Servant Leadership in Hierarchical Organizations

Close: Leading Well Across Distance and Cultures by Ken Cochrum

The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, welcome to The Table Podcast where we discuss issues of God and culture, and show the relevance of theology to everyday life. My name is Bill Hendricks. I'm the Executive Director for Christian Leadership at The Hendricks Center. 

And if you're a leader in a large organization that has many layers and many locations, and especially if these locations are dispersed across a region or even continents so that you've got different cultures involved, then this podcast is especially for you. Christ calls you to be a servant leader, which is a tall order under any circumstances. But when your organization grows large and complex, and as I say, it has a lot of layers to it, and it's in many places around the world, and it's very culturally diverse, well, the degree of difficulty skyrockets. 

So I think you're going to be interested in meeting our guests today, who is Dr. Ken Cochrum, who currently is the executive vice president of Field Ministries at East-West Ministries, which works in countries throughout the world. But before East-West, Ken spent 35 years with Cru, and most of that time he was in China and a number of other countries. Is that correct Ken? 

Ken Cochrum: 

Spent about 13 years living over in East Asia, and dropped in and out of 60 countries working with leaders in various settings. Yeah. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well then you're the right man to be with us today. And what was your role with Cru? 

Ken Cochrum: 

I had various roles Bill. I led the campus ministry in East Asia for a number of years. Then I was asked to come to Orlando, Florida and give leadership to Cru's global student work, which had the campus ministry in about 160 countries. Then this little thing called Facebook and Twitter popped up, and we started seeing a lot of opportunities not only with students but beyond, and so launched a new initiative called Global Digital Strategies and led that for eight years with Cru. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, all of these different pieces of Cru, they certainly have different names. What we want to press into here is that these things were layered, and they were dispersed, and they were multicultural. And in the midst of that, you're trying to exercise leadership. I tell you what, before we get into all of that, take us back. Where was growing up for you, and how did you even get into working with a group like Cru in the first place? 

Ken Cochrum: 

Well, my life was changed as an engineering student at the University of Texas. And I had heard the gospel, I'd made a decision to come to Christ when I was 10 years old, but was in a very liberal church environment and really didn't grow. I didn't have anybody discipling me or pouring into me, and part of it was just my unhardened heart. 

But God got a hold of me through fraternity brothers in the secular fraternity house, and we saw God really bring a revival there. And in the sorority house where my girlfriend was, who's now my wife. And God touched us so much during that time, Bill, we just felt like, hey, we want to go out our first two years and give back, minister. And I had aspirations to get an MBA and own my own engineering consulting firm in Houston. 

And after our first two years in ministry, we found ourselves, Anne and I, one summer sitting wrapping up a eight-week summer missions trip in Southern China, just being overwhelmed by the task remaining. Let's give it another year or two. And that was 38 years ago. So you know how God's call works, and he keeps calling you to the next thing. And so that's kind of been our trajectory. 

Currently, I serve as the executive vice president of Field Ministries with East-West, which focuses on making followers of Jesus in the spiritually darkest nations. And so if you're familiar with the open doors, hardest 50 places to be a believer, that's kind of our strategy list and where we're trying to serve believers now. 

And so that's where I'm currently focused, and have loved all the different stages and places that God's taken me in such a privilege at this age and technology. I think about Paul and Barnabas, and some of those initial missionary teams. If they would've had- 

Bill Hendricks: 

The technology we had- 

Ken Cochrum: 

We have. Wow, what a gift. But it's a privilege to be with you and with this audience today. Thanks for having me. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Oh, it's a delight. I think what just strikes me about your history that we've talked about is how you just, if I could put it this way, climbed a bit of a ladder in terms of responsibility. In other words, you acquitted yourself well in one assignment, and next thing you know they put you into a bigger assignment and you do well there. And the prize, the award for doing well is, "Well let's put you over this." And you find yourself at some point with some pretty large organizations under you. 

And I'm just curious, as you're finding yourself in these new, and I assume ever more challenging assignments, what was it about all that, that was at the same time motivating to you, but at the same time challenging to you? 

Ken Cochrum: 

Well, that's a great question, Bill. Since I was about 25 years old, I went through the, if you remember, many people may remember Stephen Covey's 7 Habits and kind of beginning with the end in mind, and thinking through my own personal calling, and took a day with the Lord and really sorted through that. And it became very clear to me early in ministry, and I'm so thankful for this, that my calling was to serve and strengthen Christ's leaders. 

So that really hasn't changed. It's taken different aspects of elements of focus through the years, and what that audience looks like, and who those people are. But I think through scripture and servant leadership is such a dominant paradigm. And those who violate it, God is opposed to the proud. 

