Meet Denise Lawrence. In a recent mastermind session she facilitated, she focused on leadership development and had a candid discussion about Big Egos and what this form of leadership character can do for teams.
The reality is that, no matter how smart or skilled we are as leaders, we cannot know everything. When the ego is so profound that it prevents employees from using their own places of strength—intellect, skillsets, and workplace gifting—then the entire organization is in jeopardy of failure.
Join Mark and Denise as they discuss how to tone down the ego or turn a hot and heavy ego on simmer for the benefit of those we lead.
Denise has been a business owner since 1987 and has experienced failure many times while building great teams. Denise finally checked her ego and learned to lead from a position of service, which is the best biblical instruction for leadership that can be applied. Denise has served over 300 mastermind groups across the country, and through focus groups, she has learned what needs to change to make these truly effective for the leaders who participate and the employees and teams who benefit from their participation.
Today, Denise is a serial business owner with a mission to establish programs and services that close the wealth equity gap for faith-based businesses in America. She calls herself the business disrupter because she believes the whole small business industry needs a transformational shift toward serving others, lifting others up, and erasing a hierarchy where only the top thrive.
When the goal is for everyone in the business to succeed, be happy, and build wealth, they all rise together. Denise is a former journalist turned entrepreneur, pastor, wife, mother, grandmother, and Ph.D. candidate at Liberty University.
Concerned about the HR programs at your organization? The benefits of having a trusted partner guide you and your team to excellence are invaluable. Contact us today. You—and your employees—will be glad you did.
Rise with us by implementing our high-performance remote human-resource programs to help find great people! E-mailus here.
Mark A. Griffin is president and founder of In HIS Name HR LLC. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter
We spend a quarter of our lives in retirement, yet plan very little for this important and, potentially, most impactful season of our lives. This is especially true for employees of churches, Christian schools, and other para-church ministries. Why not plan for how God will use us as our physical abilities diminish, yet our spirits are at the highest level of maturity. Their is much to give to the Kingdom of our time and resources in our retirement years. Why not plan for it?
Meet Jim O’Bold. As a former banker who has worked with those with means and without, Jim has experienced the impact of proper financial planning (and the lack thereof) on life trajectories. After a call to FT ministry in 2009, Jim decided to apply his experience to God’s design for finances in the life of servants of the church. Jim briefly served as an Executive Pastor before landing as Dir. of Financial Planning at Servant Solutions, where their mission is Improving Financial Security for Servants of the Church.
Jim has now been with Servant Solutions for thirteen years, spending the last four as President. Although the organization is primarily a church retirement plan provider, it believes it is impossible to do proper retirement planning in a vacuum. Therefore, it leans heavily on providing free financial planning for its members as a wholistic approach to meet the goals and dreams God has placed on their hearts and ministries. This is Jim’s heart as an ordained minister, to Serve Those Who Serve.
Concerned about the HR programs at your organization? The benefits of having a trusted partner to guide you and your team to excellence are invaluable. Contact us today. You—and your employees—will be glad you did.
Rise with us by implementing our high-performance remote human-resource programs to help find great people! E-mail us here.
Mark A. Griffin is president and founder of In HIS Name HR LLC. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter
Artificial Intelligence Unveiled: Navigating AI From a Kingdom Perspective
AI tools have exploded since ChatGPT’s launch in November of 2022. And lots of people and organizations are still trying to wrap their heads around Generative AI’s potential, for better or worse. AI tools are here to stay and they offer an incredible opportunity to leverage your resources. In this episode, we delve into the intersection of AI technology and the Kingdom. Join us as Bart Caylor helps unravel the mysteries of algorithms and machine learning, while considering the ethical and moral dimensions through the lens of a Kingdom framework.
With over 35 years of experience in design and marketing, Bart has worked with top global brands and nonprofits like Motorola, RCA, Iams Pet Food, Lumina Foundation, Western Governors University, and the American Bible Society. Bart is the founder of Caylor Solutions and The Higher Ed Marketer. His writings and podcasts on AI have formed a broad perspective on AI applications use in Christian higher education. Most recently, Bart hosted a virtual conference on using artificial intelligence in higher education. Caylor, a first generation college-student, is passionate about education due to his own transformative experiences. This passion drives him to stay ahead of the curve for the future of marketing to consult and deliver solutions in both print and digital for his clients.
