Transcript: Mission-Focused Leadership: Insights for Keeping Your Organization on Track // Becca Spradlin, On Mission

Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast

“Mission-Focused Leadership: Insights for Keeping Your Organization on Track“

November 4, 2024

Becca Spradlin

Intro: Are you ready to transform your leadership to see your organization flourish like never before? Well, in today’s episode we're mining wisdom that propels flourishing workplaces to fulfill their Christian mission through inspirational leadership. And we've got some incredible insights lined up from a thought leader who has honed the art of being mission true. Trust me, you won't want to miss this conversation that's packed with inspiration that will inform you the way you should lead and keep your organization focused on achieving its core mission.

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 the Road to Flourishing. And 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 the most-powerful driver of flourishing cultures, and that’s inspirational leadership. Join us as we dive into insightful conversations with thought leaders who will provide you with the tools and inspiration to grow and excel in your leadership journey.

I’m delighted to welcome Becca Spradlin to the podcast today. Becca is the founder of On Mission and the author of the new book Lead on Mission.

Throughout our conversation, you'll hear Becca talk about the support leaders need to maintain their organization's Christian mission focus and avoid mission drift, how faith-forward leaders integrate their faith in the workplace, common missteps that cause organizations to lose their way, how leaders can navigate change while staying true to the core, and keys to investing in the next generation of leaders.

I think you're going to love this interview with Becca. 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 assure the health of your workplace culture. As Becca highlights in today's episode, being curious is an important leadership competence, and the health of your organization's workplace culture is the core to being mission true. So be bold about discovering the health of your culture. Visit workplaces.org to learn more and start your journey to becoming a flourishing workplace today.

I’d also like to say hello to our new listeners, and thanks for joining us as we honor your investment of time by creating valuable lessons like this.

But let me tell you just a little bit more about Becca. Becca is the author of a new book, Lead on Mission: Advance Faith at Work. Avoid Mission Drift. Build a Legacy of Eternal Impact. She's the founder of On Mission, which equips executives, board members, and teams to advance their Christ-centered ambitions, creating a legacy of eternal impact. She specializes in executive facilitation of workshops, organization assessment, and strategy design. Becca brings over 15 years of experience facilitating workshops and evaluations for businesses and nonprofits on five continents. She has led strategy and change efforts within global organizations, learning from successes and missteps that inform her approach to strategy and change management today. Becca’s certified in change management, adult learning, human-centered design, and she holds a master's degree in applied economics from Johns Hopkins University and an undergraduate degree in business and communications from Grove City College. She also coauthored Mission True Workbook with the authors of Mission Drift, including Peter Greer, and she served as a research fellow at Seattle Pacific University's Center for Faithful Business, researching faith cultivation and drift in Christian-led businesses. She regularly writes and speaks on how companies can define and align their firms around faith and avoid drift. She resides in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with her husband and three daughters.

And so, here’s my conversation with Becca Spradlin.

Becca, it’s great to have you on the podcast. I'm looking forward to our conversation today.

Becca Spradlin: It's great to be here with you. It's my pleasure.

Al: So, let's start with the origin of your organization On Mission, and share with us the focus for your work. What did you observe in your interactions with Christian organizations that highlighted the need for leaders to have support in mission focus and clarity?

Becca: Yeah. Well, like many founding stories, it was a God story. My background was in ratings, of all things, in international economic development. And through the course of that microfinance specifically, I came to know the organization of Hope International—I know you're familiar with them—and long story short, God led my husband and I to move from the D.C. area, where I was doing international economic-development work, to move to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to join the Hope team.

And right around the time, which is hard to believe—it was about 10 years ago—Peter Greer, the CEO of Hope International, wrote a book called Mission Drift, which I know many of you have read. And because of the background I had in ratings, they said, “Could you make an assessment for us? We could use it internally to discern,” in Peter's words, “not if, but where we're drifting.” And so I started prototyping this and testing it in 2014, shortly after the book came out, and someone on the board said, “Hey, can you come do it for us?” And Peter's book got a lot of great traction. It’s a great book. And people would come and ask for help either with an assessment or a workshop or things like this.

And so, really, the book started the journey in terms of realizing the demand people had to both stay on mission as leaders, but really not sure exactly how to do that. So how might we come alongside these leaders and really help them advance that higher purpose, that Kingdom purpose, that they have for their organization, for their business?

