Ron + Hope: Unfiltered - Leadership: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly ​

Hey, guys, what's this called?

It's Ron and Ho.

Unfiltered.

Real Raw.

Real Raw and real. That's a long tagline.

It's so good, though.

I think it defines us very well. It brands us real well.

We have talked about some real things on here.

The last one was unreal.

We got really raw.

In fact, because of the last one, we decided, let's don't be. Let's go on something to a little bit lighter.

Yeah. The last one. If you're just now catching this and you did not hear our podcast on the destruction of all on Demand.

Yeah.

Oh, my goodness. With Brittany delamora, who is a former porn star. You got to go back and watch that. But today we're going to talk about leadership.

We'll talk about leadership. Now, before you say, okay, this ain't me, I'm going. Don't, don't turn, don't quit, don't cut it off, don't go do something else. Because my mentor, Dr. Miles Monroe, says everyone has the seeds of leadership inside them. And then he would always say that basically everybody leads somebody, even if it's your own house. The Bible says that the man, you know is supposed to lead his own household. If there's an absence of the man. Mama, I don't care if you want to be leader or not. You're leader.

You are.

You're leader. And there are people that are leaders on their ball team. There are people that are leaders on their shift. There are people that don't have a title, but everybody looks up to you because of your faith or because of your stance or because of your morality. And so everybody is influencing somebody. They say that everybody has a sphere. On an average, everybody has a sphere of 77 people. They've influence or they have an influential effect on in some way or another.

Wow, that's bigger than I thought.

That's average. That's average. Now, that may have many different dynamics to it. It could go all the way down to social media and followers. But everybody in the world, they said, has average of 77 people they can affect. So before I start talking about, you know, what, what kind of. When I say, what kind of leader do I want to be, I want to go. I want to go deeper, hope. What kind of person do I want to be?

Yes. I was about to say, you know, whether you're leading a company, you are the boss, you're leading your family. You say, I'm not a leader. Yes, you are. Every one of us leads ourselves. You are leading Your own life and what kind of person do you want? What kind of life do you want to have? So leadership is so important. Whether you have zero people under you, you are the boss of your life under God. And so you know, these principles are so important.

And I do want to say this right here. This is not based on empirical data or a Google search. This is just my experience. There are some people hope that I believe are born leaders.

I do too.

They're born leader. My oldest son, we talk about him all the time and his troubles, but he's an insanely gifted person.

Yes.

And if you went back to children's church and there were 50 kids in his class, he was standing on top of the castle and he had whooped everybody's behind in there and bit most of them. He's never been to. He's never been to a leadership conference. He's never been leadership corps. But whatever room he walked in, he dominated that room. He led that room. And I learned a lot by watching him. Nobody's ever taught him that.

No.

The first time he ever played football, he was the quarterback and he walked into the huddle and took it over. Not because his daddy taught him huddle leadership skills. It was just in him. There are other people.

He ruled my life for a long.

Time and there are other people. Let's be very here too. It doesn't come that natural. No, it doesn't come. They'd rather be by themselves. They'd rather function as a one man show. And there's not one good and one bad. But even if you are the person who sits in the cubicle and gets lost in your computer and loves what you do, to say that you affect no one, you're just kidding yourself. That's true. That's naive.

Yeah.

Everybody affects somebody. Here's some of what I told them at the staff meeting this week. And hope I haven't told you what it was.

Did you hear that sound? Did you hear that sound?

It was a clip. A clip just come away from our beautiful backdrop here.

Yes. Wasn't that awesome?

So I don't know if you heard the sound or not, but it was a click on our side. There wasn't nothing wrong with your computer. I said, you done made me forget what I was going to talk about.

Sorry, I just thought that was so funny.

We're over here just getting in.

Bam.

Who told you to think the staff meeting teaching was good?

Your assistant, Teresa.

She don't even listen. She thinks.

Yes, she does.

