.

You want a balance and a blend of people with different gifts.

But what that should look like needs to be a decision that a good board will wrestle with.

You know, we want two of these and three of these.

And, you know, since, you know, I like to say it this way, without margin, financial margin, there is no mission.

You do need people that bring resources to the table because that's, that's part of the agenda.

So that's part of board work going back to the five W's and board wisdom of putting those together in terms of what those profiles should look like.

So then it's not, it's not simply a matter of the board saying, well, who can we add to the board?

A board is saying, what are our needs?

Yeah, you know, we have too many trumpets.

We're not going to add any more trumpets.

We need a couple of violins or we need more women or more men or whatever.

And then you select board members based on what your priorities are as a board in terms of what you need.

So that's the.

Really, the way it works.

So it's, it's both science and it's art, you know, and again, all of this has got to be undergirded with and by the guide and through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, you know, because God prepares people, you know, for appropriate times to carry out his work and, and ministry.

Yeah, I love the intentional nature in which you describe it.

And so it's not necessarily.

It's not a popularity contest.

It's not, you know, and as you shared in certain times and seasons, you need different.

Different.

With the orchestra example, you need certain times.

And it's not.

Doesn't mean the other people are not good people.

It doesn't mean that, you know, if they're.

They might be a great trombone player, but that's just really not what you're in need of.

You're in need of a certain, another skill set.

And so I don't think it's against the people that are trombone players or whatever, but at the same time it's looking for those specific needs.

So I love the language and I love how it frames those conversations to help move those conversations forward.

Well, and what a good board will do, Aaron, also, it will, will always have a pool of potential board members in waiting.

In other words, it has, okay, we need trumpeters, we need violins, we need percussionists.

And so it kind of has like a second group that it's using through other roles.

Maybe they're in advisory committees or maybe they are business people that are on some kind of an advisory group to the organization.

So when a board opening presents itself is, you don't start de novo, like, what do we do?

No, you already have people that you've been grooming.

I use that in the best sense of the word.

You, you've been preparing for possible board roles and you simply go to the next one on your list.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, so it, I love your word.

Intentionality.

That's exactly right.

It's an intentional, purpose filled process.

Awesome.

You know, I read a lot, listen a lot, but you shared the story of this, you shared about the story of ceramic cup and the, in the meeting that you were leading.

You know, I had never, you know, I consider myself semi educated and I'd never heard it and never seen it.

Will you, will you share a little bit about how this story speaks into the role of a board and a CEO?

Yeah, this is, this is a great, this is a great story.

It's a story told by Simon Sinek from a book and I love the title, Leaders Eat Last.

They're not the first ones to the table, but they're the last ones to the table after everyone else gets fed and that, I love the symbolism of that.

But here the story is, is kind of like a military guy, undersecretary of.

In a military role, who'd been invited to speak at a, at a big meeting.

And, you know, everybody paid attention.

You know, somebody else made his plane reservation, somebody arranged car service to the airport.

You know, he flew in business class, first class or whatever.

When he arrived at the airport, somebody was there to meet him.

You know, somebody takes him to this, the place to speak, somebody carried his bag to the hotel, etc.

He got to the place to speak and asked for coffee and somebody handed him a coffee container that was a ceramic cup.

Really, really nice.

He spoke the next year.

Nobody made the reservation.

He had to do it himself.

And there was no car service.

He had to take Uber.

When he got to the airport, no one's there to meet him.

Nobody helped.

Carried his bags to his room in the hotel, and he had to take another Uber to the, to the meeting place.

And, and, and when he got there and asked for coffee, they said, okay, the coffee pot is over in the wall.

Help yourself to the Styrofoam cup.

And, and what changed, what changed was, what he was, is that he was no longer in any official capacity.

He was Jess Joe Black.

I'll use, let's use that.

I'll make up that name.

He had no role whatsoever.

And the realization, and this is the point of the story, and, and people are.

I want to encourage people to go back and read it.

You just Google the ceramic cup, Simon Sinek, and it'll pop right up.

You'll get, you'll get.

I paraphrase it.

I've given you my version of it, you know, but I think it illustrates a, it illustrates the point.

The point that he realizes is, is leaders sometimes get in a role where they, their identity is their leadership role.

They say things like, I am the CEO rather than I serve in the CEO role.

It's kind of like, it's not about me, it's about the role.

And he began to realize, as he unpacks this story, the ceramic cup, that they were not giving the ceramic cup to him.

They were giving the ceramic cup to the occupier of the role.

And as soon as that, that changed, all he deserved, he said, was the Styrofoam cup.

