Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast
“3 Essential Values for Impactful Leadership: Surrender, Humility, and Love“
October 7, 2024
Rich Stearns
Intro: Are you ready to transform your leadership to see your organization flourish like never before? Well, in today's episode, we're uncovering leadership insights from Rich Stearns, president emeritus of World Vision. We've got some incredible insights lined up from a top leader’s perspective who has demonstrated Christian values and character in both corporate and Christian settings. Trust me, you don't want to miss this conversation. It's packed with the kind of wisdom that would impact the way you lead.
Welcome: Welcome to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, your home for open, honest, and insightful conversations to help develop your leadership, your team, and build a flourishing workplace culture.
Al Lopus: Hi, I'm Al Lopus, the co-founder of the Best Christian Workplaces and author of Road to Flourishing. My passion is to equip Christian leaders like you to cultivate engaged, flourishing workplaces. This fall we’re dedicating our Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast to one of the most powerful drivers of flourishing cultures, and that’s inspirational leadership. So, join us as we dive into inspirational conversations with top leaders who will provide you with the tools and inspiration to grow and excel in your leadership journey.
I’m delighted to welcome Rich Stearns to the podcast today. Rich is the president emeritus of World Vision U.S.
Throughout our conversation, you'll hear Rich talk about the importance of leadership rooted in values such as integrity, humility, and love; the central theme of Rich's leadership philosophy of surrender and trust to become ambassadors for Christ; the critical role that trust plays in effective leadership; and Rich's own leadership failures and the valleys he's experienced, including being fired twice early in his career.
I think you're going to love this interview with Rich Stearns. But before we dive in, this podcast is proudly sponsored by the Best Christian Workplaces’ Employee Engagement Survey. Don't wait. This fall is the perfect time to gather vital insights from your employees to assist and assess the health of your workplace culture. In today's podcast, Rich Stearns asks the question, Are you the kind of boss that you'd want to work for? Well, let me challenge you. Are you the kind of boss that you want to work for? Let us help you answer that simple question. Discover the answer, and you will transform your leadership and your culture. So, visit workplaces.org to learn more and start your journey to become a flourishing workplace today.
And hello to our new listeners. And thanks for joining us as we honor your investment of time by creating valuable episodes like this.
Let me tell you a little more about Rich Stearns. As president emeritus of World Vision U.S., Rich Stearns continues to share his leadership influence by writing and speaking, even coaching, on behalf of the organization. And he served as the president of World Vision for 20 years. Rich holds a BA in neurobiology from Cornell University and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He joined World Vision to follow what he felt was a distinct call from God on his life, leaving a corporate career that included CEO roles at Lenox and Parker Brothers Games. Over his two decades with World Vision, Rich built a strong leadership team focused on bringing corporate best practices to the nonprofit sector. Logging three million air miles, he traveled to more than 60 of the nearly 100 countries in which World Vision has a presence. He served as a prophetic voice calling on the American church to respond to the AIDS pandemic in the early 2000s and later raising awareness of the global refugee crisis and global poverty. As a thought leader, Rich appeared regularly in media outlets. He also received numerous awards for humanitarian service. Rich is the author of several books, including the bestselling award-winning The Hole in Our Gospel. His most recent book is Lead Like It Matters to God: Values-Driven Leadership in a Success-Driven World. He's also written the book Unfinished, as well as two books with his wife, Renee.
So, here’s my conversation with Rich Stearns.
Rich, it’s great to have you back on the podcast. I’m really looking forward to our conversation today.
Rich Stearns: I am, too, Al, and it's good to see you again.
Al: As a longtime president and now president emeritus of World Vision, you speak and write on behalf of the organization, and what does this season look like for you now? Are you still traveling with World Vision? And share an example of some of the current work that you're seeing at World Vision.
Rich: Yeah, sure, Al. I am retired now for the most part, and I do occasional speaking engagements on behalf of World Vision these days, and I enjoy doing that. I was in California about a month ago doing a few events. I've also been doing some executive coaching and mentoring of younger leaders. You know, you realize at the stage of life that you've accumulated a lot of wisdom, some of it the hard way, and some of those things you know can help younger leaders avoid mistakes or gain some new insights into their situation.
But in terms of travel, after almost three million air miles with World Vision, thankfully my travel has decreased quite a bit. And I like to say if there's not a grandchild at the other end of the flight, I'd rather not go to the airport.
