So your team's not who you hire and who you fire, your team, an organic team, an organic
leadership team, is who's coming and who's going. Who comes early, who stays late.
So when we're talking about building a team, I mentioned the first two aspects of building a
team with organic leadership in the last episode. The first was model the vision. And again, let me
emphasize the fact that you are the vision of whatever it is you're leading people to do. If
you're, if you're not who you say you are, if you're not embodying what you're trying to get
people to follow, nobody's going to follow you. And even if they do, they're going to drop off
after a period of time. I was with a pastor recently, and he talked about all these ebbs
and flows of his church. At one point, his church was way up high in the thousands. And then within
the next year, it had dropped three times less. And then it's back up again, and it was down again.
And I, he wasn't asking my opinion, so I did not give it. But in my, in my mind, I'm thinking, man,
first of all, do you know what your vision is? But number two, are you embodying that vision?
Because there seems to be a disconnect with your people about where the church is going. So the
first is we model the vision. Second, cast the vision. So first we model it. Secondly, we talk
about it. We, we encourage people toward what that vision is. Well, number three is really, really
important. And that is we build the DNA, build the DNA. So what is DNA? So DNA are those strands
within each of us that makes us replicate eye color, height, skin color, even our IQ comes from
the DNA of our parents. And so DNA is important. You can't replicate a race. You can't replicate
a person to another person that's come through birth without there being the DNA being transferred.
When we're building organic leadership, we're building DNA. So this is the way I describe it
in relation to a leadership culture. That is the temperature of the team. That's that aspect
of your team. That's climate control. It's a climate control of your team. That's DNA.
That's the atmosphere in which everybody's hanging out. And so if there is an atmosphere of shame,
an atmosphere of guilt, an atmosphere of making fun of people or talking behind people's back,
you are ruining your DNA. You are, you're killing your DNA. So the leader of any organization
controls the building of the DNA. And the only way he can do that is to be involved with his people
enough to control what's being talked about. He sets the thermostat. When I go into staff meetings
with my team, I'm very aware that there's a thermostat on the wall. And oftentimes I look at
that thermostat and I see it's usually set at 69 degrees. But I ask myself what kind of a thermostat
am I going to turn on today at staff meeting? Because that's up to me. And so the temperature
of the room, the DNA of the room pervades it off. Is it full of faith? Then that's the DNA of the team
is to have faith, strong faith. Is it one of despair? Well, guess what? That comes out of me.
And if I'm despairing, if I'm depressed, if all I can talk about is all the problems that we're having
in our church or on our team, then that's going to start to become... I'm not talking about like
one meeting or even two meetings, but I'm saying if that pervades everything we do, that's going to
become the DNA of the team. So organic leadership is like a greenhouse and there is a temperature.
We have a greenhouse out at our home and there is a temperature that we keep it at. And that
temperature is the perfect atmosphere to grow tomatoes and cucumbers and collard greens and
all the different things that we grow in that greenhouse. There's a certain temperature. And then
when that temperature gets too hot, there's a flap that opens up at the top, which releases hot air
and it cools it back down to that optimal temperature where the plants can grow. Well, that's
a big part of organic leadership. It's like a greenhouse. What's the DNA that gives everyone
on that team excitement about wanting to be a part of where the church is going or where
the organization or the business is going?
That's a big part of the leadership responsibility that that visionary leader
carries. That's setting the DNA of the team.
Thus, and I would just say this underneath that is that DNA sets values.
So when values are being broken on the team, it's the leader's responsibility to
call that out. Now, I'm not talking about call that out in front of the whole team.
But if you need to go to an individual because some of the things that they're
doing or the things that they're saying don't fit with the culture that you want
to have, it's your responsibility as a leader to go and deal with that.
And we have that all the time on our team, where I hear about someone who maybe said
something about someone in a gossipy way.
If it seems appropriate, it's either me or Ryan, my executive pastor or one of the
others. We just sit down with the person and say, we heard that you said da da da.
Is that true? And then we start getting the facts.
And that's not that's going against the culture of our team.
That's going against the culture and the values of our DNA.
So I'd like you to go back and apologize and take that back and work on that.
We had to release two people in the last month because they were breaking the culture
of our team. And I did not want that to feed in to the rest of the team.
So DNA is really important.
Number four, who's following you?
That's your team. Who's following you?
Question mark. That's your team.
So your team's not who you hire and who you fire.
Your team, an organic team, an organic leadership team, is who's coming and who's
going, who comes early, who stays late.
That's your team. Not looking at resumes and hiring people based on their gifting, as
important as that is.
And by the way, as the team gets bigger, you have to depend on that more.
But I will say that organizations would be much healthier if they hired from within.
And that's what we try to do here at The Road, is we try to hire from within.
And most of the time, we're probably 90 percent of time, we're successful at that.
Let's just take something like worship in the area of worship.
You know, you got a lot of teams.
I think we have four teams that make up our worship teams.
And you ask, well, how do you get all these people you got and recruit them?
No, you don't recruit them.
We don't recruit teams.
We just simply look around and see who's interested in worship, who comes early, who
stays late, who's willing to help, who's willing to serve.
That's your team. That's how I started all my churches.
That's how I started all my ministries and organizations that I've done, is I start
doing it by myself because there's nobody else.
And I just do it by myself.
And I started to look around who's interested in this vision.
And then I recruit them in and invite them in.
They're already in.
But I officially say, why don't you come be on my team?
I mean, Ryan Steyer, who is the executive pastor, executive leader of the road, was
with me from the very, very beginning.
He was a trust officer in a bank.
And then God set it up where he became my first hire.
And we were here all alone, just the two of us getting this church started.
But he was here and he cared.
He was already bought in to the vision.
You build a team by looking around and asking yourself, well, who are my friends?
Who are the people that like hanging out with me and I like hanging out with them?
Well, there's your first team.
So that's an organic leadership team.
And then fifthly, slow and steady wins the race.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Huge gyrations in a leader.
You know, he's really excited about this or that this week.
And then next week, it's a whole nother thing.
He's really excited about that or this next program that you're going to start.
And then he changes gears and says, well, that program's not really working.
We're going to do this program over here.
That is horrible leadership.
You're going to kill people.
People are going to leave in droves with that kind of leadership in which you got
all these sharp goes and then stops and then goes and then stops.
Steady, slow wins the race.
And what I mean is, you know, it's incremental.
It's being a plotter.
It's gradually taking ground, gradually taking ground and not being in a hurry,
but building the right way.
That's organic leadership is building the right way.
You don't see cucumber plants in a greenhouse suddenly pop up in one day.
No, it's step by step.
It's day by day.
It takes months for tomatoes to come.
It takes months for cucumbers to come.
And it's the same way with building an organization.
It takes months and years to build.
And so there's a slow and steady, I guess I would call it kind of turtle, be a
turtle rather than a rabbit, just go slow and steady and hang in there.
And if it's got.
God's, if it's God's will, if it's God's kingdom way,
I promise you it'll grow, steady growth.
And when you have steady growth,
you also don't have the gyrations of people leaving,
things happening where sales drop off dramatically
because you've been gradually building,
usually two steps forward and one step back,
two steps forward, one step back.
That's good organic leadership.
So I hope this is helpful to you.
I think organic leadership is the way to lead
because it comes out of your heart.
It's natural.
It's the kingdom way.
If you haven't been leading that way,
I wanna challenge you to change your leadership
and adopt a more organic leadership style.
You'll be more peaceful.
You'll be more joyful.
And I think you'll see supernatural growth
that will just absolutely amaze you.