She don't even like me. I'm just kidding. Okay, well, Hope has asked me to share some of these same things. The four kind of. The four characteristics of what you don't want to be. Can I just talk about it before I talk about what you do want to be? These really are not leadership characteristics. They're. This is the kind of person I want to be. Yeah, this is the kind of person I want to be. I remember when Chase was going through his rehab. Chase had a counselor look him straight in the eye and said, all right, Chase, what kind of person do you want to be? Because that person will be intentional. It will not be organic. It does not just happen. There are intentional steps that you take functionally, attitudinally. Thought life, words, posturing yourself, the way you treat people. There are so many intentional dynamics that come with being an impactful person.

But you have to ask yourself that question.

Exactly. And who do I want to be honest? Be honest with yourself. Number one, you don't want to be a controlling person. You don't want to be a person that leads by control. Control creates compliance. And the Bible has nothing to do with compliance. The Bible is a book that talks about mutual submission. Submission means Hope gives her opinions to Ron, Hope has dialogue with Ron, and Hope may even agree with Ron, but lovingly she understands that she will support him in whatever course that he charts. And that is the way that our marriage works. We dialogue. And then I say, all right, I've got a decision to make. And she says, I will support your decision. And when I've made a bad one, she don't come back and say, I told you so.

Well, I used to.

You did a little while, but not much. You never made me either, because I was also. You know what? I screwed that up, didn't I? Screwed that up. Let's do something different. So we didn't mullie around in it. We just said, alright, we learned something. Let's move on to the next one. But that's what submission is. Control creates compliance. And there's probably nothing, not many things. I won't say nothing. There are not many things worse than having every day to live and work under somebody who's manipulative and control. And just.

Especially when you're grown and when you're. I mean, you're an adult, you know, you want to feel like that your opinion matters, that your voice matters. And you don't want to feel like that your whole life is under the thumb of somebody else.

Even in marriage, when you're an adult, you don't Want to be parented? No, it's no longer the time to be parented. You can be led, but you don't want to be parented. Another kind of leader that I said I do not want to be is I do not want to be a critical leader. Because critical leaders create insecure followers. So controlling leaders, okay, they create compliance. Critical leaders create insecure followers. If you are in charge of any team, whether it be nursery at church or whether it be a Fortune 500 company, you want everybody around you to have the confidence that they are valued and that you believe they can do their job and they can do their job well. So critiquing is not being critical. A critical spirit always sees the glass half full. And they can do 99 things right, but that person will walk in the room and find the one hair that is out of place. And that's another difficult personality that is not pleasurable to work for.

Not just working. That's not pleasurable to be around in life. I don't like to be around negative nancies. I mean, you know, your name might be Nancy. I'm not talking about you, but you.

Know what I mean.

Negative Nelly is what they used to call it.

It's fun to be around people who, oh, everything's bad, everything's doom and gloom. And they criticize and they find the negative. And you try to say, well, be positive, or this is the good point in this. And they always will drag the conversation down. I have, at 53 years old, decided.

I was just getting ready to say.

Every one of those off of my favorite one.

I was just getting ready to say.

Yeah, you know, you might still be.

In my phone, but I'm not going.

Out with you much.

I found myself to be less tolerant of that the older I get, because life's just too short.

Yeah, I can't do it.

And I found myself in the early days of adulthood and of ministry that I just put up with a whole lot of crap that was filled with drama, and it didn't do anything but cloud my mind. Now I have seen myself. I will remove myself from that atmosphere and from those people rather quickly.

Yeah. Let me tell you.

Maybe nobody else will tell you. And because I don't know you or who's listening, if you. If that's you, listen, Nobody wants to be around you. Nobody likes that. You know, you are not gaining friends and influencing people by being so critical and nasty.

That's.

Nobody likes that.

