Leadership:
Dear NIFW friends,
As many of you would attest to, when we engage in conversations around what it looks like for each of us who know Jesus to serve him faithfully with our gifts and abilities, with a sense of openness to how God might lead us in new ways, we put ourselves in a position before the Lord that is both exciting, as well as uncertain. It has been my joy to have these kinds of conversations with many of you about your faith and work journey through the ministries of NIFW.
I have a theory that my job as a supervisor is to manage relationships on my team, not just manage people. Every relationship needs to be monitored by the leader. The chain is only as good as its weakest link. Everyone must relate to each other, not just to the boss. I am responsible to facilitate, improve, and maintain relationships between employees and not just my relationships with them.
When I was working in higher education, conversations around vision and culture were common topics. We would discuss “tone setting” and “vision casting” as often as we discussed the local game or the new special at our favorite restaurant. It was common for our office to focus on casting the vision for our team on why we do what we do.
As I thought through how I wanted to cast the vision to my team, I thought through how to communicate that the work we do is integrated into our lives because it is all-encompassing–
It is compassion integrated with accountability
It is tenacity integrated with grace
It is faith integrated into our work
