Transcript: Servant Leadership That Overflows: Creating a Culture of Impact // Gilbert Montez, Christian Community Action

Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast

“Servant Leadership That Overflows: Creating a Culture of Impact“

January 20, 2025

Gilbert Montez

Intro: Are you leading with a posture of listening and servant leadership? Well, in this episode we sit down with Gilbert Montez, the president of Christian Community Action, as he shares profound insights into how a small team can create a flourishing culture that overflows into the lives they serve, discover the transformative power of transparent communication, the importance of spiritual leadership, and why embracing a heart of surrender might just be the key to impactful ministry. Tune in and learn how a workplace culture rooted in Christ can truly change lives, both within your organization and in your community.

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, co-founder of the Best Christian Workplaces and author Road to Flourishing. And my passion is to equip Christian leaders like you to create engaged, flourishing workplaces. And join us as we dive into insightful 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 Gilbert Montez to podcast today. Gilbert’s the president of Christian Community Action. Why listen to today's podcast? Well, first, you'll gain actionable insights into fostering a workplace culture that reflects servant leadership and transparency, creating an engaged, flourishing team. Second, you'll learn practical ways to integrate spiritual gifts and individual strengths into your organization's mission, aligning your staff's roles with their God-given talents. And finally, the conversation provides inspiration for building life and ministry by implementing strategies to support your team's well-being while staying deeply committed to serving others.

I think you're going to love this interview with Gilbert Montez. But before we dive in, this podcast is proudly sponsored by the Best Christian Workplaces’ Employee Engagement Survey. Don't wait. Now is the perfect time to gather vital insights from your employees to assess the health of your workplace culture. As today's guest said, when there's a void of communication in an organization, people tend to make up things worse than the actual truth. A vacuum will suck in those negative things. So get ahead by discovering the health of your workplace culture, fostering transparency, and creating a flourishing culture that reflects Christ's leadership. So, are you ready to transform your culture? Visit workplaces.org to learn more and start your journey to becoming a flourishing workplace today.

And hello to our new listeners. Welcome. Thanks for joining us as we honor your investment of time by creating valuable episodes like this.

Let me tell you just a little bit more about Gilbert Montez. Gilbert is the president and CEO of Christian Community Action in Lewisville, Texas, in the north part of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. He's been with CCA for now more than four years, and Gilbert has more than 25 years of experience developing, leading, and evaluating strategic communications for major corporations and organizations. He has also held leadership positions in nonprofits and the church. He also has 16 years of experience in communication leadership in the corporate sector. I think you're going to gain from the benefit of his experience.

Christian Community Action started in 1973 with eight members of a Bible study group, and it's grown in over the past 50 years to provide comprehensive services that alleviate suffering, bring hope, and change lives.

So, here’s my conversation with Gilbert Montez.

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

Gilbert Montez: Thank you, Al. I'm honored to be here, long been a fan of your organization, and it’s great to meet you, to begin with, and to get this opportunity to share about Christian Community Action and our team here.

Al: Well, I'm looking forward to this. You’ve been highly recommended by our team of consultants, and, yeah, I’m looking forward to it.

So, Gilbert, let's just start off by sharing with our listeners about the mission and program of Christian Community Action. Share a story of someone who's served, who's been served, by your organization so that we can understand a little bit more about your ministry and the impact that you have on the people in your area.

Gilbert: Yeah. A successful young woman comes to mind. She's in our community. She's an attorney, has a young child, a wife. And when she was a young child herself, she tells us that she recalls her family coming to CCA for food, clothes, school supplies, and some of the other services that we offer. Her father worked multiple jobs to support the family of seven, and yet it was difficult for them to make ends meet. And she told us recently, she said, “I didn't fully understand at the time the difference in our circumstances. But looking back,” she says, “I realized that without CCA's help, we wouldn't have had the essentials that made us feel like normal kids. CCA ensured we had what we needed to focus on us just being kids rather than worrying about the things that we couldn't control.” And so this young woman, like I said, is now a mother, a wife, a successful attorney in our area. She's also a donor and a volunteer in our organization, has been volunteering for the last two years. And so she's come full circle, and she understands the value of what we do and the generational impact that we make on the lives of families and children. And we’ve been doing this kind of work—the organization has been around for 51 years now and doing this kind of work.