So you go deeper. This ain't designed in personal healing and counseling, but go deeper. Try to find the reason you want to see the worst in everybody. Why is it that that's the first thing you spot? Why is it when you walk into a room or come in somebody's presence, the first thing you see is what's not right. That should not be a posture and a disposition by which you enter any atmosphere. And whenever I have a meeting where I have to critique someone, I start with, you're doing this right. You're doing this right. This is great. Let's look at this right here. And then, am I doing everything I can to help you succeed? Do you have all the resources you need to do your job and do it well? You know, those ways make it easy to critique. Critical never works.

I remember when we first got married and I started cooking.

Don't tell on me and don't tell on me.

I knew how to cook. You know, my mom taught me how to cook. I had to cook from the time I was 15 years old every day of my life and have dinner on the table at five o' clock every day. When I turned 15, that was my new assignment. But I remember when I tried to.

Make biscuits for you. Listen, I don't even think a dog would eat them. It was so bad. But you never even complained about stuff like that.

You did, baby. You can't put me in a category of biscuits. I was so enamored.

Oh, with my wonderfulness.

I was so enamored. I didn't care. I didn't care about food.

Oh, is that right? You could have just lived on water.

I didn't need food and water.

Oh, my God.

I was way beyond that at that time.

You're an idiot.

People just don't understand that.

Okay, what was it about me that made you so.

I remember you cooking many bad meals. You've always been able to cook.

Yeah, I can cook. But I remember trying to make biscuits and they were so hard and they were so terrible.

What was it in Tennessee or what?

Tennessee, okay.

Yeah, there were some experimental meals in Tennessee.

Yeah. But this is what I was saying. You did not criticize me. You didn't be like, God, these are horrible.

You know, I just looked at you and ate them.

No, I remember you saying, how did you make these? Or something like that. I mean, it was just the coolest little constructive criticism.

Did you know they were bad?

Yeah, I knew they were bad. And so I was nervous.

You remember that time I made Hamburger Helper and didn't drain the meat?

Yes. Oh, my gosh.

And she came home because she was Going to school. And I had supper ready and I made hamburger Burger Helper, but I didn't know how.

It was this thick and fat.

What are we talking about Hamburger Helper for?

Well, while we're talking about food. While we're talking about food.

Let's do it.

Okay.

Let's do it.

Hellofresh. I don't know if you've ever heard me mention hellofresh, but it is a absolute lifesaver. It has saved my life.

Are we allowed to get off script a little bit? Because I'm gonna tell you, I have been enjoying eating.

Talk about the hello fresh meals I've.

Been cooking because I'm. Because you. Your cooking style, as trained by your mom, Grandma, is not a healthy one. Would you agree with that? What? Would you agree with that? Oh, no, you can cook.

It is delicious.

You can cook. But it's going to have a fat back in it. It's going to have a hell of a. I have not used a hello, okay? But these hellofresh things, I can eat it. And at the end of it, my conscience is clear that I'm trying to do the right thing for everybody. It's good.

Let's talk about hellofresh. Hellofresh. Listen, it's healthy. First of all, it comes to your doorstep, okay? And in these boxes, you can customize what you like. You can choose your meals. Then it comes straight to your house in these bags that have every single thing in it and the recipe with it. You can cook these meals less than 30 minutes. I'm not kidding you. I'm not putting you on less than 30 minutes. It's fresh and it's very, very fresh. Therefore, hello, hello, fresh. Ron Carpenter. It saves money. It saves time. You don't go to the grocery store. You customize what you want. And it tastes so good. Ron likes the pecan chicken, or if you're Southern, pecan chicken. And I love the shrimp pasta one.

We had a bad one.

We had a pork loin one.

That was amazing.

That was.

That was amazing.

Amazing. So if you want to jump in, get some hello fresh to your door, go to hellofresh.com ronandhope16. Please use that code ronanhope16 for up to 16 free meals and three free gifts. It's America's number one meal kit. You gotta get it. You gotta get it. You gotta get it.

Wow.