Al: Great. And, Becca, you've got a new book coming out called Lead on Mission, and you open the book with the concept of faith-forward leadership. And I think our listeners are all saying, “Well, yeah, that's me. I'm a faith-forward leader.” And this fall on the podcast we’ll be focusing on inspirational leadership, and that's where you fit in, and it's one of our FLOURISH factors, as you well know. And it seems like these concepts intersect well with this inspirational-leadership factor. So, describe the qualities of what you describe as a faith-forward leader, and why did you build your book around this type of leader? Can you give us an example of what it means to be a faith-forward leader?

Becca: Sure. So, I would say the research I did for the book, a lot of case studies we collected from Christian-led, Christian-owned businesses, a lot of that research really led me to this concept. So I didn't necessarily go in, maybe a vague notion of what the concept was, but the stories really highlighted these distinctives.

So the first distinctive, obviously, is a Christian business owner or leader who desires to integrate their faith in the workplace and have the culture, the values, have that all reflective of their faith and their beliefs, and this eternal notion that human lives are for eternity, so how do we invest in the people the Lord's given us, the business the Lord's given us, to steward? So that is a concept probably people are more familiar with, integrating your faith at work.

But there's a second component to it, to the companies that had this opportunity to continue that eternal impact across generations. So it's both the cultivation today and the integration of faith today and this perpetuation of faith over time, looking to the forward stewardship of the business that they've been given to steward for eternal impact for the Kingdom of God. So that would be the kind of distinctive that came out of the case studies that were part of the research for this.

Al: Yeah. So, you're looking for Christian leaders who integrate faith in their work. Well, gosh, I hope every Christian leader wants to do that. But also, you're really encouraging us to think forward and cultivate the Christian principles for generations, aren't you? That’s—yeah.

Becca: Absolutely. That's a core part of it. And you probably can resonate with some of this, even just from your own work. You build it a little bit differently when you have that long-term, forward-looking view that you're working toward. You might build it differently, and, certainly, it requires another level of intentionality to really do that well.

Al: Yeah. So, you’ve got our minds thinking here. I know our listeners are thinking, “Okay. So, yeah. For future generations, will this core Christian purpose that we have continue.?”

So, tell me, why did you build your book around this type of leader?

Becca: Yeah. So, this concept, really, it evolved out of the research of the leaders we were talking to. I think one example of that type of leader is Vince Townsend at Pay Tel. Pay Tel is an organization that desires and has kind of fallen into a niche of serving vulnerable people in their community, namely those affected by incarceration, both inmates and their families, providing telecom services to connect to those groups together. And in this journey of serving this vulnerable population, they don't want to overcharge this group of people that’s already in a really difficult spot. So the faith kind of came out in everything from how they priced their services as well as the culture in the program they were developing internally, but also in terms of how they wanted to reach and serve this vulnerable population.

So, one of the practical things they did is they put tablets into the prisons where they were serving. And on these tablets, people had access to curriculum to develop themselves while they were awaiting sentencing, while they were serving their time. So it was a neat way that they could help those individuals grow and develop while they were waiting for the next step in their journey.

And some of that programing they put on there went beyond just—there was GED; mental health; but also parenting courses, how to connect well with those outside of the prison, waiting for them, trying to reconnect, and work toward healthy relationships. They didn't have to do that. They didn't have to provide that service for free. But they chose to put curriculum from local churches in that tablet as well for inmates to access. And so they went kind of above and beyond, even just beyond what a socially responsible organization would do to provide some spiritual nurture and care to those in a difficult spot.

Al: So, Becca, tell us a little more about this example of Vince and Pay Tel and being a faith-forward leader.

Becca: Absolutely. So clearly, Vince was leading the organization to integrate faith in the current generation, in the current work that they're doing. He's the owner. He's the founder. But as you started to look toward, what is the next phase of ownership and leadership for the organization? he started evaluating, what were the priorities from his perspective? And so he wanted that, that heart to serve the most vulnerable, he wanted that to continue, how to best do that from an ownership and a leadership structure. So they started putting things in place. They did a lot of things. I know they did the Best Workplace Survey to help improve their culture to make sure that was strong for the next generation. They worked with EOS to help ensure there was clear kind of guidance and direction and unify the organization. They changed up their leadership team to make sure they had a leadership team in place. And then, in terms of the ownership structure, Vince evaluated some different options and ended up choosing an ESOP.