Al: And what's the mission of CCA?

Gilbert: The mission is that in the name of Jesus Christ, CCA ministers to the poor by providing comprehensive services—those wraparound services—that help people with immediate needs all the way to, how do we get you out of poverty?, to alleviate suffering, bring hope, and change lives.

Al: Ah, that's great. Great. Thanks for all you do, Gilbert.

Well, let's talk a little bit about your own leadership journey and kind of your story as a leader. I think each of us as leaders grow and learn from other people's experiences. So you were in corporate communications leadership for a number of years and then on a church staff and nonprofit leadership. Tell us a couple of the maybe the key turning points in your growth as a leader and how it is that you really grew in those situations.

Gilbert: Yeah. So I’ve enjoyed greatly my time in the corporate world, and I learned many things that I still apply every day. But in 2003 is when I surrendered to ministry. That had to be a key turning point in my journey. And coming from the corporate world, when I came into ministry, you know, I thought I had all these things to bring to ministry. But I realized quickly that what God wanted was not necessarily my skills and my knowledge; He just wanted me to surrender. And that understanding, that was another key moment, learning about spiritual leadership during my time at the church. I'm still working at that some days. Some days I get it right, and some days I don't, in terms of surrendering.

But God's also gifted me, I think, in the area of a desire to be a life-long learner. I think that’s a skill that I still use every day. I was blessed to have parents who modeled serving others, and they set the tone for me in that area at a very young age.

Al: Now, you used the term “surrendered to ministry.” Was there a moment, a time, a word? What caused you to make that step?

Gilbert: Yeah. So I think I had battled a calling for a long time in my life, had been very active in the church, I married a preacher's daughter, and so we were both have been always been very active. And so I think I thought, “Hey, that'll do. That's sufficed, just me being active.” But God wanted more than that, and I had felt that calling for a long time. And so, yes, it was a moment of surrendering to it, of coming to the realization, my wife and I discussing, and she told me, she said, “This time you can't say no.” And we all marry up, you know. So those were wise words that I'll always remember. And so then, we took a leap of faith at that point.

Al: Yeah. God tends to speak through the voice of our spouses. There's no question.

Gilbert: For sure.

Al: Yeah.

Well, Gilbert, Christian Community Action, you’ve regularly assessed the health of your workplace culture with Best Christian Workplaces since you started as president over four years ago now. And you have highly engaged employees. Again, you've come highly recommended. So would you describe an event maybe or a turning point in your leadership journey that motivated you to seek feedback about the health of workplace culture? What happened?

Gilbert: Well, you know, it really began in the corporate world. One of the positions I had was I was in charge of a nationwide employee-communication survey to measure the effectiveness of internal messaging across 100,000 employees across the corporation that I worked with. And so that was the first taste for me of employee engagement. So I dug into the learnings of all the aspects of surveys. What's the science behind them? And that triggered, that led to want me to learn about employee engagement.

I started researching just on my own. I came across the name of William Kahn, who is known as the father of employee engagement. And Kahn said some things that really kind of stuck with me. He said things like, employee engagement thrives in healthy work relationships. He said things like, when staff members, when employees are considered as persons treated as persons, that's when they become fully engaged. And so that really, you know, later, as I studied Scripture and I came across verses like Mark 10:42, where Jesus is speaking to the disciples about servant leadership and how believers are the type of leaders that believers should be. And so combining those two learnings, that continue to motivate me.

Later in my graduate-school studies, my master's thesis was actually on employee engagement and specifically Kahn’s methodology that he used. I went back and studied that. And through all that, I've come to the conclusion that really what's inside of an organization, its culture, is going to overflow externally to its various audiences. Much like myself as an individual, what's inside of me is going to overflow in the way I interact with people around me.

And so as a learner, I've learned that, especially now leading an organization, I've learned that the culture for this organization starts with me, and I take that responsibility very seriously. I want our team to be cared for, and I want everyone here to really thrive in what they're doing in the positions that they have.