So if you're not a good cook, you don't want your husband criticizing you as we were talking about go to hellofresh.

So we somehow got on hard Biscuits and bad hamburger. Healthy. And that's what happens. That's what happens when it's unscripted and unfiltered. But another kind of personality type is what we call benign leadership. That's the benign is something. It's there, but it ain't going to hurt you, so leave it alone. Benign leadership is an avoidance leadership personality where the problem is always ignored. That creates disengaged followers. Why are they disengaged? Because they know it's really never going to change. They know it's not going to change. There's the elephant in the room. The elephant will remain in the room. And then apathy begins to set in all the team members because they know nothing's ever going to be done about it. And this isn't original with me, but what have I been saying for years? Do not complain about what you're unwilling to confront.

Yeah. If you're going to tolerate it, don't talk about it.

If you're going to have a benign approach where I'm going to let it stay there, it really ain't hurting anybody. The fact is, the team around you will be just as apathetic as you because you're showing weak leadership by the fact you will not resolve a problem.

Yeah. So they don't trust you either.

Exactly. Right.

There's a whole climate of distrust and the.

Now we're guilty of this one. Sometime I feel like, you know, sometimes it's hard to preach on things, you know, you struggle with the rescuing leader.

That would be you.

I am. I am. I have deep protection mechanisms on the inside of me. I don't like to see people hurt. I don't like to see people in pain, especially my family members, people who have my last name. And I come running. And that's not always healthy. Because, baby doll, in the law of sowing and reaping, which is the law that governs the kingdom of God, it is the foundational law upon which the kingdom of God rests. God has built in pleasure for a good decision.

That's right.

And God has built in a spanking for a bad one. And if you always intercept the spanking, people never grow.

That's right. You don't learn.

I want you to speak that right there because I know, I know you've had some thoughts about people taking responsibility for the things that they do without somebody else. You know, like when our kids would get into problems, I'd see it coming. And I get. I remember I've gone and talked to judges and I've gone And talked to principals. And I was always intercepting the hammer down. But the hammer down is what I found out. Years too late is the only thing that brings change.

Well, I think, especially when it comes to your children, the way that we were raised really has a lot to do with how we parent. You were raised in a very lenient home.

Well, I was raised in a holiness environment, but my parents both worked all day, and so I was left to myself.

Yeah. And you probably didn't get five spankings your whole life.

I got five.

No, I probably got five.

Every five minutes, I got spankings. But my mom and dad were not. They did not. They were not there to have oversight of me, but they actually had boundaries. I was just breaking them while they were gone.

So Ron is a very principled person. If he says it, it's going to happen no matter what. If he said, be home at 6, you better be home at 6, you're in trouble. I was the opposite, because I was raised in a very strict home where you got spanked and punished for everything. That went overboard. So I was never able to talk or to say why I was five minutes late. So here we are raising our kids. You know, I don't want them to get spanked or be in trouble.

And you were in oversight. And I said, they ain't gonna be raised like that. And so I don't remember many knockdown drag outs, but I do remember tension when it came of how we respond to bad behavior. I do remember there being tension between me and you. That's not a bad thing. But you do have to come to a place of resolution, and resolution usually involves compromise. You remember? I didn't do channeling the same way, though. I'd go in there and do mercy.

Y' all have got to hear this. You're not gonna believe he did this.

You gonna tell on me? You gonna tell on me?

I remember channeling.

Our two oldest kids are boys, and they knew how to be bad plenty all by themselves. But then we had our girl. I'm ashamed.

So this is what Ron would do to her.

This is what shame looks like.

So she got in trouble. She's supposed to be going to get in trouble, get a spanking by her daddy. They'd go in her room and close the door, and he would say, chandlin. Now listen, you act like you crying now. I'm gonna act like I'm spanking you. And he would take his hand on a table or something and go. And she goes, bacon.

Were you listening? Were you standing at the door listening.