Now, there's a lot of different ownership options, and governance is really critical whether you go with ESOPs or other things. So really setting up that next generation started with him clarifying what was most important as he looked toward transition and making sure the leadership team was in place, the culture was in place, to be strong and resilient enough to be ready for that transition before he stepped back. And then aligning that ownership structure as well.

Al: Yeah. That’s a great example. I appreciate that. And also, you include in the book a boat-building company. Tell us a little bit about that one as well.

Becca: Yeah. So, Correct Craft is a boat-building company. They're based in Orlando, and they're about a 100-year-old company. So the founder is not involved at this point, to say the least. And their mission, even from their founding, is building boats to the glory of God. And so that is reflected in everything from they actually have an identity pyramid, which is neat to kind of describe and tease that out, what that looks like for them and what areas they do—they do a lot of philanthropic things, volunteer trips, and things like that. So it influences their programing today, but also looking to the future, their current CEO, Bill Yeargin, one of the things he worked on early on was aligning the ownership structure to make sure that was in line. It is now part of a trust, and there's a board of trustees. So again, the theme—it’s in the book, too—when you have these trust-structure things, the governance becomes really important. It's that leadership and then the ownership and governance pieces. When you have all these three in alignment, that's when you start to see these cultures and companies continue to grow and grow amidst pretty difficult challenges, but retain the culture, retain the values. It's those three components coming together where you really see generational impact happening.

Al: The book has lots of examples of organizations like this. You mentioned Blue Trust is another one. What are a couple of the other just organizations that you highlight in the book?

Becca: Yeah. So, Coca-Cola Consolidated and Frank Harrison, Mark Whitacre, leaders of that. I would say the early leadership of ServiceMaster. Their story’s highlighted in the book as well. David Green, Hobby Lobby; other organizations like that.

Al: So, at the heart of your work through On Mission, it's to equip organizational leaders to stay focused on their core mission and avoid mission drift. And in your book, Lead on Mission, you talk about how organizations can lose their way and forget their core. And, you know, again, for mission-focused leaders that are on our podcast, it's probably hard for us to imagine that maybe our organizations will forget the core of our Christian purpose. But what are some common missteps that you see that derail leaders or cause organizations to do that, to lose their way? What structure does an organization need to really flourish over the long term so their foundation of culture and values stays intact?

Becca: Right, right. Yeah. It’s a great question. I think the big theme, and it's a theme I still see today, is failing to plan, especially in the area of succession planning. Even when I survey nonprofit leaders as well as you look at the research of business leaders and owners, succession plans are often underdeveloped. That is a common theme we see across research. That is related to leadership development as well. So how can organizations intentionally develop the next generation of leaders who understand and have lived through the culture? I think a real limitation of bringing in leaders from the outside of the organization is that they haven't seen the culture lived out through the hard times, through the hard choices, and hard decisions. And it's a real limitation even for that incoming CEO, to think that they understand the culture and the values, but they understand it from a distance. And so in absence of planning an internal-leadership development, you'll have external CEOs coming in without that same level of understanding of the culture and the values and that core purpose. And then that just kind of opens it up.

Now, there are exceptions to the rule. I think Correct Craft is a good one, where an external CEO came in and actually helped recenter the organization on their core and on their founding. So there's exceptions to every rule, but I think, often the external CEO is just working with a limitation on that kind of firsthand experience with the culture. And that just leads it to compromise, where you can easily drift without the CEO even realizing it.

And another key theme we saw in the research was growth, and this growth in a way or at a pace that compromises the core and the values, whether it's taking on too many acquisitions and trying to align a new culture with your culture and not adequately supporting that, that can happen, or just growing too fast and not having the structures in place to scale and support the growth of the organization and the scaling of the culture with the organization. And then you start to see it get watered down, and drift can come in there as well.

Al: Yeah. I'm a growth person, I'll have to admit, Becca. But I've seen over and over again, and it's hard when things are going really well to say, “Oh, I've got to limit my growth in order to build these key systems and infrastructure.” But that really is really important. And after you've grown and been successful for a long period of time, there's another issue that happens, isn't there?