Concerned about the HR programs at your organization? The benefits of having a trusted partner to guide you and your team to excellence are invaluable. Contact us today. You—and your employees—will be glad you did.
Rise with us by implementing our high-performance remote human-resource programs to help find great people! E-mail us here.
Mark A. Griffin is president and founder of In HIS Name HR LLC. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter
If you’re like most leaders, you are constantly weighing the business needs of a decision (layoffs, cuts in pay, increases in pay for certain key performers, but not everybody) and the ethical needs of treating people well, as well as kindly, as you make these decisions.
For many Christians, this leads us to wonder if we need to be different people on Tuesday afternoon than we are on Sunday mornings.
Meet Chris Grainger. Chris started a ministry to help Christian leaders step into the call they have to lead, no matter the environment. It is time to bridge the gap and lean into our faith, as we are all on mission, no matter the role or company we find ourselves in.
Chris strives to be obedient to what the Holy Spirit has called him to do. Part of that was launching the Lion Within Us two years ago and last year beginning the Summit Leadership Development solution.
The journey of creating The Lion Within Us has been fueled by Chris’s desire to help others and glorify God. Chris is blessed to have served in several leadership positions in a professional and spiritual capacity. First and foremost, Chris is a devoted husband to a loving wife, a true “Proverbs 31” woman, and the strongest person he knows. Together, they lead a family of three beautiful girls and one amazing son. Chris is currently a deacon at his church and a certified financial coach. Professionally, he works as an engineering and services manager in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Concerned about the HR programs at your organization? The benefits of having a trusted partner to guide you and your team to excellence are invaluable. Contact us today. You—and your employees—will be glad you did.
Rise with us by implementing our high-performance remote human-resource programs to help find great people! E-mail us here.
Mark A. Griffin is president and founder of In HIS Name HR LLC. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter
Many organizations find themselves spinning their wheels in work cultures filled with toxicity, dysfunction, conflict, and fear. Unengaged employees drag down productivity, and ineffective management undermines morale. How can we create workplaces where people don’t just struggle to get through the day but instead thrive and love what they do and where they work?
Al Lopus, cofounder and Board Chair of Best Christian Workplaces, has studied hundreds of organizations to discover eight key drivers in companies with healthy cultures and engaged employees. He gathers best practices from across a range of companies and ministries to demonstrate how people at all levels can work together to accomplish work that matters. Principles and real-life examples provide concrete ways that organizations can flourish by building fantastic teams, cultivating life-giving work, attracting, and retaining outstanding talent, and much more.
Road To Flourishing: Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being. “This is a book for leaders of every kind of Christian-run organization, and even Christian leaders in secular organizations can benefit greatly from these principles. They have been proven in churches, parachurch ministries, mission organizations, publishers, media organizations, schools, city missions, conference centers, and a host of Christian-owned for-profit businesses in all sorts of industries. You’ll hear hard-earned lessons and penetrating insights from leaders in many of these sectors that the Best Christian Workplaces Institute has been privileged to work with and learn from.
Concerned about the HR programs at your organization? The benefits of having a trusted partner to guide you and your team to excellence are invaluable. Contact us today. You—and your employees—will be glad you did.
Rise with us by implementing our high-performance remote human-resource programs to help find great people! E-mail us here.
Mark A. Griffin is president and founder of In HIS Name HR LLC. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter
Career development should always be aligned with one’s potential.
Human potential is vast, but too many people unfortunately don’t know themselves well enough to tap into it. In fact, many of us navigate life without ever realizing our possibilities. To correct that, the first thing you need to do is understand your strengths.
Peter Guber, CEO of Mandalay Entertainment Group, said the success of someone’s career – regardless of profession or field – depends on their ability to lead, manage, and build good relationships with colleagues. His experience leading an entertainment industry business taught him that so much of our potential must be excavated and then honed to reach true career success.
That’s why it’s so important to know yourself well – no matter how long it takes to achieve that understanding. Once you know who you really are, you can recognize what you’re really capable of.
And then you can put it into practice and truly thrive.
How to Identify Your Potential for Career Development
It’s a fact that many students struggle with choosing a career path to pursue. And many adults already in the workplace still don’t know if they followed the right field.
That’s a shame for both the individuals involved and the companies they do or will work for. Feeling like a misfit can lead to extreme unhappiness and underperformance all around.
This is why the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is such an incredible tool. It’s designed to help you discover your personality and where that personality best fits within your chosen career field.