But, you know, you asked about what some of the things World Vision's doing around the world these days, and I did take one more international trip just about a year ago. It was last September. I did a trip to Rwanda with my wife and a group of World Vision donors. And it was a very special occasion because when I retired, Al, I threw out a retirement challenge to our donor community, and I said, “The best retirement gift you could give me is that we would take one country and we would bring clean water to every person in that country, everywhere we worked in that country.” And we chose Rwanda as a place to “finish the job” with clean water. And so they took that seriously. And over the next couple of years, they raised about $35 million. By the way, finishing the job in Rwanda meant bringing clean water to 1.2 million people, a huge task, obviously, to be done. And I gave a speech at that time, and I said, “I don't know how old I'll be when you finish the job, but even if I'm in a wheelchair, I want to come out and dedicate and celebrate the last well.” And so they called me in early 2023, and they said, “Are you in a wheelchair yet?” And I said, “Well, no, I'm not.” And they said, “Well, you want to go to Rwanda? because we're finishing the job this year.” So we went to celebrate the completion of that final water system, 1.2 million people. I got to meet the young girl who was the one millionth beneficiary, you know, as we did the math and her family and got to see how it changed their lives.
And so one of the things I'm proud of about World Vision today is we've become the number one provider of clean water in the world today, bringing clean water to more than three million people a year. And it’s pretty remarkable transformation of World Vision and also what we're able to do. And now we're trying to finish the job in Zambia and Honduras and Ghana as well. We've got three more countries we're trying to finish the job.
Couple of other things I would just mention. World Vision—most people don't know this—but we are the number one partner of the World Food Programme in the world. World Food Programme is part of the United Nations system, that does a lot of food relief all over the world, and we're their number one partner.
We also have a billion-dollar, now, revolving micro-loan fund that gives small loans to entrepreneurs in the developing world to help them create businesses. And maybe last but not least, I'll mention that we're now one of the top relief organizations in the world, going into places where there have been war zones, refugee migrations, famines, earthquakes, hurricanes, and typhoons, those kinds of things.
But the thing I'm most proud of is that we do it all in the name of Jesus. As a Christian organization, all of this comes in the name of our Lord, and it's our witness in the world. Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and World Vision took that pretty seriously.
Al: Sounds like a topic for a book, Rich. Something about a hole in the Gospel.
Rich: That'll be my next book. Filling the hole. Filling the hole.
Al: Filling the hole. Filling the hole. Well, yeah. Wow. That's just great. Great stories, clean water, food, micro-lending relief, all in the name of Jesus. Yeah. Really making a difference in the world.
And it's been a couple of years since we've talked. After you had written your book Lead Like It Matters to God, and, you know, it's a topic that's always something that comes to the top of mind as I think about leadership. And as you reflect on your own career in both secular and sacred spaces, you focus a lot on values. And I really love the values-based leadership approach that you take. So highlight a few of the core values that are essential for faithful leadership over the long term based on reflection over your leadership career.
Rich: Sure, Al. And first of all, let me share why I wrote the book. You know, as I looked around our country, I saw what I would call an erosion of values, right? What happened to good old-fashioned values like integrity and humility and courage and perseverance? And I saw scandals in the corporate world, and you can mention the opioid pandemic and what those companies did and how it resulted in a horrible pandemic of opioid addiction and death. You can look at the MeToo movement that started, you know, maybe eight years ago now, nine years ago, where millions of women came forward to talk about abuse in the workplace, and started in Hollywood but then it kind of went through the corporate world and into academia, into politics, and ultimately into the church and ministries as well. And, of course, all I have to do is say the word politics and politics and values are hard to put in the same sentence these days because what has happened to the basic values in our nation as expressed by our politicians. I'll just let that hang there in the air. People know what I'm talking about. Most tragic is within the church, you know, the erosion of values, the high-profile leadership failures within the church.
So, I wanted to write a book to address this issue of what happened to our values. I also wanted to write the book to repudiate what I like to call the success culture in America. You know, the subtitle of my book, Al, is Values-Driven Leadership in a Success-Driven World. And, you know, if we're honest with ourselves, even Christians have been sucked into this American dream culture where success is everything, right? We celebrate the most-successful teams, the fastest-growing companies, the biggest churches, you know, the Forbes 400 wealthiest people. We're kind of enamored with success. And I think on the last podcast, I shared that story of Mother Teresa when she was once asked if she felt like she was a failure because she could only address a small percentage of the poverty in Calcutta. And her answer was profound. She said, “God did not call me to be successful. He called me to be faithful.” And I would kind of echo that to every Christian listening to this podcast. God didn't call you to be successful in whatever your job is, but He did call you to be faithful. And if you're faithful, you may be successful as well.
So my book Lead Like It Matters to God is all about, how do we ensure that we are faithful as followers of Christ in our workplaces, whether they be secular or sacred workplaces? And as you know, I highlight 17 of the key values I think are important for Christian leaders to embody. And they’re things like courage and generosity, forgiveness, humility, excellence, and even love. Love is one of those leadership qualities you won't find in most leadership books. But love is very important. It's love of your coworkers, right? If you see your coworkers as people made in the image of God, who Christ died for, and you start loving on those coworkers in ways that are tangible and demonstrated in your workplace, you'd be amazed at how successful your team will be or your company or your organization.