Becca: Absolutely. Unfortunately, sometimes when we as people get successful, we can get egos and hubris can creep in. And it's interesting to look at the cases where success was a precursor to kind of neglect of the culture and the values. And you think you have the secret sauce, you think you've got it locked in, and I think that can definitely lead to compromise and drift, too. You could easily kind of lose sight of things, and then pressures come, and you’re in a weaker position. But I think that leader’s perspective of their own ego and a check on their own, yeah, the arrogance that we can all get once we’re successful is definitely part of it as well.

Al: Yeah. Yeah. So, I like just your point here of four things: succession; leader development; prioritizing growth—well, growth is great, but we have to be careful not to grow too fast—and then, yeah, leadership, ego, and hubris. Oh boy. Those are all important things to keep in mind, and our listeners are kind of figuring, “Well, what applies to me here?”

So, Becca, you have a lot of experience in change management, and you also help organizations clarify their mission so that they don't experience mission drift. And of course, we always have to navigate change as organizational leaders. That, perhaps, is one of the core competencies of leadership. So what are some practical ways that a leader can walk their team through a change process and still have clarity about what doesn't change? You know, there's a lot about some things change; other things don't change, especially their calling and mission. So what are some practical ways leaders can walk their teams through this?

Becca: Yeah. This question that you're hitting on here is critical. I love to give my public service announcement that change does not equal drift, friends. We don't need to fear change. And I think that can, yeah, there's a lot of problems when you try to avoid change, because change and innovation are essential. They help us stay relevant. They help us accomplish the mission. But we need to do it carefully and with intentionality. All of this requires kind of intentionality and certainly just discernment with the Lord.

But we don’t want to fear change. And I think what's really critical is to understand what is core and make sure everyone around you—leadership team, the board—understands what is core, because if you think of your unchanging core as center, the concentric circle outside of that, those are the structures you have in place to support the core, to fulfill the mission, to align the team. But those structures will need to change, absolutely. As your organization grows, as you scale, as you shift, those structures will need to change, and it can be a problem when you start to think the structures are unchangeable. So, the structures should be flexible when they need to be. But the beautiful thing about structures is as you change them, people take notice. It can be uncomfortable. And it helps you pause and think, “Is this change that we're doing or change to the structure or removing a structure, where does this lead us in 10 or 50 years from now?” The structures help you kind of pump the brakes, so to speak, to really just pause and say, “Okay. We're going to make this change. But what new structure are we putting in place, or how does this all align to that unchanging core? How do these structures help us in the process?”

Al: Can you give us an example of a structure that you're talking about, Becca?

Becca: Sure. Yeah. And so the book has a lot of, like, practices and structures you could include. I think ownership structure is an example. It’s just a really practical one. Your ownership structure may need to change. Okay, well, that kind of sounds mission neutral, but as we're talking, you could realize that could influence the mission a lot, even though itself is just picking a new ownership structure. So how do we do that in a way, and then make the investment and now governance that we have are these other layers that we now have with a new structure, to avoid drift? So structure is one of them.

I think other examples could be opt-in programing you offer for employees over lunch. Maybe you're offering a Bible-study course or something, but you realize people aren't coming. That's not working for you. So even just revising how you want to do that, understanding what the intention is or what the intention was for that programing, but doing something different, doing things differently, and freedom to do that with a really clear eye toward that end goal that you have.

Al: So, talking about mission and strategy can seem very high level, you know, so let's talk about some specific practices and habits that a leadership team can use to stay on mission and achieve excellence in an everyday work environment.

Becca: Absolutely. Yeah. It's got to be practical. So I think, again, there are a lot of different practices in the book. The intention there was not go and apply all of these; it's see these as tools in your toolkit that you could use when it makes sense for you. But I think one overriding one for every listener is really important is hiring. How are we hiring in alignment with that long-term mission and vision that we have? And this is a really nuanced one because I love talking with groups that maybe are intentionally less overt about their faith foundation and their faith focus because they don't want it to be a barrier for the people they want to come work for their organization, and they want to, you know, share the love of Christ with in whatever way they choose to do that, however the Lord leads them to do that. But when there are structures or maybe you're hiring for a chaplaincy role or other specific roles, or maybe there is, like, a faith component—and again, this is where lawyers are going to step in and could help you, certainly—how are the job descriptions? I mean, really practical, how are the job descriptions and recruiting, how does all that, whether you're very overt or not intentionally less overt, how does all of that line up to the broader approach to hiring at the end of the day to accomplish the eternal impact you want to see in the organization and because of the organization?