Less well-known but equally helpful is Gallup’s CliftonStrengths assessment. To quote their website:
“The 34 CliftonStrengths Themes Explain Your Talent DNA. When you take the CliftonStrengths Assessment, you uncover your unique combination of 34 CliftonStrengths themes.
“The themes, which sort into four domains… are a culmination of decades of research led by Don Clifton to study and categorize the talents of the world’s most successful people.
“Together, the themes explain a simple but profound element of human behavior: what’s right with people.”
Moreover, they give “you a way to describe what you naturally do best or what you might need help from others to accomplish.” And who couldn’t benefit from that?
Once completed, I’m confident this assessment can make your career journey much more informed and fruitful.
Here are just some of the themes you might identify with…
Domain: Influencing
Theme: Activator
You enjoy jumping right in and trying out different roles and jobs.
You seek leadership opportunities and positions where you’ll be rewarded for getting things moving.
You sometimes (or all the time) think about starting your own business.
You realize some people might feel threatened by your drive to make decisions and get things going.
Theme: Command
You’re willing to take on several potential roles or jobs, and you seek out chances to assume positions of leadership.
You seek out positions that offer room for advancement.
You take into consideration situations where quick decisions are required.
You seek careers in fields like law, commerce, politics, or theater, where you can use your persuasive skills.
Theme: Communication
You speak with people who could fill the roles you’re interested in, knowing their experiences will educate you.
You enjoy settings that provide you with regular social connections. Cooperative, engaging, and instructional environments are your ideal.
You prefer professions involving comedy, acting, motivational speaking, teaching, public relations, ministry, or training, where you can share your experiences.
Theme: Competition
You seek out chances to assume leadership roles.
You work on projects that will allow you to measure and compare your results.
You think about business, sales, law, politics, and sports.
You seek out positions that offer room for advancement.
Theme: Maximizer
You interview the “best of the best” to find out what they enjoy doing for a living.
You prefer settings that support “best practices” and allow you to collaborate with others to make the organization better every time.
You could consider positions that allow you to assist people in realizing their potential.
Theme: Self-Assurance
You’re skilled in many different things and like to try out potential positions or jobs. In fact, it’s crucial for you to choose what you enjoy.
You seek out settings that will challenge you while offering freedom to figure things out on your own terms.
You might want to think about pursuing a job in training, entertainment, or sales.
Theme: Significance
You want to leave a strong legacy behind.
You seek out settings where you can be acknowledged for your achievements.
Consider a profession where you can truly and enduringly improve the world.
Theme: Woo
You make sure to meet a diverse range of individuals working in various professions.
You seek out settings that appreciate your capacity to convince or sell – and where you can meet new people on a daily basis.
You could consider a job as a public relations specialist, sales representative, trainer, comedian, or lawyer.
Domain: Executing
Theme: Achiever
You have a relentless desire to achieve. You are only satisfied when you’re reaching or exceeding the goals in front of you.
You approach everyday as a new opportunity to make an impact, but you need to be cautions. Your drive can convince you to work nights, weekends, and long hours.
You have a strong work ethic, are able to lead by example when properly coached, and are a great asset to any organization seeking to achieve high performance.
You should seek careers that give you a lot of room to achieve the results you desire.
Theme: Arranger
Your default when problem solving is to seek all the pieces at the same time and arrange them into a logical sequence. You see patterns that others do not.
You desire a workplace that isn’t routine, where the daily aspects ebb and flow allowing you to use your arranging capabilities.
Seek careers where you can bring order out of chaos.
Pursue careers in employee relations, or human resources management, urban development, and leadership.
Theme: Belief
You hold deeply held ideals regarding how things should be in life, at work, and in the community.
Your ethical approach sometimes frustrate you when the world’s actions don’t align with it.
You could consider careers where your core values align with the organization in question, especially in pastoral care, certain medical fields, teaching, and counseling.
Theme: Consistency
You look for settings where rules, guidelines, policies, and procedures are well-established.
You seek out settings that are predictable and structured.
Law enforcement, human resources, risk management, safety compliance, and quality assurance positions might be right for you.
Theme: Deliberative
You research as much information as you can regarding potential roles and employment.
You prefer workplace settings where you can work alone to perform in-depth analyses, and you stay away from those that require too much socializing or human contact.
You consider jobs as judge, finance officer, or risk analyst to be ideal.
