Together

This morning I have two things pressing on my mind and they both led me to the same scripture commanding action and changes to improve culture.  I've been doing some self-analysis for the past month.  We did a perceptions survey at work and the results were pretty hard to hear which has led to digging deep to figure out what needs to change.  If I want to build a positive culture in my school, I have to take ownership of where we've fallen short as leaders.  I recently read an article in Harvard Review about building trust among staff.  The author identified 3 areas that can make leaders less likely to be trusted by their employees: Can I trust your reasoning and judgment?  Are you as a leader authentic and real with us?  Do you care about me and my success, are you empathetic?  As I assessed myself as a leader to consider where my shortcomings might be, I was surprised to see that I do not present myself as an empathetic leader.  I genuinely care about my staff so why is it not showing?  The article was a like a spotlight on some negative behaviors I need to change - impatience, constant distraction by the phone/laptop and disengaging when discussions get lengthy.  If I'm going to build trust I have to learn more about empathy, how to engage fully and listen deeply while I give people time to grasp new ideas. 

So, I've been reading Simon Sinek's book Leaders Eat Last and thoughtfully considering areas in my own life where I need to improve my ability to build trust and to grow as a compassionate, empathetic leader.  It's interesting how all this ties into more recent events that are certainly more poignant, more crucial, and further reaching than just me and my school. 

The impact of George Floyd's brutal killing has spread across our country and into our living room conversations.  My heart is broken for our country, for our cities, like Minneapolis, that are reeling from the anger, the pain and the inability to trust because of the horrible actions of men whose job was to protect citizens and not to harm them.  And my question is how do we change our culture and what is our responsibility as believers to respond to this?  As a family, we've discussed what we say, what we do to make an impact when not everyone understands the pain of racism and deep roots of despair that come from being oppressed continuously for years upon years. 

Doesn't it all come back to building a bridge of trust, which can only happen through an empathetic response?  How do we do this?  What does God's Word have to say about it?

1 Corinthians 13:4 

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Compassionate Empathy is the ability to see from another's perspective, to understand how someone might be feeling, to even grieve with them or rejoice with them (Rom. 12:15) and then to be moved to do something to help.  Empathy, as it turns out, is the best word to describe why Jesus came to earth as a human - to save us from our sins, which He was only able to do because He lived in human flesh and experienced the struggle of temptation and the challenge of life on earth (Heb. 4:15) and because of His compassion upon His people who were powerless to save themselves.  

To love like Jesus, which is the only real way to change culture, we must stop our selfish behaviors (envy, pride, disrespect, anger, resentment) and start thinking of others first.  We have to slow down (patience) and listen more, try to understand each other's hurts and look for ways to serve each other.  Brothers and sisters, we have to create a circle of safety within the church where we trust each other, we protect each other, we hope confidently in God's power to change us and to heal us and we don't give up until we see a difference.  We have to remember that we are like a herd of oxen who need to circle up and protect each other from the prowling lion out there ready to attack.  And we have to remember that the enemy is not each other - we fight against a much bigger enemy and he is showing up as prejudice, rage, bigotry, and cruelty.  We stand together as a family of Christ when we stand on love.