And then tell them about Chase when he wanted mercy. We were trying to teach our children.

We were trying to do a leadership teaching.

No, wait a minute. We were teaching our kids. We always had devotion. We had devotion every night. So we would teach another principle. So Ron's teaching on grace and mercy this night with our kids sitting on the bed. And so mercy is when you don't get what you deserve.

You deserve it, but you, God, don't let it.

So he said, chase, that would be like if you were supposed to get a spank and get in trouble, but Daddy didn't. Daddy gave you mercy. Well, the next time Chase gets in trouble.

The next time. Every time, yeah.

He'd come back to you and go, daddy, Daddy, no, no.

Can I have mercy?

Just give me mercy.

Mercy. Those kids, he'd cry and start hollering, mercy, Mercy. And I'd get tickled, right? I'd be mad. And then I'd get tickled. I couldn't even spank him.

So we ended up.

Because I told them about mercy and they wanted me to be Jesus. Yeah, Every time.

Every time.

My mercies were new every day. So anyway, when you always intercept the pain that comes with bad decisions, you don't grow, and you always give them mercy. And you know what? People never become accountable. People never become accountable. I remember when I first took over on the west coast, the person's not here anymore, but we had. Whether it was a weak or rebellious team member. You know, when there's a succession plan, some people don't change administrations very well. And we had this one person, and it took about six different parts, departments to get this end result. And we had one guy who led a department that just would not. Would not. And I had other people that were always picking up and cleaning up, connecting things and making sure that nobody got in trouble. So they were doing their job and this person's job. And I said, let them fall. Yeah, let them fall. When I come in that room and I want this result, people are at the table and five of them did their job. And this one, don't let them get what they've got coming. Do not go and rescue them. Let them fall. So if you're that kind of parent, you're that kind of leader that always, always, always fails to hold somebody accountable for their actions. You're not allowing them to grow, and you're not helping them. I learned that one the hard way. I got a little bit of confession there. I had to learn that the hard way. So spent. Wow. 22 minutes. I've spent 22 minutes telling us what not to do. I guess I need to tell us what it will be. Strong leadership comes from character.

That's good. You can't be what you're not.

To me, there is no authority greater than moral authority. When you walk into my room and you leave, and I know you believe in what you said, I know you're going to live it, and I know your private life lives up to your public image, I will follow you.

It's true.

I mean, I will follow you. I'll follow you through difficulty, I'll follow you through hardship when I know you are a person that is principled and a person of conviction. And so I want to be a person that is known as a high character leader, moral authority. Now, a lot of people think character means flawless. High character means actually admitting mistakes.

That's so good.

In other words, it's not high character does not mean I don't make a mistake. It's that I can come in the room and say, guys, I screwed up, or guys, you know what? I should not have spoken to you that way. I had a rough morning, and I let my emotions get the best of me, and I owe you an apology.

It's taking responsibility.

Exactly right. So I don't think there's any any greater quality to Ron Carpenter than to know that when somebody leaves me, they are what they say they are, and they're going to do what they say they can do.

Yeah. My assistant, when I hired her here on the West Coast, I was telling, we just getting to know each other. And you know, what. What do you like? What do you prefer? And I was just saying, these are my pet peeves. These are the things I don't like. These are the things that really bother me. And I'm like, you know, if you. If something went wrong, if it was your fault, don't cover it up. Don't blame other people. I said it is. I said, I'm the easiest. We will move right on from this if you say, yep, I am so sorry I did that, or I forgot to do that. I'm sorry, Pastor, that slipped my mind. Okay, fine, let's go. But if you dance around, you know, excuse after excuse after excuse, that just, oh, I cannot work with people.