Theme: Discipline
You establish goals and outlines for your career-planning procedures.
You prefer structured settings where you can uphold order for both yourself and other people, and make use of your organizational skills.
Depending on your education, you might consider a job as an executive assistant, brain surgeon, tax specialist, or air traffic controller.
Theme: Focus
You gather as much information as you can about possible jobs or roles.
You look for environments where you can focus and concentrate without interruptions or the need to multitask.
You do best in structured environments that are predictable and detail-oriented.
Theme: Responsibility
You prefer settings where you can operate autonomously and eventually be given more authority.
You seek out locations where you can establish relationships of trust with other people.
You would likely do well in professions that place more emphasis on results than procedures, such as executive assistant, librarian, or law clerk.
Theme: Restorative
You’re intrigued by individuals known for pulling people out of difficult situations or jumping in to fix issues.
You appreciate situations where you’re required to identify issues and provide solutions.
Since you depend on your education and aptitude, you might be well-suited for careers as a TV producer, surgeon, or customer service representative.
Domain: Strategic Thinking
Theme: Analytical
You are smart, logical, thorough, good at thinking through issues, and good at handling numbers, figures, and charts.
You are objective and use data to search for trends, patterns, and interconnectedness.
Be cautious. Your greatest weaknesses can offend people since you have the propensity to be tough, never satisfied, and full of questions.
Choose a career that requires you to analyze data. Accounting, finance, marketing, and certain engineering fields should be explored.
Theme: Context
You look back at your past decisions to get an idea of what you enjoy and are highly skilled at.
You seek out settings where you can investigate the origins of things and gain a solid understanding of an organization or asset’s past.
Professions such as archaeologist, historian, curator, professor of humanities, or appraiser of antiques could easily appeal to you.
Theme: Futuristic
You desire a career path that enables you to help others glimpse the future and inspire them to bring it to pass.
You look for environments that encourage creativity and imagination.
Jobs in commercial art, architecture, design, or city planning appeal to you.
Theme: Ideation
As much as you can, you brainstorm and daydream about potential careers or professions.
You seek out settings that encourage experimentation, originality, and unconventional thinking.
You could easily consider a profession in advertising, market research, design, consulting, or strategic planning.
Theme: Input
You try to obtain as much input as you can regarding potential roles and employment.
You seek out settings where you will be exposed to large amounts of information and data.
Occupations that allow you to stay up to date with the latest developments in science and enable you to become a knowledgeable researcher and consumer are right up your alley.
Theme: Intellection
You stay abreast of change related to careers and career development.
You seek out settings where you can ponder and mull things through before acting.
You should consider a profession that provides you with intellectual challenges, where you can ask questions and exchange ideas. But stay away from groups that uphold the status quo.
Theme: Learner
You examine career inventories, read up on careers, and do further research on what you read.
You enjoy settings that promote lifelong learning and personal growth.
You are well-suited to jobs such as business trainer, instructor, or college lecturer.
Theme: Strategic
You desire employment that enables you to create innovative initiatives and methods for addressing persistent issues.
You enjoy settings that are adaptable, foster creativity, and provide you with opportunities to view things holistically.
Professions in consulting, law, or psychology could be ideal for you.
Domain: Relationship Building
Theme: Adaptability
You have the ability to remain calm during stressful and ambiguous situations.
Routine roles that force you to plan and organize don’t appeal to you; you’re too action-oriented and independent-minded.
You enjoy constantly evolving demands and challenges. You could even say you thrive in chaos.
Careers that might suit you include human resources, emergency medical management, crisis management, manufacturing, and customer service.
You prefer settings where you can engage with people and assist them in discovering meaning and purpose.
You recognize your own values and make sure the company you work for upholds them.
You think about carrying out a career that will allow you to live out your religious convictions.
Theme: Developer
You appreciate employment opportunities where you can help people in some capacity.
You seek out settings that emphasize communication, cooperation, and teamwork.
You like the sound of careers where you can assist others in improving their abilities such as life coach, counselor, or teacher.
Theme: Empathy
You look for employment in places where feelings are respected, not suppressed.
You desire environments that are upbeat and encouraging with lots of communication and teamwork.
You can consider pursuing professions such as education, human resources, counseling, or ministry.
Theme: Harmony
You’re a mediator at heart and seek to find middle ground with practical solutions that can drive everyone into agreement.