So all the way, these things kind of trickle down to, like you're saying, the everyday, the job aids, the tools that you're using, hiring being a big one, the questions you're asking, and then the intentionality of how do you make your organization a faith-friendly workplace, whether it's having chaplains or offering certain type of programing?

And I love practical things like that, and there's been great success with those things. But stepping back from that, you can look at all the tools in the book, if you're not living out your faith and loving people through your words and deeds, it doesn't really matter as much with the programing and the alignment of your structures because your testimony will undermine it.

So I think it actually starts even before the maybe more practical things that I love to encourage people towards just leaders having good self-awareness and accountability to make sure they are living out the faith application they want to see in the work place. Because for the book I talked with the leader of a chaplaincy group, and they're like, “We can't come in and clean up for the leader. We should be an extension of the leadership.” And so you think about, what programming structures make sense for you? Well, it should be an extension of that leadership and ownership around kind of that faith core, the eternal impact you want to see. So it looks different organization to organization. But if there's inconsistency there, all the intentionality with the programing and job descriptions and all these different things that you can do is undermined. So I think it starts with how the leader leads the culture in those intangible ways that reinforce the more tangible, practical applications.

Al: You're bringing up a really good question or an issue, and that is hiring practices. And you work with both Christian-owned businesses in the marketplace as well as Christian-led ministries. And in a Christian-led ministry, you can put in a job description the requirement for Christian faith. But okay, now, as we're talking about marketplace organizations, you know, the EEOC protects employees from discrimination based on religion. So, okay, so how do you structure job descriptions and such where you've got the EEOC involved?

Becca: Right. Excellent question. And this is something I think in the journey of researching this book, I learned a little bit more about, and I will say upfront, I am not a lawyer. There are great lawyers you could talk to you about this. And ADF is a great organization with resources and references for this. But I was surprised when I got examples of, for example, bylaws or equivalents of, like, an employee handbook that included language about the Christian faith founding or motivation of a business. So that was integrated. And then in bylaws it would go and specify there are certain types of organizations where we believe this alignment with the faith founding is a requirement to fulfill the stated mission. And so when I talk to organizations about clarifying their core, this is it. You got to have it clarified because if there is inconsistency, absolutely, that will open you up to a lot of issues. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but I find myself saying a lot of what I hear lawyers say, which is consistency is really king in this. So clarifying the core and making sure that's reflected in that kind of governing foundation of your organization, whatever that looks like, making sure that kind of higher purpose or that faith motivation is there. You could have it present there, but less present in the more-external-facing documents of the organization. But then from there, if you deem that there is some level of faith alignment, I would say, required as part of that, you could articulate that, and certainly you'd want legal counsel to kind of walk through with that.

I think another learning of this is you want aligned legal counseling to help you through this because it could take a lot of time and expense if you're working with people who don't really get it from the same kind of faith foundation that you have.

Al: That's good reference to ADF, for sure.

So, leaders in an organization are serving under owners, you know—and here's another sticky area—they're serving under owners or a board. And you talk about the role of ownership and a governance and keeping focus. And you say, “Well, a leader’s core responsibility is to reinforce and champion a company's culture and values.” What happens when a leader experiences resistance to these values? You know, resistance at the employee level is something, certainly. But then, when you deal with resistance at the board or ownership level, that's another area. And it could be a CLM, a career-limiting move, for a leader. So how does a leader navigate the misalignment in values with their board? You know, what steps can a leader take to build a culture of shared values that includes all levels of the organization, including the board?

Becca: Right. Well, in a word, very, very carefully is the word. So, yeah, this is tricky, especially if you are kind of inheriting a board that you didn't help to set together. I think if you were an incoming leader in that situation, I'd advise you to really understand what is necessary. But I think it, again, going back to it starts with having clarity on that core. Is there a common core that everyone in this room kind of agrees to? And a real challenge is that you often don't know there's misalignment until you're kind of pushed up against the wall, and it's a really difficult spot to be in. So ideally you want to maybe play through some scenarios to understand if that is, tease that out in advance. But you really want to start with clarity on the core and making sure that's in place or working toward getting that. And then, as you lead, bringing in and developing, so both the developing what you have in place and the bringing in of new board members in this case, if you need, or trustees, people that are already aligned with that core. So they see that core and it's kind of a magnet for them. You don't need to teach the values to them because they get it and they like it and they will preserve it. They get the kind of Kingdom impact that the organization wants to see however the path they choose to get there. So you want to have passion for the core identified, and you can only really test that out if you have that clarity on the core.