Now, you asked me to pick two or three that I think are the most important, hard to do. But I'd pick these three. I'd pick surrender, humility, and love. And let me just expound a little bit on that, Al. Surrender is, it's about surrendering our lives and our careers to the Lord. And it's actually, in my view, absolutely foundational for Christian leaders or Christians of any stripe. It's that old “not my will, Lord, but Thy will in my life,” because once we as leaders have surrendered, have truly surrendered our lives and our careers to God's purposes, then we are freed up to become those ambassadors for Christ that He calls us to be. It doesn't matter whether you work in a school or a corporation or a ministry. We're all called, according to the Apostle Paul, to be ambassadors for Christ where we live and where we work. So surrender is critical. And most Christians would say, “Well, I have surrendered my life to the Lord.” We tend to surrender partially, right? We surrender some things, but not others. And in my experience, surrendering our career and our livelihoods to the Lord is often a hard step to take, and many of us like to kind of control that ourselves and manipulate that so that we get the best outcomes. And it's a little scary when you say, “I'm going to lay down my career to the Lord. And Lord, if you want me to leave this job and do something else, I'm here. I'm willing to do it.” So that's a hard thing in life.
Humility is really a posture. It's an attitude that says I am no more important, even if I'm the CEO, than the lowest-ranking person in my workplace, that we're all created in God's image, and that I can actually learn as a leader from all of these wonderful people that God has placed under my care and around me in my workplace. Rick Warren—I don't think this was original to Rick—but in his book The Purpose Driven Life, he had a definition of humility, which I've always liked. He said, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it's thinking of yourself less.” And, you know, you put that into practice. It doesn't mean you have to deny your God-given gifts and talents. I mean, some people are brilliant at x, y, or z. There are brilliant opera singers and athletes and leaders, academicians, scientists. Being humble doesn't mean you have to deny those areas of giftedness you have, but it's about thinking of yourself less; you know, thinking of others more; thinking of, what would God have me do in this situation or this place where I work? and not always thinking about me, putting me first as number one; and also, a willingness to admit you're wrong sometimes as a leader and ask for forgiveness.
The last one I mentioned is love, again. And you know, the Great Commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves. And if anybody in this day and age is a neighbor to us, it would be our coworkers. We see them every day. We interact with them constantly over a period of years. In the cyberworld we're in, where there's a lot of remote work, our neighbors are the people on the screens in front of us, you know, during those Zoom meetings or the Microsoft Teams meetings. And if we approach those people in the spirit of love and care, I believe that transforms workplaces. When you have a caring leader and the people who work for that leader trust him or her to do the right thing, they believe that that leader has their interests at heart as well, not just their own. It actually transforms teams, and, I think, delivers greater performance in the end.
Al: Rich, I remember a story. When you took your job at World Vision, there was something written on the wall. Did you have it written on the wall, or was it there when you started?
Rich: Well, yeah, I had 2 Corinthians 5:20 stenciled on my office wall, and it says, “We are, therefore, Christ's ambassadors, as though God is making His appeal through us.” So I just felt that that verse, more than any other, kind of summarized the role I had as a leader, the role that every Christian has as an ambassador for Christ. And what do ambassadors do? They represent the values, the character, and the priorities of the one who sends them, right? So if you're an ambassador for the United States to Ireland, you're going to represent the values, the character, and the priorities of the United States to the Irish government and the Irish people. And so that's a neat metaphor that we're ambassadors for Christ, representing Him here on planet Earth. Wherever we find ourselves, whether we're coaching a Little League team or we're the CEO of a big company or a teacher in the classroom, we're ambassadors for Jesus first.
Al: Yeah. And that goes so well with your theme of surrender, how we surrender, need to surrender. And, you know, and I think about that even in my own life. Well, yeah. Oh, yeah. Back 50 years ago, I surrendered myself to Christ. But yeah, it's more frequent than that. It's almost a regular, maybe daily, type of an activity. Yeah. Surrender, humility, love. Great, great thoughts. Thanks, Rich.
During your years at the World Vision and also in corporate leadership, you would bring in new leaders on a regular basis. And so you developed, I'm sure, a lot of wisdom over time and experience in developing leaders and building leadership teams. So when it comes to selecting leaders, you know, we oftentimes think of character, competence, chemistry or, you know, I think I've termed these foundational character qualities or leadership competencies or collaborative leadership or team development. What are some of the key thoughts that you have around what you're looking for?
Rich: You know, Al, one of the things I learned, sometimes the hard way, over my years is how important the hiring decision is. When you think about it, if you're about to hire someone on your team, you may spend eight hours a day, five days a week with that person for the next 10 years. And sometimes we'll make a cavalier hiring decision after a one-hour interview, and we'll say, “Hey, I like that person. Let's hire them.” And then you have to live with that decision for the next number of years. And so one of the things I tried to emphasize at my time at World Vision in particular is that hiring is crucially important, that we hire the right people in the right jobs. And so let's take it very, very seriously.