Al: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So culture overflows. Gilbert, I love that. And then, absolutely right: it starts with the leaders, those that have the influence, who really shape the way things are done around here. That's kind of my shorthand definition of culture is just the way things are done around here. So, yeah, I love that. Absolutely.

And a communication survey for 100,000 employees, that's a big organization.

Gilbert: Yeah. So we would interview 1/12 of the employee population every month. And so we had monthly results. And so by the end of the year, we would have surveyed all employees, and we were able to do a comprehensive, across-the-corporation report at the end of the year.

Al: Yeah. Wow. William Kahn, absolutely. Well, that sounds like it was a lot of fun. Your master's degree sounds like it was a lot of fun. Something I'd find fun, anyway.

Gilbert: I did, too. I think it's great. That's good. We might be survey nerds or something around here.

Al: Yeah. And people accuse me of liking to measure things in numbers. Yeah. But, well, yeah.

So, Gilbert, describe a little bit about your own leadership team and the information that you get from the Employee Engagement Survey. And your experience with surveys for over a long period of time, how do you implement the changes based on the feedback? Give our listeners some practical ideas of what they can do when they get this kind of information.

Gilbert: Well, you know, we're a small organization. We have 30 employees. But the one thing that's helpful is that we have enough employees in each department to be able to break down survey results by department. And that gives us a closer look, a deeper look, into the organization. And I have to admit, though, that while we have a lot to celebrate, we have to make ourselves celebrate the good before we dive into areas that we still need work on. It's a constant reminder.

Al: You figured that out, huh?

Gilbert: Yeah. Because we automatically, all of us on our leadership team, we quickly go to, “Okay. So what were the bad results?”

And so, yeah, so as each department shares those results—we have a monthly all-staff meeting where I share the good results, and I share the areas where we still need to improve. The consultant from your organization helps us analyze and dig even deeper into the results. And then, we put our heads together and put together plans to adjust and tweak what we're doing with the culture here.

Al: Yeah. So you share with your staff at a monthly all staff, one of your meetings, the results, both good and what can be improved. Yeah. And people have heard me say on this podcast, too many times I've heard leaders say, “Well, yeah, I share the good news, but I'm afraid to share the bad news. They might get the wrong idea about my leadership.” But you're willing to share both the good news and things to work on. What do you think that does for your staff when you're able to share both sides?

Gilbert: Well, in terms of communication, again, going back to my corporate experience, I learned that when there's a void of communication in an organization, people tend to make up things that are worse than actual truth. And so we try to be open as much as we can. And I think they know that by now, after four and a half years here, that we're going to be as transparent as possible. I tell them that we're going to share as much as we can. Sometimes there are some things that, for whatever reason, cannot be shared. And so we're pretty open not only just with the Survey results, but with other things that are happening within the organization.

Al: Yeah. That transparency leads to trust. And of course, trust-based relationships have so many benefits over those relationships that don't have that level of trust.

Well, tell us a little bit about how you've developed your organization. You know, the Survey results say that your staff really appreciate opportunities that they have for growth and development, and they feel like they really appreciate being able to use their spiritual gifts and skills in their roles. You know, they have a high level of what we call life-giving work. And they also feel cared for by their supervisor, which is really a foundational result. So what are some of the practices that you and your team have implemented to help people feel like they're using their spiritual gifts? And this is something we often find low: how is it that people feel like they can use their spiritual gifts, and they're being cared for at work?

Gilbert: Well, one of the things that comes to mind is we've implemented Patrick Lencioni’s Working Genius assessment for all staff members and even those that are coming on to the staff. And while it's not a spiritual-gifts assessment, it does help define our working styles, our preferred working styles, and our frustrations. And so we know each other's working style, and that helps us, and that's one of the things that we've implemented. And so we've done other things. We have what we call Lunch on CCA, where a leadership team member will take two or three staff members across the organization, he'll take them to lunch. It’s just an effort to get to know them as persons. And we try real hard not to ask work-related questions and keep it, “Hey, so how are you? Who are you? Share a little bit about yourself,” those kinds of questions.