I would also say across the cases, it really requires, like, an uncommon boldness with the board, like really being willing to put a stake in the ground and say, “These are the values. This is what we're all about. You can take it or leave it.” And one really practical example, again, go back to the case of Correct Craft, the boat-building company, the current CEO, Bill Yeargin, came in after five CEOs cycled out in five years. The company was not in a good place. And he got in and realized kind of the turmoil after he was already in, and he made this statement. He's like, “You can follow me, or you can fire me.” And so that is an uncommon boldness. But as I think about that case, if we look back in Correct Craft's history, this is an organization that had uncommon boldness at other times. So during World War II, the leader of the organization said to the U.S. government, who they were building boats for the war, said, “We're not going to build boats on Sundays. We made a commitment that we're not going to work on a Sabbath.” That's another structure you could have in place, or a practice. And they defended that to the U.S. government during a time of war. And it's an amazing God story because they ended up exceeding their production, working fewer days than all their competitors. And so God totally worked. But goodness, the boldness of these leaders and of that company and its history, you see that lived out. And so, yeah, boldness definitely required.

Al: You caused me to think about community organizations. I think of rescue missions, for example, you know, where large donors may end up on the board, but they don't have that that common core value. Do you run into that very often?

Becca: Yeah, that can absolutely happen. And I think as—we like to see boards kind of on a path to maturity, especially when you're a founding organization, that founding board might be kind of more like a managing board, all hands on deck. They are more like very engaged donors and volunteers. But over time, you really want to have a little bit more of a governance board, a little bit more an appropriate distance from the work without losing too much distance in that voice of those you serve. But yes, money is a common derailer, nonprofit, for profit, whether it's a donor or a funder, investor, money is a big derailer of the mission. And I think being really careful how—certainly, you give board seats or attract board members that are aligned is really important because you don't want to be chasing dollars; you're chasing the mission, and you're inviting dollars to follow you.

Al: That's a key to faith-forward leaders, for sure.

So Becca, we've already talked about the change process and staying on mission. So let's take a moment to dive into generational change. I mean, this is another big topic in change. And you talk about investing in the next generation leadership development and the importance of that going forward from an eternal-impact standpoint. So as you consider the next generation of emerging leaders, what qualities and competencies should we be focusing on in our younger leaders? What's timeless, and what leadership qualities or skills might be unique for this moment in our culture?

Becca: Well, I'd say, you know, anyone listening could probably say things like servant leadership and humility. Certainly, these things are absolutely timeless and absolutely essential, certainly from the research, to staying on mission as an organization.

I would say—I had a call with someone just a week ago. It was so refreshing that they were sharing how they were taking on a managing-director position, and it wasn't part of their plan. But he shared, “God kind of opened the door. And I realized, looking back, how God's prepared me for this, so I know He'll help me grow and stretch into this.” And I was like, “Wow, how refreshing to come across leaders who aren't leading because they want the title or they need that title, but they're willing to step into greater responsibility and leadership as the Lord has prepared them and led them to do.”

I think maybe a less obvious one is curiosity. I think curiosity is really important. If you look throughout Scripture in the Old Testament, you hear a lot of, like, “Well, tell the next generation this; tell the next generation this.” But if you look carefully, there's a couple verses in there, they're like, “When your children are the next generation ask you, why we do this thing or how this happened, tell them x, y, z.” So I would love to see a rising generation of curious learners, both curious about organizational history, and I think as the leaders, especially those who may be looking toward transition, sharing the God stories, sharing how God shows up in the work. Cultivate curiosity in the next generation, along with the competencies and the humility and the servant leadership and just the ability to lead from a competency perspective. But how do we cultivate curiosity as well? I think it's by telling the stories and making sure we continue to document and tell those stories, tell the founding story, tell what God has done for your organization. I love seeing that in organizations, and celebrating that because people can't argue with the history.

Looking at Correct Craft, they can't argue with the miracle production that the U.S. government labeled it a “miracle production.” That's their history. So as the next generation come in, they can't argue with that, even if they have different views or beliefs. But it's part of the history. How do we tell this story? How do we cultivate the curiosity? And I think just a continuous learning posture is really critical. You always want to see that, both from an organizational history and in industry. How are these people learning and investing and learning more about the industry that they're in? And just, as an individual leader kind of listening to this, just how are we abiding in the Lord for discernment, for direction? Because that influences how we lead, how we lead an organization, how we lead our families, how we lead within our community and church, but how are we developing good practices of abiding and in the One True Source of all things, the one audience that matters most?

