In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
So, THIS is Christmas.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Monday, December 10, 2012
The Leader-Culture Connection Part 6
Toxic Cultures are characterized as follows:
• Leaders create a “closed system,” so any advice and creative ideas from the outside are suspect from the start. These systems breed bad ideas, bad behaviors, and bad values in the organization over and over again.
• Individual rights and dignity of staff members are surrendered to the powerfully elite. People are expected to do as they're told-nothing less and nothing else. The organization's leaders believe they “own” every employee. They have exceptionally high expectations of workers, but the offer them little or no autonomy to make decisions.
• Fear becomes the dominating motivational factor of the organization, and those who choose to stay meekly comply. Many, though, are too afraid to leave. They've noticed that when people even think about leaving, they're severely criticized for being disloyal. Turf battles are the accepted sport of the organization, and open warfare becomes normal. Suspicion and resentment poison lines of communication, so even the simplest directive becomes a weapon area
• Leaders delegate responsibility but fail to give authority to people to fulfill their roles.
• Creativity and risk-taking have long vanished because these traits threaten the status of the bosses as the only ones who know anything. In this environment, pathology is rewarded and health is punished.
• Ethical, financial, or sexual lapses may occur, but staff members are expected to turn a blind eye. The leaders constantly look over their shoulders to see if they've been caught
• These organizations run off good people, and they attract only the naïve or truly desperate.
Source: Chand, S. (2011) Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code: Seven Keys to Unleashing Vision and Inspiration. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Leaders create a “closed system,” so any advice and creative ideas from the outside are suspect from the start. These systems breed bad ideas, bad behaviors, and bad values in the organization over and over again.
• Individual rights and dignity of staff members are surrendered to the powerfully elite. People are expected to do as they're told-nothing less and nothing else. The organization's leaders believe they “own” every employee. They have exceptionally high expectations of workers, but the offer them little or no autonomy to make decisions.
• Fear becomes the dominating motivational factor of the organization, and those who choose to stay meekly comply. Many, though, are too afraid to leave. They've noticed that when people even think about leaving, they're severely criticized for being disloyal. Turf battles are the accepted sport of the organization, and open warfare becomes normal. Suspicion and resentment poison lines of communication, so even the simplest directive becomes a weapon area
• Leaders delegate responsibility but fail to give authority to people to fulfill their roles.
• Creativity and risk-taking have long vanished because these traits threaten the status of the bosses as the only ones who know anything. In this environment, pathology is rewarded and health is punished.
• Ethical, financial, or sexual lapses may occur, but staff members are expected to turn a blind eye. The leaders constantly look over their shoulders to see if they've been caught
• These organizations run off good people, and they attract only the naïve or truly desperate.
Source: Chand, S. (2011) Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code: Seven Keys to Unleashing Vision and Inspiration. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
The Leader-Culture Connection Part 5
Discouraging Cultures are characterized as follows:
• It's all about the top people: their prestige and their power. They act as though everybody else in the organization exists only to make them more successful, and most of the staff members deeply resent it.
• People spend as much time trying to survive the power struggles, protecting themselves from more hurt, and analyzing the top people's pathology as they spend doing their work. Employees become fiercely loyal to a supervisor who protects them, but they actively seek to undermine any perceived adversary.
• As the benchmarks of success decline, the top leaders become more authoritarian and threatening. They demand compliance and loyalty, and they defy anyone who disagrees with them or even offers another opinion.
• The leadership team often tries to remedy the problems, but with the wrong analysis in the wrong solutions. They seldom look in the mirror to find the culprit. Instead, the blame is always put on incompetent or unmotivated people throughout the organization, but these are the only ones who are willing to stay employed there. Leaders may ask that members to go to seminars and workshops, and they may even hire consultants from time to time, but they seldom listen to any outside input.
• When these leaders communicate a new vision, nobody cares. They’ve heard it before, and they don't trust that anything will be different this time.
• These organizations attract malcontents, sycophants, and desperate people who can't find a job anywhere else.
Source: Chand, S. (2011) Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code: Seven Keys to Unleashing Vision and Inspiration. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• It's all about the top people: their prestige and their power. They act as though everybody else in the organization exists only to make them more successful, and most of the staff members deeply resent it.