Do you find that as we're getting older, that's true, too. I said just a minute ago, sometimes when I get older, the less of that I just have so much tolerance for. Because your tolerance is worn so thin, Just trying to get all this in before our time begins to wind down. I want to be a leader that is that faces reality. What I mean by faces reality. I'm aware there are problems. I'm aware there are weaknesses. I spend much of my time solving problems. When I come home to you on Tuesday night, I'm pretty much wiped out. And I'm not wiped out like that any other day of the week but Tuesday as an administration day. The way we're structured, that's where the issues come from. That's where all the issues get. The issues that got past departments and needed to be carried all the way to my office. And they say, we have got to solve these problems. I spent a whole day facing weaknesses, challenges, difficulties, personnel issues, structural inconsistencies, all those things. But I want to follow somebody. Number one, that's got a character, and number two, somebody that will face realities. You know, a lot of people ignore it when something's going down. They ignore it. They ignore it if their church is deteriorating.

Yeah.

You know, I study those numbers. If it's a downward trend, why is this right here happening? And we're going to stay in the room until we find out why it's happening. Because I will sit there and say, this is unacceptable. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. It grows. It's like a tree that becomes the largest. It's like, you know, the net that brings in the fish. It's supposed to be an expanding live organism. Why is this stagnant? Go look at the reality. Why are people not engaging in worship? Why do your kids roll their eyes when you say anything? Confront the weaknesses, the challenges and the inconsistencies, character, and then being aware of the realities around you, whether they be good or bad.

Yeah, well, the Bible says, speak the truth.

Speak the truth in love.

Speak it in love. You know, you can say anything if you say it the right way. You know, so many people are so afraid to confront anything because they're afraid they're going to offend somebody. Right. And in our tone of voice, just something so simple as our tone of voice. Ron and I were discussing something the other night, and it was an issue.

Maybe you got. Quit touching me during the podcast.

And it was an issue. And listen, Ron started going like this and doing his hands.

I said, I felt the spirit of dad at the time.

I said, I'm right here.

That was the anointing.

No, it wasn't.

That was the anointing.

You're getting in the flesh because you were getting aggravated. And we're supposed to have been having a conversation, and he's like, he's fussing at our child. And I'm like, I'm grown. I'm right here. You don't have to talk like that to me. So tone is so important. And I was talking to a staff member the other day, and she said, you know, well, I really have to work on my tone, she said, because a lot of people have told me that if my tone changes, they think that I'm mad. She said, and I'm really not. I'm just like you were saying, passionate. But it comes across a certain way.

That's good. I didn't say that in my staff meeting. You should have been in there yesterday and said that. But you were backpacking our house.

Yes.

While I was at the staff meeting. You know, this is something that I probably was very weak in and that now that I'm. I hate to say later in life, that sounds awful, doesn't it?

With your old self.

But the fact is, the fact is we have been doing this a while. And you do realize you do have.

Some gray hair right there.

Yeah, it's just a ring. And that ring has been there a long time.

People ask, do you color your hair? And I'm like, no, that is the only place he has gray hair.

No, this is gray tan. This is gray tan.

I'm talking about your hair.

I have a ring around my head, baby. I'm trying to stay on script, but you're touching me and you're saying other things and you're getting me off.

Okay.

I'm looking at my notes here because I got like an hour's worth of notes. And I'm trying to say what I'm trying to say. A weakness that I had was I was so goal oriented. You remember that, Ron? Drinking 18 Mountain Dews a day and just could not be stopped. Could not be stopped. And some of that was God. But I'm realizing a lot of that was just straight up unhealthy. We've learned that through our time, reflection and counseling and other things. I think I failed early on to let people know they were more important than what they do. And great leaders care about people. If I know you love me here again, I will bust my tail to do a good job if I know you care about me. So now I'm intentional. Not intentional.

You go the extra mile.

Not intentional. Okay, I'm going to do this for 45. But I'm talking about within my heart of going by offices if I can, you know, I can't walk the whole campus. The campus is huge. But walking by and sticking my head in. How's the kids? I heard your kid had a fever the other night. How's he doing? How's he doing? Did y' all enjoy your vacation? I heard you took a couple of days to the mountains. Well, you know, just that little bit.