So, what did that mean for me? So, first of all, we obviously do a job description and identify the competencies and the profile of the type of individual we were looking for. And then, we would do our search, and we would have a candidate pool, and there would be initial interviews, and we would narrow it down.
But when we got down to the last steps, I would do a couple of things. My first interview is almost always an hour and a half or two hours with the individual. I wanted to really have time to get into it with them. And then, when we were down to the final, let's say, four for a position, I would involve my direct reports, the rest of my team, and I would have them interview each of the candidates and then fill out a kind of a rating sheet that, you know, rated them across different variables and qualities and competencies. So I would listen to the team as well as my own instincts for the person. Then, I'd invite them back for a final interview or a second interview—we’ll use the final interview—and we'd go through that same process again, and I'd spend another couple of hours with the candidate. Meanwhile, we're checking references, and I would try to have six or seven references checked to really get at some of the questions we might have had about this person, to really get at understanding who they are and how they behave and what their leadership or management style is. And then, I added a last step, which is maybe a little bit over the top. When I was down to the final candidate, I wanted to have dinner with them and their spouse with me and my wife. I wanted to see them in a social situation with their spouse. And I always found that my wife had insights into a candidate that I never had. And she warned me on a couple of hires that I didn't see. “I saw some things I didn't like there. I think you should be careful.” And I hired that person anyway, and my wife turned out to be right. But also, you just learn a lot seeing a candidate in a different situation with their spouse.
And only then would I make the offer. And sometimes I would say, even when I made the offer, “If you're not feeling called by God to this role, please turn the offer down. Please turn the offer down, because if you don't feel called to this—we work hard at World Vision. We've got a very important mission. Millions of people depend on us, and I want people here that really feel called to this ministry and this leadership.”
So, anyways, that's my hiring process. But let me talk about the items that you mentioned. So character. Number one on my list was character and spiritual maturity and spiritual commitment for a Christian ministry. I mean, especially if you're in a Christian ministry, you want somebody who's got a deeply mature faith and wants to put their faith into action. If you're in the secular world, you aren't hiring only Christians, but you still want someone of character, someone who's got integrity and character and the values that, you know, I talk about in my book.
Secondly, I would look at leadership competencies because even if you have great character, you still have to have certain competencies to do the job, right? There are some minimal competencies you have to have, whether it's a marketing job or a sales job or a finance job or a human-resources job. So competencies and experience were obviously very important to look at.
But there's a third factor that I think is usually the reason that most leaders fail when they move from one organization to another, and it's the cultural fit. And particularly at World Vision, we hired a lot of people from the corporate world. And if you come from kind of a hard-charging corporation into a Christian ministry, the cultures are very different, and there is a culture clash immediately. And if that corporate leader can't adapt their leadership style to a different kind of culture, a Christian culture that's perhaps more collaborative, decision making is more consensus based than top down, it's not a command-and-control environment. I saw corporate leaders who were brilliant in their corporate careers flame out when they came to a ministry, and they just couldn't be successful in managing a team of people in a different cultural environment. So cultural fit is pretty important, and that's hard to get a sense of. I mean, you have to talk to people about their leadership style, their management style, maybe you give them a couple of situations and say, “How would you handle this situation?” But corporate fit is pretty important as well.
Al: Well, thanks, Rich. Yeah. That's fantastic for our listeners. First of all, the importance, you know, sometimes jobs open up, and you feel like you need to get them filled right away, and you just don't go through the due diligence to find the right person, to make sure you've got the right people in the right jobs.
Rich: You know, I have a saying I used to use all the time, that the right person six months late is better than the wrong person right on time.
Al: Right. And, you know, and then, the process you defined was great. I also just wanted to highlight, I found really wise leaders do take a spouse with them for an interview with the candidate over dinner. I've done that many times, found that to be very helpful both, and to see them in a social setting but also, you learn a lot about how the candidate actually treats their spouse. So that's, yeah, character, competence, and cultural fit, three keys.
Well, let’s talk about one of those values you've written about in your book, and that's trust. We know that inspirational leaders need to build trust, and that's really essential for a flourishing workplace or flourishing organization. So how did you, Rich, how did you earn and nourish trust in the workplace? What about seasons when leaders have to make even some hard decisions that maybe take some money out of the trust bank account? But certainly, I know you've got examples of that, or maybe even the role of trust in some of these hard experiences. What can you share with us?
