Cultivating Culture in Your Leadership Team

So far this week, I’ve had Zoom conversations with three congregational leadership teams, and I’m looking for common themes. Three different states, three different sizes and three different presenting dilemmas are in play. What ties all of those conversations together? 

It’s the value of culture. 

By culture, I mean the behaviors, values, and beliefs that create a particular environment within a congregation, within a leadership team of a congregation. That environment shapes everything that the leadership team, and consequently the congregation, does. No matter what good ideas and prayerful intentions are present, the culture of the congregation will either enhance and reinforce or thwart those ideas and intentions. A popular slogan, falsely attributed to Peter Drucker, that has made the rounds for the past quarter of a century rings true: “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” The culture of a congregation’s leadership team matters for the congregation’s mission.

So how do you cultivate a healthy culture? In each of my conversations this past week, the answer to the dilemma that each leadership team presented either found some significant connection to the healthy aspects of the culture or demonstrated a significant area of “cultural” work for the leadership team. Let’s explore.

I find that the metaphor of gardening is useful for considering the work of shaping organizational culture. To speak of “agriculture” is to use the idea of culture—the beliefs, practices, and values that shape the work of the farmer or gardener are useful for the work of a leader seeking to shape the communal environment of a leadership team. So what does a gardener or farmer do?

Nurture the soil. Foundational to a healthy garden or field is the soil itself. Even ranchers understand that the primary focus is not the cattle or other livestock. Good ranchers know that it is the grass and the soil that demands their attention. The soil of leadership is cultural; the basic ethos of the environment must be rich with mutual trust and shared purpose. Congregational leadership teams can only move at the speed of trust, and without a shared conviction about the nature of God’s preferred future for the congregation, the soil will languish and the seeds of innovation or growth or mission will fail to germinate. What are the major values (positive or negative) that are in play within your leadership culture? What needs to be emphasized, added, or perhaps deleted?

Provide water and sunlight. Like fuel for an engine, plants need both to flourish. And leadership teams will need the practices of prayer and paying attention to God’s past and present work to fuel the life and animate the work of leadership teams. Nearly every church leadership team I have encountered prays. However, I can tell you that there is a big difference between perfunctory prayer—prayer that simply opens or closes a meeting—and a wholehearted practice of prayer, where prayer takes the center stage of the leadership team’s work. What does prayer look like in your group?

Nourish with fertilizer. Using the garden metaphor to imagine the work of shaping culture will get stretched somewhere in this little essay—and it may be at this moment. However, as soil and plant life need the infusion of good organic matter and nutrients to foster growth, so do organizational cultures need an infusion of realism and hopefulness. I often remind leadership groups that they need to hold two things in a creative tension with each other. Those two things are remembering that reality is your friend (don’t avoid the hard things) and that, since we are people who partner with God, our currency is hope. If leadership groups can receive reality and practice hope, then curiosity and an openness to God’s work will emerge. Good leaders nourish their culture through honesty and an unwavering conviction in the God of hope. Is curiosity at work in your leadership culture? Or is avoidance a major factor?

Prune and pluck. Trees and shrubs need pruning to thrive. Weeds, those misplaced plants, need to be removed. And within your leadership community I would expect that there are practices, attitudes, and dispositions that need to be relinquished in order for a healthier environment to flourish. Having the courage to name those things is a great start. Churches, over time, can pick up all sorts of poor habits and distortions. And leaders who are seeking to cultivate healthy environments are alert to the work of plucking and pruning. And, of course, with plucking and pruning comes the doubling down to make the soil rich and fertile by introducing and reinforcing godly values and positive practices. Must leadership teams have something to work on? What might need to be pruned or plucked from your environment?

Plan for the future. One more move and then I will close. Every good gardener or farmer or rancher I’ve ever met is always thinking about next year and the year after. Cultivating good soil, managing the work of fertilization, and developing the productivity of the land require intentionality and forethought. Perhaps the best work of leaders is creating space for prayer and imagination to constantly ask what sort of church, what sort of leadership team, best reflects that heart and mission of God. That work matters for a healthy, life-giving culture in your congregation. What emerges as you join in prayer with other leaders in your congregation? What sort of values and practices do you desire for your leadership team? Discern and begin the good work of developing those values and practices for the future.

Blessings as you nurture the soil that is entrusted to you by the Chief Gardener!
Carson