You go the extra mile for them, they'll go the extra mile for them.

I had missed two weeks of staff meetings because of stuff we had to do in other states. And I walked in yesterday and the staff meeting started 15 minutes late because I hugged every single person. I walked in and out of every row and I hugged every one of them. Even the people that are uncomfortable hugging, I hugged them. People with masks on and still scared of COVID I hugged them, too. And I did that intentionally. Why? Because I value. I don't want to come in and just start giving orders.

Right.

I value you. Can I pray for you? And when I start and end my prayer in our staff meeting, I don't pray for stuff. I don't pray for a goal. I pray for them.

You know, Jesus called that servant leadership.

Yes. Jesus, people esteem traditions and principles over people. Jesus, esteem people over principles. No, they said, you're not supposed to watch. You're not supposed to do this on Sunday. You're not supposed to heal on Sunday. But Jesus always esteemed the person.

That's right.

And I want to be the kind of leader that the person leaves the room and says, that guy cares about me. That guy cares about me. So that's another way that you want to lead. The last one I'm going to say right here is be the kind of leader where people can ask you questions. Where people can ask you questions. I'm going to tell you something else I do not enjoy as a Know it all right? Somebody who always dogmatic, know it all. Always knows more than you. The other night, the other night, Hope, we were asked to go to some people who live in our little cul de sac. They're very educated people, very brilliant people, very successful people. I think they were all Indian, from India. I think everybody in the room, I think, was one person had a Latino background. The other. And one of the gentlemen, after the dinner was over, you remember, he came around and sat on my side of the table, and he said, I'm a Muslim. And he said, I want you to help me. He was a cardiologist. He said, I have patients that are preachers. And he said, I have found that Christian preachers are the most dogmatic, rigid people I have ever met.

Wow.

What he's saying is they're know it alls.

Yeah.

Like, they almost come into office and tell me how to do my job.

Yeah. Like, because he wasn't a Christian.

Exactly.

That they had it right. I got all the answers.

And he really wanted me to talk him through this. And I started. I said, this right here. Said, may I apologize to you on our behalf that for whatever reason, you have not seen the best representation of who we are. And I told him, I said, I bet you those guys, because their heart patients are maybe later in years. He said, yes. I said, I think you would find the younger generation probably to not be that rigid because they have realized the mistakes of their fathers. And he said that was very interesting and somewhat comforting to him. But I was amazed that that was his whole perception of the way we are is we're know it alls. I want to be the kind of guy somebody can come to me and question and say, pastor, I see what you said in there. What if we tried this? I had one of our biggest leaders yesterday submit to me a structure that is literally upside down from the one I've created. But when they sent it to me in an email, when I read their whole not argument, but when I read their whole line of thinking, I sit there and said, wow. I said, that's probably better than one I got.

Always teachable.

Exactly. But number one, I don't think the person cared whether or not I chose theirs. They cared that you were open.

Yeah, that you were open. Just because you're at the head of anything doesn't mean that you have to have everything together. I think that is fear sometimes of people even getting promotions or moving into leadership positions because they're like, well, I don't know how to do this, or, I've never done this before. What if I make a mistake? We're all growing. We're all learning.

Questions are the preface to solutions. Questions need to be asked everywhere. Questions are great because questions take you on a quest. They take you on a search. You are hunting for something. Even Jesus came to his disciples, sweetheart, and said, who do men say that I am? He wasn't having an identity crisis. It was not Jesus forgot who he was for the day. But what did he do? He stimulated conversation and opinion. Some say you're Elijah. Some say you're Jeremiah. Some say you're another one of the prophets. And Jesus didn't condemn any of them. He wanted, let me hear what you got to say. And by the way, that's not bad company. And then Peter, of course spoke up and said, you're the Christ. He said, that's who I am right there. But even Jesus would ask questions. A lot of times when people would ask him a question, he'd turn around and ask them a question back. Lord, art thou willing to hear me? He'd say, do you believe so? Questions are healthy. Last of all, trust. I want to be a trusting leader. And they used to say, Baby$, trust is earned. I want to challenge that a little bit. Trust is not earned. Trust is given. Because you don't know if you can trust until you trust. I have no idea if I can trust until I've got to extend it. Trust is not earned. Distrust is earned.

