What Culture Are You Growing?

Many decades ago, I spent some time writing down some personal mantras that I wanted to live by as a leader. 

It was sort of a “leadership affirmations” list, but it meant more to me than a daily confession; I wanted to think through what would guide my life and behaviors as a leader.

I limited myself to five.

Why five? No reason.

I just find that I like to force arbitrary parameters that constrain me to consider what the most important items are in whatever I’m wrestling with. It’s like the party game question: if your house was on fire, what would you run out the door with—beyond people and pets?

For instance, I once did a critical thinking exercise with this question: limiting myself to four, if I were to explain the most essential elements of Christianity to someone who knew nothing, what would those be? It was harder than I thought.

But for me, it came down to these four:

• Who is God? [ the nature and character of God ]

• Who are you? [ your self-awareness of your true personhood ]

• The Kingdom [ God’s intentions for Planet Earth: the challenge of spiritual conflict/suffering ]

• Covenant [ the deep way God relates to humanity ]

Of course, these can be argued. But the point for me—for instance—was to think through what I consider critical in helping a non-believer consider God.

Anyway, I digress.

Back to my five “leadership affirmations.” These were the ideas that I would want anyone on my team to consider:

• I have one client: Jesus. [ Significance ]

• I exist to serve others. [ Standard ]

• People are never an interruption. [ Servanthood ]

• If people do not follow me, someone else must lead. [ Self-awareness ]

• I will mentor someone for my role. [ Success ]

And, naturally, because I was a pastor, alliteration was crucial for each reference!—it helped me remember the driving factors.

Affirmations like these are important for creating cultures, and in this case: a leadership culture. You can hear Jesus doing likewise when he tells his mentees: “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.” He was enculturating a very different concept of leadership in his organization, the Church.

I may disagree with it, but Meta’s (formerly Facebook) original mantra of “Move fast and break things” created an experimental and innovative culture. Do you use some sort of affirmations or simple phrases in shaping the various cultures in your organization?

Dave Workman | The Elemental Group

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