Rich: One of the things I learned as a leader, you know, you've heard the expression that a leader needs to command the respect of their team. And I think that's a misstatement. A leader needs to earn the respect of their team. You shouldn't command respect just because you've been appointed the leader. You know, you can't command people to respect you, but you can earn their respect. And I think the same is true of trust. You can't command people to trust you. You have to earn their trust. And how do you earn the trust of your team or the people around you or people on other teams in the organization that have to interact with you? If you're not the CEO, you know, you might be the head of the sales team or the marketing team, but you've got to interact with the finance people and the H.R. people, and so how do you earn that trust? Well, again, it gets back to values, right? Are you a person of integrity? Is your word trustworthy? Do you tell it like it is, or do people perceive you as political and conniving, manipulative, somebody that weasels on their promises and makes promises they can't keep? So integrity. Is your word trustworthy? Do you have integrity in relationships, that when you're meeting with someone and you're agreeing to something, that you do what you've said you're going to do, that your word is your bond?
Number two, humility. Are you a person who is seen as humble? In other words, we've all worked with people and bosses where it's all about them, right? It's all about their success, their salary, their bonus, their whatever, their promotion to get ahead, their next promotion. And you can tell when people are in it for themselves and are kind of more self-seeking. So if you're a humble person, that takes the time to talk to other people.
I once got criticized in a performance review. I was young, I was in my 20s, and when I went to the—this was at Parker Brothers Games—when I went to the cafeteria, I wouldn't just sit with senior management or senior leaders. You know, I'd sometimes sit with the maintenance team and chew the fat with them over lunch, or I'd sit with a couple of the admins. And in my performance review that year, my boss said, “I've got some problems with the way you're interacting. You know, you should be having lunch with the vice president. You should be seen with the leaders. You know, you've got to expose yourself to them if you want to get ahead in this organization. I see you eating with maintenance people and secretaries.” And I said to him, I said, “Really? You're going to ding me because I'm being kind and relational to people that don't have the title of vice president?” I said, “Gee. You know, my philosophy of life is be kind to everybody. Treat everybody like they're important.” And about two years later, I had his job, and he'd been fired. And three years after that, I was the CEO. So apparently, my approach worked pretty well.
But so, anyways, humility. It’s not all about you treating other people with respect, caring about the needs and the hopes of others. If your team knows that you care about them, their career aspirations, their challenges, maybe their personal life. If they're dealing with a, you know, an aging parent, and it's distracting them at work, if you can enter that space with them and say, “Hey, look, if you need to take some time off, take some time off. We'll cover for you.” So it's about walking the talk, you know, not just talking the talk, but walking the talk.
Two other things important: affirming people for their contributions. Affirmation is one of the most powerful leadership tools. When the boss affirms somebody, especially publicly, “That was a great idea. That was a great thing that you and your team did,” that makes people fly high as a kite. You know, “The boss said some kind words to me.” That person will go home and tell their spouse that night, “Hey, I got a great compliment in a big meeting from the boss today.” So affirming people.
And then, the other side of that, being willing as a leader to apologize when you've made a mistake. “Gee, I made a mistake in that decision. I want to apologize for the harm it caused.” And sometimes even a leader has to ask for forgiveness. And then, turn that around. When somebody on your team makes a mistake, you've got to be willing to forgive them and help them to move on past that mistake.
So, all of those things speak to a leader of character, a leader who has core values that are solid, the kind of leader people want to work for.
Al: You know, as you say, willing to make mistakes. I've seen so many times leaders are afraid to say, “Well, I've made a mistake,” because they feel like they do, as you said earlier, kind of command respect, you know. You don't command respect when you admit that there's a mistake. But what I’ve always seen is that kind of humility draws people to you, that they will trust you and go the extra mile for you in that situation. Yeah.
Well, any leader who's been in it for the long haul has experienced high points and valleys in their leadership journey. You know, certainly, successes and even mistakes. And we like to focus on the high points. Those are always fun to talk about, but not so much on the hard places. So share with us, mentor us a little bit on your own leadership journey. How about a hard lesson that you may have learned from experience? Or, you know, what would you encourage a leader who's maybe in a valley right now, Rich?
Rich: Well, Al, I might have set a Guinness Book record. In my 30s, I got fired twice in the space of one year. That's not easy to do. It's one of my proudest accomplishments.
So, the first time, I had been named the CEO of Parker Brothers Games, you know, the people that make Monopoly and Nerf balls. When I was 33 years old, I mean, I wasn't ready for the job. I was too young. But, you know, they promoted me to CEO. My wife used to call me “business boy” at the time. So I was CEO there for two years. And then kind of out of nowhere, I got fired, and with very little explanation. It's a long story. It was a corporate change of ownership and this, that, and the other thing. But anyways, the point was I lost my job after being kind of on a rocket ship of a career as a young man.
On the rebound, I found another job within four or five months and moved my family to Pennsylvania, took that job. Nine months later, I got fired again. And my wife said, “I don't know what God's trying to teach you, but whatever it is, would you learn it?”
Al: It hurts too much.