And so I think having people, having people in leadership understand that their identity needs to be someplace else than in the role that they serve, that it's really in Christ as his servant.

Reflecting humility and meeting and serving the needs of those that they serve is the highest priority we have, that I think every leader needs to understand and embrace.

It's not about the ceramic cup.

It's really about the Styrofoam cup.

You know, leaders need to be prepared, I'm going to say this carefully prepared to give up some of their perks.

You know, some of the things that actually go with the role that are nice, I will say that, you know, that are nice, but they don't reflect like the, the bottom line message that we get in Philippians, chapter two, particularly verses, I think it's five through eight, where, where Jesus humbled himself, gave up all that he had.

Yeah.

Humbled himself and, and took on the form of a human being.

That, that's the Styrofoam cup.

That's why, as I, as I often tell people, that's why Jesus was able to, to, to use the talon basin because he'd already given up all that other stuff and humbled himself.

And, and I think it's just a great story to remember.

And I, and I, I think that keeping the identity straight from the, from the role that you serve, you know, I, my, I, I'm, I'm Gene.

I have a role that I serve.

But don't make the role that you serve your identity.

That'll, that'll get you in trouble.

Yeah.

And I think the challenge of it is, is a lot of times I agree with wholeheartedly.

I think the challenge for me as a leader is, is I put myself, I put so much intention and effort in, and it's a drift, It's, I don't think I wake up one morning and say, I am this.

But it's, you put so much of your time, effort, talents into it, you almost, yeah, it can become all encompassing.

And I got another question on you down here about getting away from work.

And so that would probably, that would probably be on that one.

To your point.

Let me, let me speak to that.

That's why we need other people in our lives, lives who have, who are given permission to speak into our lives, and people who can say to me, Gene, what are you doing?

Or to you, Aaron, do you realize how this is coming across, how it's being perceived by the place that you serve?

I mean, and if we, if we push away people who might be willing to have courageous conversations with us, then we don't get that benefit.

And, and we kind of go our own way, creating a kind of a subterfuge to our own effectiveness, which is really what we cannot have, you know, as, as people of God who really want to serve, you know, honoring the name of Jesus.

Yeah.

I was in a business the, the other day, and someone said, hey, that's, you know, that's my boss.

I said, no, I'm, I'm the person that has the honor to serve.

Serve with you or whatever.

I don't like that.

You know, I, I, I just don't like the term boss because it's not my leadership style.

You know what I mean?

And they said, well, it all means the same thing.

I said, no, I, I think the mentality is different.

I said, if I was a boss, I'd just be given.

I would be given dictates and orders.

I said, but I hope that, you know, we're doing this together and we have the honor to serve good leaders.

You're absolutely right, Aaron.

Good leaders do their best work through people.

Not lording power over people.

People.

Yeah, and we in leadership get that often get that wrong, you know, because we hold the power.

We think that all I have to do is write a memo and it's going to solve the problem.

And it doesn't.

You know, it's, it's, it's our best work.

As leaders come in working through people kind of like, like Moses did after Jethro had a courageous conversation with him, saying, you're going to kill yourself if you keep doing what you're doing.

You know, you've got to, you've got to carry out your work through people, not simply be their judge lording power over them.

So I, I think it's a, it's a point that it is worth remembering and bears repeating.

Yeah.

Gene, you, you talked about getting away from work.

I, I, honestly, I was one.

I took a lot of notes in, in your session, but one of the things you talked about was me paraphrasing it was, you know, the work's never done, and you could work all the time and maybe you wouldn't get all the work done.

How have you found.

Yeah, in this kind of.

Is the other question, too, about the leader needs to do all the work.

So how did you find to manage that tension that you need to do all the work and maybe the work's never all going to be done, and then also getting away from work.

So kind of combining two questions into one.

Thoughts on this?

Yeah.

See, the CEO does not stand for chief everything officer.

You know, sometimes leaders, the way they act, they think they are the chief everything officer.

They can do it better than anybody else, they can do it faster than everybody else, they're more competent than everybody else.

And pretty soon, you know, leaders saying, well, why do I need you if.

If you're not.

If I can't, you know, do it better?

And that, that then leads to the mindset that I am indispensable.

And when you, when you carry around the mindset that you are indispensable, it's kind of like, well, I can't get the work done if it's not through me.

And what you end up doing is you end up throwing yourself into your work with even greater abandon.

Now, when you, when you take that mindset and you couple it with the fact that a lot of leaders wrestle with the imposter syndrome.

That is to say, well, if they really knew who I was, you know, they never would have appointed me to the job.

So I have got to work overtime.

I've got to go beyond and above the expectations to demonstrate my worthiness for the position.

