Trustworthiness is based on character, what you are as a person, and competence, what you can do. If you have faith in my character but not in my competence, you still wouldn’t trust me,’ writes bestselling author Stephen R Covey.
‘Trust – or the lack of it – is at the root of success or failure in relationships and in the bottom-line results of business, industry, education and government.’
Respondents to recent Evangelical Alliance human resources survey scored their leaders as high in trustworthiness, integrity, spiritual maturity and compassion, but when it came to leadership skills, only 36 per cent rated their leaders as excellent in their ‘ability to inspire’. Less than a third (30 per cent) marked their leaders as excellent in competence and professionalism. And only a fifth (18 per cent) rated their leaders as excellent at delegating.
So what’s going wrong? Are we recruiting leaders for their passion for the ministry but not recognising that there needs to be a level of competence as well?
In his ministry at Willow Creek, Bill Hybels uses a selection process based on three Cs – character, competence and chemistry – looking ‘for the highest level of competence I can find,’ he says.
The Alliance interviewed a number of survey respondents who are making a real difference in their organisations. Eric Thompson, the new chief executive at Deo Gloria Trust, says that working smarter, not harder, is their goal. This has meant the introduction of job descriptions for the first time, minimising duplication of effort, and encouraging staff to talk more about what they do and to take decisions about themselves and their future.
At the London School of Theology, Human Resources Director David Hardyman-Rice comes with managing director experience and is using his skills to encourage an open management style. ‘A lot has to do with the language you use,’ he says. ‘It is important to reinforce people’s self-esteem. People perform well if they feel good about themselves.’
Building Confidence
Leadership development is key to an organisation’s effectiveness. Martin Kavanagh, executive operations director at the Message Trust, has started at the top, defining the roles and responsibilities of board members and developing a self-assessment framework. He has also put together a plan for trustees to develop professional and personal skills. ‘This has really strengthened confidence in the top of the organisation,’ he says.
Working in a Christian organisation should be different from other employment and survey respondents listed the most important distinctive as ‘trust between leaders and staff’. However, when asked how well Christian organisations showed their strengths, ‘trust’ came 5th out of 11 distinctives. This indicates that perhaps competence and a lack of leadership development is having some effect in the trust stakes.
Working in a Christian organisation should be different from other employment
Action Plan
So what can we do? John F Kennedy once said that ‘leadership and learning are indispensable to each other’. So we can encourage our leaders to create a personal development plan, to make use of literature for Christian and commercial leaders, and to attend gatherings and conferences. And we need to keep in mind leaders’ views on development. In the wider UK scene, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development recently conducted a research project with Development Dimensions International in which they discovered that:
- UK leaders are dismissive of formal management training.
- UK leaders’ approaches to development planning lack structure and focus.
- Only 27 per cent of UK leaders (versus 37 per cent of the global sample) had developed their skills before being put into a leadership position.
If this is the case in the UK commercial world, doesn’t this give us an opportunity to show how much Christ makes a difference? Isn’t out mandate to glorify God by doing everything as if directly for Him (1 Corinthians 10.31)? Then maybe we should take up the challenge of writer-thinker Peter Drucker: ‘Knowledge has to be improved challenged and increased constantly, or it vanishes.’
Sheila Jones
the Evangelical Alliance's
Associate Director for Human Resources