Rich: But, you know, what that did for me—this’ll get back to my thing about surrender—I think, God, you know, I look at it this way: the coach, the Lord in this case, the coach felt like He needed to take me out of the game and do some work with me on the bench. And, you know, if I'm honest with myself, at that time in my life, my sales were filled with a bit of my own wind. You know, I had been very successful very quickly. I'd grown up in a home where my parents had never gone to high school, and divorced, broken home, alcoholism. And so I ended up going to two Ivy League schools. I got a Wharton MBA, and then I became a CEO at age 33, and I was pretty full of myself. And I think what God was trying to teach me is, “Rich, it's not about you. You know, it's not about you. And I'm taking you out of the game for a while.” And I had the longest and best quiet times of my life during that period.
The second time I was fired, I was unemployed for nine months. And, you know, you wake up every morning and—you know, at Parker Brothers, I had 1,000 people working for me, and now I wake up and I got to make my own coffee and, you know, I got to go to my back office, and I have nobody under my command or leadership, and I have to kind of ask people to help me. I have to ask people to help me find a job, on the phone all day, making phone calls. And this is before the Internet and monster.com and all that. But the Lord was doing a lot of work with me, and what He was saying to me is, “Rich, you got your priorities wrong.” You know, it's this whole thing, “You're My ambassador. That's your job. And being the CEO of Parker Brothers, that's your cover. That's your cover job. And you've got to get your priorities straight. And I need you to put Me first in your life.” That was kind of the message.
Surprisingly, Al, I went back to my—yeah, I was raised nominally Catholic when I was a little kid, and we used to go to catechism class, and we had to memorize questions and answers from the catechism. And one of the questions was, why did God make me? And the answer we had to memorize is, God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world. And I found myself coming back to that very simple Catholic teaching. Why did God make Rich Stearns, who has two Ivy League degrees and was a CEO at 33? Well, He didn't make me to make a lot of money. He didn't make me to be successful. He made me to know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this world. And so that became my prayer. I think that was the thing God wanted to teach me: what's first in my life, what is really first in my life, what is really important.
And so after nine months, I managed to get a job with Lenox China, the fine-china company, in their smallest division, which they were trying to turn it around. It was losing money. And I was so grateful to be employed, even though I was in this terrible division that was losing money. I was the president of that division. It was small, $35 million division. But my prayer every morning was, “Lord, I am here. I'm grateful for the work You've given me. But I'm not here today to make money for shareholders or to make profits for myself. I'm here to love You, serve You, and obey You in this place. Help me do that today.” And I prayed that prayer every day before I started my workday. And the Lord blessed me. And within a few years, I was the CEO of the whole company of Lenox, you know, the bigger Lenox. And I had 4,000 people working for me again.
So, sometimes God uses the low points in our life to correct us, right, as a corrective action. He uses those valleys, Al, those low points in your life to shape your character, to prepare you maybe for something He has planned for you in the future, to conform you to His will. There's a passage in Jeremiah 18 where God says to Jeremiah, “I want you to go down to the potter's house,” and the potter at the wheel, making pots, and the quote goes like this, “I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred or imperfect in his hands. So the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as it seemed best to him.” So if you think of God as the potter in your life and you're the clay in His hands, the potter is constantly manipulating the clay, putting pressure on the clay.
When I was at Lenox, I was actually America's largest potter. I mean, we made pottery. What I learned is it starts with pressure. Clay, if you think of us as a metaphor, we're clay in the hands of the Lord. Well, clay doesn't really have many beautiful properties. It's just mud, muck. But in the hands of the potter, it is shaped under pressure into a beautiful shape. And then, it's put into a kiln, and it's fired at 2200 degrees. So heat. And that bakes out all the impurities and hardens the clay into something that is sturdy and useful. Then, it comes out of the kiln, and it's glazed with a beautiful sheen, and it's decorated with gold and color. It's put back into the fire and burned again. And it's this process of pressure and heat. And at the end of that process comes a beautiful object, a beautiful piece of pottery, a vase, or dinnerware that you might eat off of. And I think that's a wonderful metaphor for the way God works in our life. He does expose us to pressure and heat, but it's all to burn out those impurities and to create something more beautiful in us as we learn to serve Him.
And as we know, after 11 years at Lenox, God called me to World Vision. In other words, I think God knew, back in the early days when I got fired twice, “I have a plan for you, but I got to work on you for a while before you're ready to take the job that I have in mind for you.” And then I spend the next 20 years at World Vision. But I was a better-shaped pot than I was when I was 33. And more useful to God, let’s put it that way, more useful.
Al: A good outcome of pressure and heat and the process. Well, yeah. God uses our low points to correct us. You know, another term for that is discipline, right, Rich? Discipline is a good thing.