And as a leadership team, we talk about leading in a servant-leadership style. The work that we do, Al, with our families, it's hard work, and we want to care for our team members as much as we can. We're not always going to get it right, but I hope that we can get it right most of the time.

Al: Yeah.

So, okay, Gilbert, I've got to ask you, and for our listeners, so Working Genius, I'm hearing more and more about this. We've done this at the Best Christian Workplaces amongst our team to help with team building. What's your Working Genius results, Gilbet?

Gilbert: Well, my personally, mine is wonder. And so I sometimes frustrate the leadership team because I'm the only wonderer on the leadership team. And we have some that are, I forget the exact name of it, but they're implementers, and I might throw out an idea, and they're ready to run with it. And I have to warn them that, “Hey, I'm just brainstorming. I'm just wondering.” And so that's mine.

Al: Yep. Yeah. Wonder and innovation or mine.

Gilbert: Yeah, yeah.

Al: So yeah, I know exactly what you’re saying.

Gilbert: You don't want to put us together, because we'd be dreaming all day.

Al: Yeah, yeah.

Gilbert: Nothing would get done.

Al: Yeah, exactly. But I want to just point this out to our listeners: it's a great way—we found it to be a great way—to kind of understand people at a deeper level, to appreciate what they're giftings are. And while, as you pointed out, it's not a spiritual-gifts inventory, which is something that I've often recommended as well, but it gets you deeper, much like a StrengthsFinders might be, for example, in an organization.

And I've got to come back around, Gilbert, to servant leadership. Do you have any recommended sources? How do you talk about servant leadership?

Gilbert: Yeah. Well, we've read some books. Mark Miller has some great books out there about it. Ken Blanchard, it was Ken Blanchard’s—I forget the exact title of the book—but that's the one we went through as a leadership team and had some real healthy discussions about leading in that manner.

Al: So that's something for our listeners just to think about in terms of leadership teams going through these kinds of books. Mark Miller, Ken Blanchard, they're both previous guests on our Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast. Yeah. That's just great. Yeah. Good examples. Thank you so much, Gilbert.

Now, we see that your employees feel heard—I mean, they tell us that in the Survey results—and that CCA seeks their input, that you act on their suggestions. And I know that you have a strong background in communications, as you've already mentioned. So how do you foster that posture of listening and healthy communication in your leadership team and among your staff?

Gilbert: Well, I mentioned, you know, our monthly all-staff meetings where we take time to—we do it during lunch hour. Everybody just brings our lunch, and we gather the first Wednesday of every month. We celebrate birthdays. Al, we sing “Happy Birthday” to whoever is having a birthday that month. It's the CCA choir, I kind of jokingly say. We celebrate service anniversaries. And each department takes time to give an update on the latest and greatest things going on in their departments. I write a weekly email to the staff. I call it Friday’s Thoughts. Friday mornings, they get an email from me to everyone. And sometimes it's work related; sometimes it might just be something, a Scripture that I've been studying that week. But it's a short, concise email to serve, to communicate, to encourage the staff. I can't say enough about the servant-leadership style. That involves active listening. And so we try to practice that as much as possible. And we invite team members into the decision-making process whenever that is possible. And even as I lead the leadership team, I try to model an inclusive servant-style leadership with them, where, you know, I'll ask their opinion and listen to them. And sometimes we can agree, all to agree, and sometimes there's some healthy discussions that we have. And those are great, too, to have. An organization, a leadership team especially, needs to know how to have healthy conflict with one another.

Al: Yeah. Those are great thoughts. I'm just reflecting on your communication, corporate-communication background. And I was talking with a church, and we were saying, “Well, it would really be helpful to have healthier communication in your church.” And they said, “Oh, well, we've got professional communicators on our staff. We’ll solve that problem.” And oftentimes what churches think are professional communicators, it’s one-way communication. And what you're saying, Gilbert, based on all of your experience, it's very much listening. Communication is listening so that you're able to craft what needs to be communicated in a way that people actually hear it and listen. So yeah, so at all-staff meetings. I love your idea of your Friday Thoughts email, you know, but then taking active listening, inviting opinions, and then really focusing on servant leadership, yeah, that’s great feedback. Thanks.