Your willingness to hear all perspectives helps when all sides of the issues need to be considered.
Ideal careers for you include arbitrator, counselor, diplomat, and ambassador.
Theme: Includer
You consider working with groups that are often set aside by others, such as those who are intellectually or physically challenged.
You seek out settings where you can play a welcoming role.
You enjoy the idea of being something like a special education teacher, social worker, therapist, youth worker, or HR representative.
Theme: Individualization
You appreciate settings where you can coach, train, and otherwise give others feedback.
You seek professions that allow you to work one-on-one with individuals.
Jobs such as HR specialist, business trainer, life coach, teacher, or counselor suit your personality.
Theme: Positivity
You choose work you’re passionate about that supports your hopeful view of the future.
You look for environments that are fun, fast-paced, and people-oriented, and where you can use your sense of humor.
You like the idea of careers as a coach, sales rep, teacher, or manager.
Theme: Relator
You discuss your perceptions with people in your trusted social group.
You enjoy settings that promote friendships and allow you to continue expanding your knowledge about others.
You could consider the role of manager, HR director, teacher, counselor, or school administrative professional.
How Well Do You Know Yourself?
Here’s an important question after scanning the CliftonStrengths’ list of themes and what they entail…
How well do you know yourself?
Most interviewers ask this question or something like it. So it’s an important consideration if you’re thinking about a career change. It might also come up during your annual employee review.
Or maybe you wonder about it on your own without any external prompting.
Regardless, this is the most crucial question you could possibly answer. It speaks to how much you know about what you want in life. And once you know that, it becomes so much easier to set goals in your career and elsewhere.
Just like that, you’re equipped to properly choose not only a fulfilling career but a fulfilling life.
So from now on, strive to identify the potential within you based on your individual strengths. In life, there is no such thing as too late to know yourself.
Set Your Bar High.What Is the Highest Goal You Want to Achieve?
In terms of career development, you need to have top-level goals or target priorities you want to achieve every year. Consider having at least three measurable goals and no more than five. At the end of December, you can determine your achievements, starting from the smallest to the most significant.
Learn from your achievements. Revisit what worked and what didn’t, and make sure you focus on repeatable behaviors that contributed to the goals you did attain.
Your targets must, of course, be in proportion to the potential you have. The higher the level of success desired, the more potential must be explored, including intrapersonal and interpersonal skills.
They also need to be reasonable. For example, if your current position is that of a supervisor and you want to advance from there, you can target becoming a manager in two years and then set your sights on the next advancement from there. Set a deadline for yourself and decide what steps you’ll take to achieve it.
Your yearly goals don’t have to involve accomplishing every intense dream you’ve ever pictured for yourself. Sometimes it’s much more intelligent to have a five-year or 10-year plan you build up to.
Just make sure to capitalize on and exercise your strengths to get there.
Speaking of plans, you should also consider making one to determine how to achieve each goal you have, yearly or otherwise. Another important aspect is determining likely challenges and preparing solutions to work past them.
Indeed, some goals are only achievable after you’ve overcome already existent problems.
Make Sure to Accept Help Along the Way!
Human potential is always aligned with career development. But you hardly have to work alone in order to realize yours. If you’re looking for guidance, there are seminars, workshops, and webinars out there specifically designed to optimize your potential and achieve your goals.
Or if you’re looking for more personalized guidance, In HIS Name HR helps organizations and individuals build high-performance human resource programs designed to get you where you need to be.
Concerned about the HR programs at your organization? The benefits of having a trusted partner to guide you and your team to excellence are invaluable. Contact us today. You—and your employees—will be glad you did.
Rise with us by implementing our high-performance remote human-resource programs to help find great people! E-mail us here.
Mark A. Griffin is president and founder of In HIS Name HR LLC. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter
How does the Bible affect employers? Listen in and understand why the Bible matters. When we have a happy and fulfilled faith-driven society, we, in turn, have prosperous communities. Learn how you and your organization can contribute to this outcome.
We believe that children need to hear Biblical truth, especially in today’s culture. They are bombarded with so many things on a daily basis that have the potential to impact them negatively. Bible2School is offered to children in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade because that is the age their brains start to develop morals and values and their thinking goes from concrete to abstract. In fact, kids at this age often ask big, life questions. Thanks to the national released time rulings, we can help these children learn about God’s love for them during their public school day!