Well, so as Christian leaders, we have responsibility for our flock, whether it's our staff or people that we serve in our organization. And at the same time, we must maintain our own personal spiritual foundation to lead effectively over the long haul. And this is finishing strong is certainly an outcome of this. So what habits and practices do you use to keep your own spiritual life vibrant? You know, how do you keep growing in your own relationship with God in this season of life? And are there any differences when you were in the thick of your career or any wisdom that you might have to share with your younger self as you look back at this stage?
Rich: Well, yeah, Al. And some of these are the tried and true, right? We all need to spend time in Scripture and in prayer and to try to make that a priority in our lives as we prepare for the day. Some people do it at night; some people do it in the morning. I read a lot of Christian books. I mean, if this were a video podcast, you'd see a massive library of Christian books behind me in the bookcase, writings by N.T. Wright and all kinds of Christian authors, because I find that that deepens my faith and gives me new insights into my faith, reading both Scripture and books by Christian authors and scholars.
The other thing is being in groups and relationships with other Christians. My wife and I have been in a couples’ Bible study now for 50 years, from the first year of our marriage. This is our 50th year. There's not been one year, even though we've lived in three different cities, three different states, we have always been in a couples’ Bible study, sharing life with other Christians who are maybe in the same life stage as we are. Iron sharpens iron. And so that's been very important in my life as well, having Christian friends and being involved in a Christian church and having friends through churches as well.
So those things, when I was working at World Vision, it was an embarrassment of riches because everybody I worked with was a Christian, too. So not only did I have my small group at home, but I had my large group at World Vision, and not just people like me, but people from 100 different countries of the world who I got to interact with, who were followers of Christ. And so my faith grew and deepened at World Vision more than it had any time before that, just that exposure to other Christians from other contexts.
So those things were very meaningful to me as a leader. But, you know, you ask, what's changed, and what advice would I give my younger self? Well, now that I'm retired, those quiet times are longer and deeper and free from all of the competition of other demands, you know, early meetings and pressures of the workplace. Now that my kids are grown, I'm not having to change diapers or get up in the middle of the night to deal with a child that’s crying. So there are busy times in our life where it's really hard to squeeze in those times.
I think if I could go back to my younger self, I would have been more deliberate in scheduling my times with the Lord. I would have put it on my calendar and said, you know, “It's just like any other meeting. I'm going to show up at 8:00 a.m. or 7:30 a.m. for that meeting, and it's my meeting with the Lord, and I'm going to make sure, however long it is, I'm going to guarantee it's 15 minutes, or I'm going to guarantee it's 30 minutes.” I think that's what I would try to do differently, because I was a little bit more ad hoc with it know, hit or miss, and I didn't always make it, and I think I suffered from not doing that. So that would be my advice.
Al: Good advice to our younger selves and for our listeners. Thank you. That's exactly how I feel.
So Rich, so much has changed in the world during your years of experience. And from where you sit now and as you look forward, what will be required as a Christian leader in, let's say, the next five to 10 years? What adaptations or changes do you see on the horizon? Speak to our listeners. You know, what will stay the same? What are some of the timeless principles of leadership that will be true going forward? But what do you see looking forward in the next five to 10 years?
Rich: Well, my chief concern right now—and I'm going to talk first to Christian leaders in ministry or church leadership—is I am very concerned about the impact that the culture war and politics have had on the church. So I think we know it's divided churches terribly: fights over, do we have to wear a mask or not? fights over vaccinations, fights over whether the church should have closed during COVID or stayed open. But also, just political squabbles over, “We don't like the way the pastor's preaching. He's not talking about political issues, and I want him to,” or “He is talking about political issues, and I don't want him to.” So the church has been divided, but it's also really, in my opinion, damaged our public witness, right? What does the watching world see when they look at Christians in America today? And I'll limit it to our country because that's where we live. And I think it's damaged our witness. We've come across in many ways as angry, judgmental, fearful, other adjectives you can think of. But we're behaving in such a way—I say “we,” obviously not every Christian in America, but certainly a significant portion of them—were behaving in a way that's off putting. And yet, you know, we're told in Scripture to be winsome in our faith and giving a defense of our faith.
So I think for leaders right now, it's especially important to constantly be upholding biblical truth and biblical priorities. And just to name a few, things like this: seeing all people as precious and made in God's image, right? I mean, if you're a Republican, Democrats are precious and made in God's image. If you're a Democrat, Republicans are precious and made in God's image. Refugees are precious and made in God's image. Whether their legal status is legal or illegal, they're desperate people, precious to God, and how do we respond to them?
So pastors need to remind people that we’re called to have this winsome witness in our culture, a faith that's attractive to a secular world, and understanding that the Kingdom of God is a spiritual Kingdom, not a political one. Jesus said His Kingdom is not of this world, and we shouldn't act as if the Kingdom of Christ has to have a political manifestation to it. Jesus never got involved with politics. He said, “Render under Caesar what is Caesar's, and render under God what is God's.”