So, yeah, you mentioned that you've got certainly a relatively small staff. We work with a lot of organizations with staffs your size, and they can have toxic workplace cultures just like any other organization. And I'm sure the needs of the people that you serve can feel large even with a small staff. So how do you and your team help your staff have a good balance while serving the people in your community? And I'm sure you've got people who are helpers, and helpers oftentimes don't really take care of themselves personally because they're focused on helping. So how do you keep that good balance, life balance?

Gilbert: Well, it's difficult, I'll tell you, Al, because we do have a lot of passionate people on staff, really have a heart for helping people. And that's what we do. And so, but we try to care, try to care for our team in various ways, with time off during Christmas. We're going to take a week off for Christmas. And there's other times throughout the year where we try to do that. We do a one day, once a year, actually, it's a two-day training session that we do with our staff, where we bring in someone to do some specific training for us, always with the idea of trying to pour into the staff, encourage them, support them. And there's lots of things that we've implemented. You know, in terms of, back to your reference of active listening, the Survey tool itself is something that has to be listened to. It has to be dissected and really thought about. And so I think we try to do that well in order to implement things that would be worthy for our staff.

Al: Yeah. And it does help you, doesn't it, identify actionable things and even help prioritize what to work on based on our relative weights analysis. Yeah. So yeah. Time off at Christmas, two-day training. That's a great idea. You train the staff on various things that are timely, probably. You might even, like we do at Best Christian Workplaces—we practice what we preach—we do some training throughout the year on topics that come up in our Survey.

Well, Gilbert, this has just been a great conversation. I've learned so much. You know, thinking, going back to your own leadership journey and how you surrendered to ministry, as you describe it, and really dedicated personal growth around spiritual leadership and life-long learning. And how you've got such an interesting background in communications and the work that you discovered in your workplace situation and how that's fed over into your own leadership style and approach at CCA. And how you take data from a survey; you break it down by department; you communicate it, the good and the bad, to your staff; and then, develop action plans. We call that the discover, build, and grow approach. Yeah. And how you've given your employees the sense that they are understood by others by doing things like the Working Genius, and they feel like their skills and their gifts are understood so they can apply them to their work, and you work a lot with servant leadership. And then, the posture of listening—you talked a lot about that—and life balance. So this has just been a great conversation.

What else would you like to add that we've talked about?

Gilbert: Well, no, just to say thank you, truly an honor. Again, I've long been a fan of your organization and appreciate the opportunity. Al, you and your team provide us a valuable tool to help our organization get better. And I tell the staff it’s like, getting better is like software rollouts: each time you get a little bit better, small improvement here, small improvement there. And that’s really—we’re not there yet, and so that’s what we’re trying to do. And the Survey tool does a great job of helping us get there.

Al: Yeah. Gilbert, we’re not there yet, that’s for sure.

Gilbert: Yes. Right.

Al: But let’s keep working at it, right?

Well, Gilbert, so, just thank you so much for your contribution today. I really appreciate your commitment to serving God's Kingdom, to bring hope, and changing lives in your community, to serve the poor. Thanks so much for taking your time out today and speaking in the lives of so many listeners.

Gilbert: Been a pleasure, Al. When you're in Dallas, come see us.

Al: Okay. I look forward to it.

Thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Gilbert Montez. 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 questions for me about our podcast or any questions on flourishing workplace cultures, please email me, al@workplaces.org.

As you finish this episode, take a moment to reflect. How is your leadership fostering a culture of trust, servant heartedness, and intentional communication in your organization? We challenge you: take one actionable step this week, whether it's listening more intently, celebrating the good in your team, or inviting your staff into meaningful discussions about their spiritual gifts. Remember, building a flourishing workplace culture starts with small, deliberate changes that reflect Christ's love and servant leadership. Start today.

And keep listening to our weekly podcast as we continue to learn from leaders who have proven inspirational leadership qualities and exhibiting Christian character and excellence in their leadership. Next week we’ll talk with Cassie Laymon, the president of Beacon Wealth. Beacon Wealth is a Christian financial-planning and wealth-management firm.

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.