Listen in and meet Kori Pennypacker, CEO of Bible2School. Kori’s faithful journey with Bible2School began in 2009 as a volunteer. Her love for the mission grew, and she quickly became the Executive Director just two years later. Today, Kori serves as the organization’s CEO, where she oversees the mission and builds relationships with businesses, churches, and community leaders on the topic of the importance of spiritual training for children nationwide.
Kori thrives on building relationships, and she loves inviting people into the Bible2School team as valued members, volunteers, and donors. Kori’s courageous leadership, humility, and expertise have been paramount to the growth of the Bible2School program.
Concerned about the HR programs at your organization? The benefits of having a trusted partner to guide you and your team to excellence are invaluable. Contact us today. You—and your employees—will be glad you did.
Rise with us by implementing our high-performance remote human-resource programs to help find great people! E-mail us here.
Mark A. Griffin is president and founder of In HIS Name HR LLC. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter
Research shows that front-line leaders contribute as much as 60% to your employee engagement survey results. What are you doing to increase leadership capacity across your organization?
Come learn some strategies that NASA employed over the last 30 years to build better people leaders. Fortunately, these strategies are not rocket science! Any organization can take similar approaches. In fact, our guest, Brady Pyle, is bringing those approaches from NASA to his new role with a 350-employee non-profit organization. What have you done in the past?
Brady took an early retirement from NASA in February 2023 after a 30-year career in HR, culminating in his role as Deputy Chief Human Capital Officer, where he supervised 12 HR Executives. Brady was a two-time recipient of NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal and played a key role in NASA being named Best Place to Work in the Federal Government for 11 Consecutive Years.
Brady has blogged about leadership over the last 10 years at OutOfThisWorldLeadership.com, earning recognition in Feedspot’s Top 100 Leadership Blogs.
Brady currently serves as Vice President of Human Resources at Space Center Houston—a leading non-profit science and space exploration learning center that serves as Official Visitor Center for NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
Concerned about the HR programs at your organization? The benefits of having a trusted partner to guide you and your team to excellence are invaluable. Contact us today. You—and your employees—will be glad you did.
Rise with us by implementing our high-performance remote human-resource programs to help find great people! E-mail us here.
Mark A. Griffin is president and founder of In HIS Name HR LLC. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter
If prayer matters, why don’t we live and lead that way? And what would happen if we did?
Peter Greer, along with Ryan Skoog and Cameron Dolittle, spent over one hundred hours interviewing world-changing leaders across six continents, asking a powerful question:
What prayer practices are fueling your impact?
They learned from personal interviews with leaders like:
Joni Eareckson Tada
Francis Chan
John Mark Comer
Gary Haugen
John Ortberg
Mark Batterson
Tim Mackie
And global leaders serving more than one hundred countries
These leaders not only affirmed the primacy of prayer in their lives but also shared specifics of what motivated them to pray; how they overcame disappointments, distractions, and obstacles to prayer; and how they even made time for prayer.
Peter wants to give you practical tools to become a praying leader equipped to build a thriving culture of prayer where you lead.
Peter Greer is president and CEO of HOPE International, a global Christ-centered organization working to alleviate physical and spiritual poverty in more than 20 countries around the world. Peter’s favorite part of his role is spending time with the remarkable entrepreneurs HOPE serves.
A graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School, Peter has co-authored 15 books, including Mission Drift, and Rooting for Rivals. He lives with his wife, Laurel, and their four children in Lancaster, PA.
Concerned about the HR programs at your organization? The benefits of having a trusted partner to guide you and your team to excellence are invaluable. Contact us today. You—and your employees—will be glad you did.
Rise with us by implementing our high-performance remote human-resource programs to help find great people! E-mail us here.
Mark A. Griffin is president and founder of In HIS Name HR LLC. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter
Did you know the average adult is awake 16 hours a day?
For those of us who don’t always work from home, that includes one hour to prepare for work, 30 minutes each way driving there and back, and at least eight hours at the office Monday-Friday.
Right there, we already have 10 out of our 16 allotted hours.
Now let’s contrast that with the time we invest at church. For some people, it’s just an hour a week. Quite the difference!
Now, admittedly, it is difficult and even impractical to try to even those amounts out too much. We do need to earn a living for ourselves and our families. So it makes sense that so much of our lives are invested in preparation for work and actually doing that work. But this hardly means we have to neglect out Christianity.
Far from it, in fact.