And so, and then, we want to remember that the focus of our lives and our ministry are summarized by two of the great commandments that Jesus left us, right? Number one, to love our neighbors as ourselves, and our neighbors being any person in need. Any person that we can be helpful to, we need the love of those people. And the other great commandment, we call it the Great Commission, is to share the Gospel to all people. And I'm afraid that our current culture wars have distracted us from the main job. Stephen Covey, the famous business writer, once said, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” And I'm afraid right now that many Christians have replaced the main thing of loving their neighbors and sharing the Gospel in appropriate ways with other things. And they're being distracted from that core calling.
So I would say that to Christian leaders, you know, just keep going back to the biblical truths and remind people what the priorities of Jesus were. If we're going to be ambassadors for Christ in this world, we have to understand His priorities and His character and how He would approach people that we might not like or we may not agree with or we may not even want in our country. How would Jesus approach these people?
Now, for secular leaders, I would say don't be lured into embracing this—for secular Christian leaders in a secular workplace—don't be lured into the success culture that is so prevalent in our country. Don't compartmentalize your faith. If you go to work at Amazon or Microsoft or wherever you might work, Boeing, don't hang your faith at the door and then go in and adapt to the culture of your workplace. Take the culture of your faith into the workplace, in appropriate ways, and don't compromise who you are in Christ, but try to be that person in your workplace that can be salt and light, right? that can be a person of truth and integrity and trust in the workplace. You can be a port in the storm during difficult times for other employees. You can be the person that's calm in the midst of chaos. You can be the person of care in an organization that might have a brutal culture. And remember that your workplace is your mission field.
Last thought on this. You know, in our lives, in our careers, we have all had bosses or supervisors, some of whom are good and we loved working for them, some of whom are awful and we hated working for them. So there's a simple maxim for anyone who's in a leadership position that's listening. Just think about the kind of boss you would most like to work for, and become that kind of boss. Lead with those positive values and attributes. It's pretty simple, really, because we all know the kind of person we'd like to work for. But do we become that person so that others want to work for us because we've become the kind of boss that we want to work for? And as you make your way up in an organization, you encounter all kinds of supervisors or bosses, and some of them are brilliant and great, and some of them are horrible, out for themselves, out for number one, abusive, you name it. I've had all kinds of bosses in my career, and I chose to try to be the one that I would like to work for.
Al: That's great advice.
Well, Rich, this has been such a rich conversation. Thanks so much. You know, going back to, I love hearing some of the work that World Vision is doing even now. And what a great start. And then talking about core values and the purpose of your book and the erosion of values. Nobody's going to argue with that observation in our culture. And how God calls us to be faithful and not to be sucked into this success culture that is so easy. My wife has reminded me over the years, many times, “Now, Al, God didn't call you to be successful. He called you to be faithful.” Yeah. So, yeah, surrender, humility, love, great values. Your process for identifying new leaders, I think that's a great process that any of us could follow. And at the end saying, “Well, and we want you to turn this down, if you really don't feel called to this job,” to make them think about it. But character, competence, cultural fit, keys, tips on building trust with core values around integrity, humility, affirming people, and being willing to apologize when mistakes are made. Yeah. All of these just great, great points. As well as we all go through difficult times, and I love the way you described the importance of, yes, God will correct us at times, but as we're being shaped under the pressure, to recognize that that's God's hand working in us to help us become even a better self. So, this has been great. Thanks so much, Rich.
What else, as you think about our conversation, would you like to leave us with at this point?
Rich: Well, I've pretty much said a lot of that. But, you know, one just last thing is that the thing God cares most about is people, right? He doesn't care about the technology in your company or the product that your company makes. I mean, those are all important things. But God cares about the organization you work in, not because of their profits or their product; God cares about the organization you work in because He cares about the people in that organization. So as a leader, if you can put people above profits and performance and promotions and professional success, guess what? Your promotions and professional success will probably come as byproducts of your concern for people. So it's just an important thing to remember that I'm here for the people. And the promotions and the prestige and the other things that might come along with my career, those are great, and God may bring them my way, but my first concern is to take care of the people that I work with and to be that ambassador for Christ in my workplace. And trust God for the rest. Trust God for the rest.
Al: Well, thanks, Rich, for your contribution. I really appreciate your commitment to God and being a faithful leader over the years. And thanks so much for taking your time out today and speaking into the lives of so many listeners.
Rich: Al, it's been great to talk with you. It always is.
Hey, and I want to just say thank you to you because you have been such a great influence on Christian organizations through the Best Christian Workplaces organization and ministry. And you've done a great service for the Kingdom as well, so thank you.
Al: Thanks, Rich.
And thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Rich Stearns. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
You can find ways to connect with him and links to everything we discussed in the show notes and transcript at workplaces.org/podcast.
And if you have any suggestions for me about our podcast or have any questions on flourishing workplace cultures, please email me at al@workplaces.org.
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