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Hello friends,
We’ve understood the goal of a healthy organizational culture (the Four Facets), as well as the process of how we get there (the Four Dynamics expressed through leaders building leaders). Last time we looked at a pillar of your organization — a healthy culture of succession. But before we finish this series on organizational culture, we have to get to accountability.
Every leader is accountable to someone, and if they are not, it’s best to run far away from them. No one wants to be caught in the fallout of a leader who isn’t accountable.
The apostles were accountable, both to God and to their spiritual communities. Even Jesus was accountable to His Father during His earthly ministry! And you, dear leader must also be accountable.
Here’s Malcolm with more:
“A leader with godly character will not fear accountability but will rather choose it.”
Throughout the Church today, a lack of strong accountability is wreaking havoc. Almost everyone knows of at least one Christian leader who has either crashed and burned or is currently bringing disrepute to the name of Christ. All of know that this aspect of a healthy culture cannot be dismissed.
Even for effective ministries, regular evaluation of accountability structures and relationships are essential.
We worked with a powerful prayer organization in Nigeria once, one with over three decades of ministry under its belt. It had headquarters spread across Nigeria, and consistently helped other countries to set up their own intercessory teams. God used them to do great and miraculous things across Africa.
But in recent years it had been losing its vibrancy and effectiveness. During our time with them, evaluation started to unearth the reasons why. They had lost their original vision over the years, due to weak leadership, relational conflict and tribal divides.
At the end of our time with them, everyone could clearly see the lapses in the ministry. In an effort to close these gaps, the top leadership of the body arranged a meeting to re-align everyone to the original vision so they could move forward as a team.
“God has brought you and your team to us at this critical time to help build this house for Him. Your training has revealed so many areas where we are not doing well as a body. Please, help us to build this house again.”
During the session, the Holy Spirit moved in everyone’s heart, prompting leaders to reveal deep hurts and brokenness. As clear evidence of broken community life, one leader shared:
“Brethren, my wife has been bedridden with a stroke for over a year now and not one of you here, except the main leader and his wife, came to pray with us. Was this body set up to only pray for churches and the nation? Is it a sin for this body to pray for her members?”
People repented before the Lord, and those who had been hurt by the leadership forgave them. By His Holy Spirit, the Lord healed every person’s heart.
The leadership also made resolutions to increase accountability moving forward. They began by creating a directory of phone numbers and addresses, encouraging members to visit each other regularly. Everyone committed to meeting more frequently to strengthen their community life as a body. They set up structures to serve the life of the group: leader care, prayer partners, and mentors. They adopted our models for healthy leadership in their training of intercessors, with the intent of holistically building leader-intercessors. And they assigned certain leaders to be built specifically in our models, so they would be equipped to cascade the training out to the rest of their network.
“I see a new ministry emerging from this, where tribal rancor is swallowed up. This is the day we must put this new wine into a new wine skin. Everyone must look up to God and God alone.”
What About You?
Here are the areas of accountability that should be maintained in a given leader’s life and ministry.
Integrity of life: Does your life reflect high moral and ethical standards of behavior?
Integrity of motive: Do you seek the highest good of your community before your own?
Integrity of finance: Do you take advantage of your position for personal gain?
Integrity of organization: Do you ensure that the right systems and relationships are in place and maintained?
Integrity of doctrine: Are your teaching and doctrinal positions sound?
Integrity of decisions regarding the community: Do you put the will of God first?
Integrity of relationships: Do you work through your conflicts and refuse to use your power to settle personal issues?
Integrity of accountability: Are your relationships of accountability really working?
How do your accountability structures add up?
Recommended Resources
Article: Don’t Just Be Accountable to Your Leader, Be Accountable to Each Other!
Tool: The Four Perspectives Model of Organizational Capacity Building
360 Evaluation: The 5C Checkpoint
For more resources, visit our website.
As always, we’re so grateful to our friends at Fifty-Four Collective for helping us create these videos and for providing top-notch leader development online training. Check out what they’re doing!