It's not that I've never been proud, but when you wake up and realize either through the Holy Spirit convicting you of that or through someone confronting you on that, often on your leadership team, you realize, "Hey, I'm working against God." 

And so serving leaders develops leaders. And when you have developed a bench of leaders that's growing around you, in a matter of time, usually a few years, those leaders are ready to take your role. 

And so that's enabled me, as you put it to, I don't know if climbing is the right word, but to be elevated. It's a team effort. And eventually, you have to let those leaders lead or they're going to leave and go lead somewhere else. 

So creating space for leaders is something I've grown in my conviction, especially in the last probably 25 years of ministry, particularly in working in cross-cultural environments. Because when we enter in, we are typically older, we have more experience, we're leading new people to Christ, we're discipling them. They're becoming leaders. 

And if we don't create space for them to own their decisions, to have a real sense of self-determination and direction, and give that local ministry ownership appropriately to them at the right pace, and probably right pace is faster than a lot of us are used to. I think that's the New Testament model. Right? 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, you mentioned the beginning with the end in mind. And it sounds like in one sense, your end, your aim, the end that you want to direct all your efforts toward, certainly there's goals and mission objectives. But if I hear you correctly, you're saying my overarching end is to develop leaders, because ultimately, we need leaders to do this work. And at some point you've done that, "My work here is done, I am ready to take on some new opportunity." Is that it? 

Ken Cochrum: 

Exactly, yeah. And I've found for me, a lot of people I lead with, we typically have a four, five, seven-year, really good engagement. And then people are kind of like, "Hey, the three or four things that God fundamentally called me in my internal passions," even if I couldn't clearly articulate them, I feel like those are 75, 85% underway and done, and so I'm ready. 

So by raising a bench, it is God's way of multiplying. Whether it's in a one-on-one, growing discipleship, small group ministry through a local church, or reaching out to my neighborhood, or leading a large organization, the principle is exactly the same, that there should be more capable leaders ready to lead when I'm ready to leave than when I started. And if that's not true, then something was wrong in the way that I was controlling, and grabbing power, and holding decisions too tightly, and things like that. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah. So in a way, you really are, as they say, trying to work yourself out of a job. Or really better put, you're trying to work others into a role. You're preparing these folks to take over. Is that it? Yeah. 

Ken Cochrum: 

Well, and especially when you talk about a large organization… So I'm a strong believer in when we're leading in organizations, we are providing spiritual leadership and strategic organizational leadership. And that might be broken down in both management, which is handling today's complexities and challenges. And leadership, which is being more pro-visionary toward the future. And both are important. I'm not trying to divide management and leadership, both are essential. 

But the servant aspect, the spiritual servanthood is what I think provides the growth environment, the safety, the place where people can suffer and embrace that, and not hide it. Leaders can be authentic, they can grow. We can talk about challenges, we can talk about problems, we can talk about moral failures in the ministry. So you always have a way to release that pressure that doesn't build up. And then you have crises. 

You still have crises, but you're cultivating a leadership environment that can metabolize those crises. And to the extent that you can do that, your organization can scale and grow at a healthy pace. To the extent that you don't do that, I think we risk… What we see a lot, we see big organizations that fold because they just expanded too fast and they didn't have the gravitas and the character substance to support the weight of the pressure, and the decisions, and the opportunities that God was putting in front of him. 

Bill Hendricks: 

I'm curious to know at this point, who were some of the best leaders that you have been fortunate enough to serve under and maybe learn from? If you think back over your career, who would you point to and say- 

Ken Cochrum: 

I would say it's been an almost unbroken string of model leaders. I was actually on staff in SMU here in Dallas my first four years, and the first couple of years I was trained by a guy named Dan Brenton. And I remember we had signed up, we had joined staff, we had shown up. And my very first one-on-one, we sat down and he said, "Ken, my job is to help you learn to walk with Jesus for a lifetime of fruitful ministry." 

And I was like, "Wow," I didn't expect that. It was my job description from my first appointment. And so that really set a tone and Dan built into me, taught me how to play basketball. I'd done other sports but not do that, but really mentored me in so many different areas. Gary Run was my area director for a number of years. Turned out later he became my brother-in-Law. And so we still have a long lifetime journey of learning leadership together. 

So many, I can't name them all. I will say right now at East West Kurt Nelson, who's the CEO. And Kristen Shuler, who is our new president and my new boss as of a few months ago, are just fantastic, humble leaders, very energized by the gospel and what remains of the missionary task worldwide, and just give so much space and encouragement. And are not afraid to speak truth to confront where confronting is necessary, to challenge ideas, and to put decisions in open hands around the leadership table. 