So I think those would be the critical things. And a lot of the other things I've mentioned are downstream from that identity rooted in Christ and this relationship of abiding with a risen living Savior.

Al: Becca’s four keys, right there. Servant leadership, humility, curiosity—I love that you're focused on cultivating curiosity and by doing it in a compelling way so that people are actually curious about the past—and also to abide in the Lord, for sure.

Well, so, Becca, your work is focused on helping leaders grow in their leadership and to shepherd their organization well. Let's talk about your own growth as a leader. Can you share a few reflections on what's influenced your own journey of leadership, and what are some of the catalysts that you've experienced that spur you on to your growth as a leader?

Becca: Absolutely. Well, I think people is a big one. I've had the privilege of working with and learning from really great people, great leaders. I mentioned Hope International. The clients I work with, I learned so much from them and their leadership as well. Chris Crane has been a mentor of mine. He was the founder of Edify. These organizations are just doing such great Kingdom work, but with a real focus on stewarding the culture and building great organizations as well. I think what Mike Sharrow and C12 have done and they've kind of shared with me in terms of how they integrate their mission as an organization, how they are protecting their own organization's mission as they lead other leaders to do the same. I think that's really, really important. So I've been blessed to learn from a lot of great people and continue to do so. So grateful for that.

I think, I mean, a practical one, like continuously listening to podcasts and audio books. So going for reading runs, as I call them, where I can read while I run and just continuously be learning from others.

And then, I mean, accountability, I think is a really practical one. Talked about in the book, talked about abiding, but who's holding me accountable for that? I think my husband helps with that, certainly, even my kids to a certain extent. But accountability outside of the work structure has been really helpful for me. People who are mature in their faith, understand kind of the life stage we're in as a family and are just encouraging, but also just encouraging you to go deeper with Christ and pointing you toward that. So I think accountability is really critical to help make sure we do keep abiding, because on our own we get distracted.

Al: Well, Becca, this has really been a fascinating and a great conversation. I just, I love even going back to what it means to be a faith-forward leader and how it's a Christian leader who integrates faith in their work that also wants to continue and cultivate the faith in the organization for generations to come. And how we can make missteps as we move along from one generation to the next. How it's important to have succession plans. It's important to have and develop the leaders with the core competencies and the faith that we need, and how we should be careful about growth and growing too fast and even becoming prideful and experiencing a little hubris if we've been really successful over time. And you've really helped us with practical suggestions around hiring and the importance of living out and being a testimony of faith and how aligning the board, and some of the qualities of what we want to develop in the next generation of leadership. So, gosh, this has just been a great conversation.

Is there anything that you'd like to add that we've talked about?

Becca: Well, yeah. Thank you for the podcast and giving people like myself continuous opportunities to learn. I also just want to shout out to the Best Christian Workplace for the work you're doing in helping organizations. Reflection is a big part of growth for organizations, especially growth in terms of staying in alignment and keeping aligned cultures. And I love practical tools like Best Christian Workplace assessment surveys for the team members to really give, board members but leadership as well, insight on how healthy the culture is, how engaged is the team. And that really helps make sure you have a healthy team to keep advancing the mission So thank you for that. Thank you for what you do.

Al: Well, Becca, this has been a great conversation. Thanks so much for your contributions. And most of all, I appreciate your commitment to equip leaders to fulfill their God-given mission and to make sure that mission continues on from one generation to the next. So thanks for taking your time out today and speaking into the lives of so many listeners.

Becca: Thanks so much. It’s my pleasure.

Al: Thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Becca Spradlin. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

You can find ways to connect with her and links to everything we talked about 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.

Keep listening to our weekly podcast, and we’ll continue to learn from leaders who are proven inspirational leaders exhibiting Christian character and excellence in their leadership.

Next week we welcome Brad Carr of SonicAire, talking about creating a cohesive leadership team for growth.

Outro: The Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Best Christian Workplaces. If you need support building a flourishing workplace culture, please visit workplaces.org for more information.

We'll see you again next week for more valuable content to help you develop strong leaders and build a flourishing workplace culture.