That’s why God’s presence in the workplace matters so much! This time-consuming setting offers great opportunities to encourage those who already know Christ and to witness to those who don’t.
Most of us probably don’t work for an organization that outwardly expresses our Christian beliefs. But we’re called to be ambassadors of Christ and reflect Him in our lives regardless, including when we’re on the job.
The Bible has a lot to say about the importance of work and how we should conduct ourselves in it. Two examples include (NIV):
Colossians 3:23 – “Whatever you do, work at it with all of your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.”
Proverbs 16:3 – “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.”
As such, let’s explore some of the important values that Christians should demonstrate in the workplace. The one I want to share today is integrity, with many more to come in future articles.
Proverbs 10:9 (NIV) reads:
“Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.”
I’m sure we can all think of examples where people (maybe even us) didn’t show integrity in the workplace. These behaviors include the C.Y.A., or covering your you-know-what, method; throwing others under the bus; telling untruths; calling in “sick”; and having affairs with coworkers.
If it weren’t for the prevalence of such conduct, we wouldn’t need to have so many workplace policies on codes of conduct, harassment, social media activity, and the like.
But what exactly is integrity? It might be easy to spot when people lack it. But what does it mean when we have it?
Integrity denotes a deep commitment to do the right thing for the right reason, regardless of the circumstances – even when no one is watching, C.S. Lewis.It includes a sense of honesty, dependability, and consistency of character.
People with integrity adhere to moral company policies. They own up to their mistakes. They are honest and don’t tell untruths. They are trustworthy and dependable.
The word integrity evolved from the Latin adjective integer, meaning whole or complete. So it’s an inner sense and outer expression of “wholeness” deriving from qualities such as sincerity and consistent character.
Consider these questions to self-assess your own personal integrity:
Do you portray yourself differently depending on who you’re with?
Do you admit your mistakes?
Are you honest at all times?
Can others depend on you to do what you say you’ll do?
Our integrity is tested on a daily basis by a culture that’s normalized falsehood and dishonesty. This might involve cheating on an exam, fudging a business expense, downloading music illegally, taking office supplies from work, or telling little white lies.
They might seem small in the moment. Even necessary. But those sorts of actions can chip away at our souls little by little.
On the flipside, Scripture tells us many benefits of living with integrity:
It can give us promotions in the right way (Nehemiah 7).
It grants favor and honor, and opens the door for good things to come into our lives (Psalm 84:11).
It can help us find contentment (Proverbs 19:1).
It brings clarity and guidance to our lives (Proverbs 37:18).
It helps us be more like Jesus (Matthew 22:16).
King David also shed some light on integrity in Psalm 26:1-3 (NIV):
“Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have led a blameless life; I have trusted in the LORD and have not faltered. Test me, LORD, and try me; examine my heart and my mind; for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness.”
You can see here that the root of David’s integrity is his relationship with God. As it should be for us.
How Can You Be Sure That Your Integrity Guides Your Actions?
In order to claim integrity as part of your identity, you have to commit to acting on it. It’s not always easy, but it ends up being very worthwhile when you:
Keep your word.If you say you’re going to do something, then do it! If you say you’re going to be somewhere, then be there! We all know those people we can’t really count on.Don’t be one of those people! Otherwise, we’re bound to see Jeremiah 22:12 (NIV) applied to our lives: “Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice, making his own people work for nothing, not paying them for their labor.”
Tell the truth.Mark Twain said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” It’s easier and the right thing to do. Even little white lies eat away at your integrity.
Don’t gossip.Keep your confidence, and don’t talk about others behind their backs. Proverbs 11:13 (NIV) counsels us that, “A gossip can’t be trusted with a secret, but someone of integrity won’t violate confidence”
Work hard.Colossians 3:23 says, “Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people” (NIV). If you’re a believer, your real boss is God. So whether or not anybody else sees your work, God does.That’s why 2 Timothy 2:15 (NIV) reads, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”
Act consistently.A person of integrity doesn’t act one way in church, another way at work, and another way in social settings. In addition, he or she treats the janitor with the same level of respect as the CEO.God is never changing. He is faithful, trustworthy, true, and loyal. He can be counted on. And he wants us to follow his example, as shown in Proverbs 11:3 (NIV), which reads, “The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.”
In short, each one of us in the workplace has a responsibility to bring positivity and encouragement to the workplace. Let these tips and recommendations lift you to higher levels of performance.
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