So I work even harder.

And you know, that has a game, a no win game.

It's a no win game that you play.

You're going to burn yourself out and burn yourself up and the work is not going to get done.

The organization is, is going to suffer.

So I think, you know, don't.

The first thing I would say is don't.

As a, as a leader, don't work under the assumption that you're indispensable.

You know, bring that mindset that God has.

As you said earlier, Aaron, God has privileged you at this moment to help carry out the work, but you do your work through others.

You practice the art of delegation.

You know, you, you recognize the fact that as we, as we've talked earlier, that what Jesus talked about in, in John 17, he, he said, after three years, I have completed everything his Father had sent him to do.

And you kind of look at that, you go, what?

How He.

Only three years, he completed everything the Father sent him to do because he was so in tune with what his purpose was and what his calling was that he could, he could make that statement.

Now I look at me and I go, oh my gosh, you know, there's so much more I want to get done, you know, And I think that verse in John 17 illustrates the difference between everything I want to achieve myself versus everything that God is calling me to do.

And this is where, this is where leaders get themselves in trouble.

They say, I can never get away because the work is, is, is, is too extreme.

Well then, then you're not understanding God's call in your life because God doesn't call you to destroy your family.

God doesn't call you to, to destroy your marriage.

I'm thinking back to First Timothy, chapter three, for example, and Titus chapter one, where, where the home is presented as a leadership laboratory.

In fact, Paul, the Apostle Paul would in essence suggest that the kind of job you do at home is going to determine your qualifications for further leadership responsibilities and roles within the church.

We don't start there.

And the Apostle Paul, basically, both in his letter to Timothy and his letter to Titus said, that's where you start.

Get the priorities right there.

That means you can't always be at work.

That means you are going to have to choose to be away.

You are going to have to choose ways to refill the tank or you're going to burn out or you're going to burn up.

I think understanding those perspectives and then with intentionality, choosing to get away.

You know, I would say to my senior team, you gain no extra points for me from me by not taking your vacation.

I expect everybody to take their vacation.

You know, don't say, well, I'm too busy.

The work is, well, then we'll figure out some other way to get it done.

Because I know then they're not going to be rested, their mind's going to be cluttered because they didn't get away to take a vacation.

And you know, this, you know, we haven't talked about this, but, but I talk about a lot of this stuff, Aaron, in the book the Softer side of Leadership, for sure, you know, and particularly the focus on sacred space, getting away and alone with, you know, with, with, with our Lord.

And I think if you look at it, he is really our example here.

Because here, here was the one who said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

I and the Father are one.

I can do nothing apart with my Father.

Yet he basically said, that's not enough.

I need to stop my work and get away to be alone with my Father, to pray.

And if the Son of God said that's a priority, and I need that to have the kind of walk and relationship with my Father in heaven, who do I think I am to say, I don't need to do that?

You know, that was Jesus, that's, that he needed to do that, but not me.

I mean, it's kind of like what kind of illness do I have?

What kind of blindness, you know, do I live with for me not to, to see that?

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

Well, Gene, you mentioned it.

I, I did.

I would love if.

Well, I'm putting you on the spot here, but what I'd like to do is I'd like to wrap this one up and see if we could find a time in the, in the coming days to record again on the softer side of leadership and delve into the, the lessons.

Because I had questions for you about heart leadership.

I had creativity impact on our leadership, but I had questions about trust and forgiveness cycle, a lot of those different things.

And we've run out of time today, but if you'd be willing to it, I'd love to, love to do it, come back and we can answer those questions.

Then we don't have to rush through them.

But yeah, it's been a joy and to spend time with you today.

Will you pray for us today that God will use this conversation to encourage those that are listening in?

I'd be honored too.

Lord Jesus, we thank you for your example, your love for us, the way you bless us, the way you entrust us with leadership responsibilities.

And you call us not just to go through the motions, you call us to reflect in what we do and say and how we do what we do to honor who you are and the way you lived and worked and walked among us.

And you call us to that through the guidance of your spirit and the teaching of your word.

And so, Lord, help us to be faithful.

Help us to privilege faithfulness over effectiveness.

To.

To.

To learn that it your.

Your call, like it is, was to Moses and to us and others, is to be faithful in every aspect of our lives and to love you with our.

Our whole hearts, our minds, our strengths, our souls, as we carry out the responsibilities that you entrust to us.

Thank you for the opportunity to just share these ideas, and we pray that.

That they might be seeds that would help people think even more deeply about what your Word teaches about how we live and work and lead in the days ahead.

We love you.

We want to honor your name and thank you for who you are and what you do in our lives.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.