• People spend as much time trying to survive the power struggles, protecting themselves from more hurt, and analyzing the top people's pathology as they spend doing their work. Employees become fiercely loyal to a supervisor who protects them, but they actively seek to undermine any perceived adversary.
• As the benchmarks of success decline, the top leaders become more authoritarian and threatening. They demand compliance and loyalty, and they defy anyone who disagrees with them or even offers another opinion.
• The leadership team often tries to remedy the problems, but with the wrong analysis in the wrong solutions. They seldom look in the mirror to find the culprit. Instead, the blame is always put on incompetent or unmotivated people throughout the organization, but these are the only ones who are willing to stay employed there. Leaders may ask that members to go to seminars and workshops, and they may even hire consultants from time to time, but they seldom listen to any outside input.
• When these leaders communicate a new vision, nobody cares. They’ve heard it before, and they don't trust that anything will be different this time.
• These organizations attract malcontents, sycophants, and desperate people who can't find a job anywhere else.
Source: Chand, S. (2011) Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code: Seven Keys to Unleashing Vision and Inspiration. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Monday, December 3, 2012
The Leader-Culture Connection Part 4
Stagnant Cultures are characterized as follows:
• The leadership team sees staff members as production units, not people. The staff members are valuable when-and only when-they produce. All praise is based on performance, very little if any on character.
• Staff members tolerate their leaders, but they don't trust or respect them. They still do their work, but only the most ambitious invest themselves in the success of the organization.
• The only heroes are the top executives, and the employees suspect that the top leaders are making a bundle, or at least receiving lots of accolades, at their expense. The employees resent this.
• Without trust, respect, and loyalty, people feel compelled to defend their turf, hang on to power, and limit communication. In this atmosphere, relatively small problems quickly escalate.
• Complaining becomes the staff members pastime. Things aren’t quite bad enough to prompt open rebellion, but a few disgruntled people are thinking about it!
• The leadership team isn't happy with the lack of enthusiasm and declining productivity, so they treat staff as if they were wayward teenagers. They try anything to control them: anger, leading, threats, rewards, ignoring them, micromanaging them. But nothing works.
• With only a few exceptions, people become clock-watchers and check-cashers, caring little for the leader's vision. The whole organization lives in the status quo of lethargy.
• To correct the problem, the leaders may send people to seminars or hire consultants, but the top people aren’t willing to take responsibility and make significant changes. It's always somebody else's fault.
• These organizations usually attract people with low expectations and low motivation, but they may attract a few who believe their personal mission is to bring life to the organization. These individuals usually give up after a few months.
Source: Chand, S. (2011) Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code: Seven Keys to Unleashing Vision and Inspiration. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• The leadership team sees staff members as production units, not people. The staff members are valuable when-and only when-they produce. All praise is based on performance, very little if any on character.
• Staff members tolerate their leaders, but they don't trust or respect them. They still do their work, but only the most ambitious invest themselves in the success of the organization.
• The only heroes are the top executives, and the employees suspect that the top leaders are making a bundle, or at least receiving lots of accolades, at their expense. The employees resent this.
• Without trust, respect, and loyalty, people feel compelled to defend their turf, hang on to power, and limit communication. In this atmosphere, relatively small problems quickly escalate.
• Complaining becomes the staff members pastime. Things aren’t quite bad enough to prompt open rebellion, but a few disgruntled people are thinking about it!
• The leadership team isn't happy with the lack of enthusiasm and declining productivity, so they treat staff as if they were wayward teenagers. They try anything to control them: anger, leading, threats, rewards, ignoring them, micromanaging them. But nothing works.
• With only a few exceptions, people become clock-watchers and check-cashers, caring little for the leader's vision. The whole organization lives in the status quo of lethargy.
• To correct the problem, the leaders may send people to seminars or hire consultants, but the top people aren’t willing to take responsibility and make significant changes. It's always somebody else's fault.
• These organizations usually attract people with low expectations and low motivation, but they may attract a few who believe their personal mission is to bring life to the organization. These individuals usually give up after a few months.
Source: Chand, S. (2011) Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code: Seven Keys to Unleashing Vision and Inspiration. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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