Talk about it.

If I extend trust and then you come back and are unloyal or unfaithful in some way, then you have not taught me trust. You've taught me distrust. You are not trustworthy. Trust is not earned. Trust is granted. Distrust is earned. I want to be a leader that constantly tries to find the good in people and be a leader that trusts. And even if somebody may let you down, fix the problem and extend trust again.

You know there's tons of great leaders, right? Yes, tons. But Jesus is the ultimate model for leadership. And Jesus whole premise was servant leadership. It's his whole life. He laid down his life. Right. And that is what we're supposed to do. Just because we are maybe at the top or leading an institution or leading our family. And we always have to have the posture of laying down our life that we are leading for somebody else, like our church. I tell our church all the time, you are the only reason we're here.

80, 80% of all people quit their job because of their boss. Not because of what they do, but because of who they work for. Eight out of every ten people that quit works for somebody they cannot get along with.

So those of us who lead, we got to get it right. We got to do better. We've got to just have always the mindset that what we do is not for us, it's to make other people better.

Exactly. You know what? I just want to invite you to search yourself. I grew up in a culture that wanted everybody to just lay hands on you and fix things. Sometimes reflection and sometimes being introspective, sometimes bringing it to somebody else. There's a lot of times where I'm unsure about something and I know I think our marriage is special. I'm just going to be honest. I don't think we're normal. I think it's special. But I come to you often when there's something about me that I'm not sure if I'm seeing me right. And I'll tell you and I'll say, talk to me. Tell me what you think. Sometimes you're like, baby, that's just not true. The enemy's in your head. Then there's been some other times you're like, okay, do you want me to be honest?

That's what I always say.

Then I know I have to prepare myself because you have the power to hurt me because I care so deeply about you. But you bring it to me in a way where I can digest it and take it and hopefully become a better person. And I want to invite you to do that. Be honest about yourself. Everybody has dominant strengths, but everybody has dominant weaknesses.

So the ultimate question is what we started with. What kind of person, what kind of leader do you want to be?

And then take action?

Yes.

To become, not be, become that person.

So there's some things you're going to have to change. There's some things you're going to have to adopt. There's going to be some things you've got to stop. You can't be critical. Right. You can't be a know it all.

Can't be a benign and avoid problem. You can't do that.

Right.

And whether you lead a small sphere or a home or whether, you know, you're in charge of greatness, you have to make sure these traits are aligned with your life.

I love it. This was awesome to do.

I enjoyed this. Yeah, this was fun. I don't know if people get a lot out of the leadership thing, but I'm a leader and I love developing people and these are some of the things that I do in a staff meeting to try to develop our people to be the best they can be. We love you.

We've got more information for them today.

Absolutely.

Tell them you can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.

Tell them about I Church.

TikTok, Riff, MyRedemption CC but if you.

Would love a warm virtual church family pastor, I don't live near California. I don't live near South Carolina. Those are our two physical campuses. If you want a virtual experience that's not just going through the gateway of a social media platform, but a group of people who look at this as their church home and they're in there and they care about one another.

It's a great church.

You can go to our website and hit ichurch. And on Sunday morning, it's I kids IU prayer I groups, our church. It is a full virtual experience for your whole family. If everybody has a computer or smart device, which in today's time, most people do, and I would like to invite you to that. This is Ron and Hope. Unfiltered, real, raw and relevant.

You did it, Ron Carpenter.

That's the first time.

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