So I've just been blessed. I've had a few leaders that had some very, very rough, I won't say toxic, I think that word's overused. I haven't had a long-term toxic leader. But blind spots that were so significant that- 

Bill Hendricks: 

They impaired the relationship. 

Ken Cochrum: 

They impaired the relationship, and they left marks that are still instructive to me maybe a decade or two later. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, I'm struck- 

Ken Cochrum: 

I don't want to be that kind of leader. 

Bill Hendricks: 

No. I'm struck by the life-on-life nature of what you're talking about, that this isn't a leadership by position and command and control and, "I'm your boss. You do what I say." And people can be friendly in saying that, but that's basically the message they communicate. You're actually talking about having an impress or an imprint on somebody's way they do life and way they think about their job. Is that right? 

Ken Cochrum: 

Exactly. I'm sitting here, I'm looking over the camera on my bookshelf at a very well-worn copy of The Master Plan of Evangelism. It's just had its 60th publishing anniversary last year. And I've been back through that book so many times, and it's just how Jesus did ministry. He associated with people. He is talking about the ministry of reproduction. And though he spent afternoons with the 5,000, he spent hours and hours, and days and days with the three and the 12, and a handful of hours with the 70. 

And so much of our current culture ministry environment is about likes, and impressions, and eyeball views on our website or on our live stream, or how many seats are in the seats on Sunday. And I don't see Jesus really emphasizing that. He had those engagements, sure. But he was really focused on the 12 and the 70 and that's where his legacy was left. 

And so my experience has been taking the time to invest in the smaller groups of people I'm working with is really worth it. That's where the leverage is. And I've benefited from leaders who also held that perspective. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, that's a great segue into a point that I wanted to ask you about. I don't know if you did this research yourself or you came across it in doing your doctoral work, but I think you said you'd polled a bunch of high-level leaders about how much time they actually spent with their people, whether it was face-to-face or through I guess Zoom, or phone, or text, or whatever. 

And they admitted for most of them, it boiled down to about 20 to 40 hours a year, which is really less than five days, which is a bit shocking when I see it that way. Tell me more about that experience of finding that research and what you did with it. 

Ken Cochrum: 

Well, I was asked by Steve Douglass at Cru who was president then to move to Orlando and give leadership to Campus Crusade at the time's global student work. And so I became the youngest member by 10 years on the global executive team. And there were a lot of very high level, well known, if I mentioned all the names, many people would know all these kinds of famous Christian leaders on that team. 

And so I felt like I'm a rookie, I'm trying to learn this thing. I'm in my mid-forties trying to figure this out. And started realizing we were in 160, 180 countries divided into 13 geographic areas. 

And so I was trying to figure out, how do I travel and get to… Really, I thought, okay, I can realistically put my feet on the ground in 13 areas globally every two to two and a half to three years. That was my objective. 

Which is still quite a bit of travel, a lot of these places, it's far and long, and Jeep rides, and 30 hours, and connections, and all that. And you got a marriage and kids and everything else you're trying to balance and pay attention to. 

So after a couple of years of this, I asked just in passing Reverend In Soo Jung, who was a peer of VP on that team, Korean, and he'd been at it for a while and I said, "How long did it take you to figure this out?" He said, "It probably took me three to five years to figure out the travel and the balance." And then you leave and you're kind of like, "Yeah, I was there and I was there at this conference for two or three days," or maybe a week, which would be very rare to spend an entire week in one location with a leader or two. And I was like, "There's got to be a better way." 

So that's really what prompted my doctoral research question, Bill, was is there a way to flatten the learning curve for people who have gotten to a point where they're no longer leading teams that do the same thing? 

So typically, let's look at the typical leadership journey. You start doing something, and you realize you're pretty good at it, and God's gifted you, and the body of Christ confirms that and you start seeing success. So you get offered like you said, "Hey, you did that. Well, here's some more stuff." And, "Okay, you figured that out. Well, can you help these three other people in three other cities or locations do that?" And so you're starting to kind of coach and do that, "Okay, well we're going to make you a regional director or a national director," or whatever. And then all of a sudden it's like, now we've asked you to take six countries or 20 countries. 

And a lot of these countries, they don't speak the same language. They actually have histories where it's not uncommon for them to hate each other, or even to be currently at war while you're trying to lead ministry between these two countries. 

And so how do you navigate being a servant leader, raising up another generation, encouraging? And that doesn't mean they're starting from scratch. You're picking them up in stream. This is not basic discipleship. These people are on a 15 or 20 year journey already. But now you're for better or worse in charge of moving the whole thing northward. 

And then how do you do it when you can't physically get to all those countries and all those leaders all the time? And even if you can, it may be two years apart. What's going to happen in the- 

Bill Hendricks: 

In the interim. 

Ken Cochrum: 

In the 720 days when you haven't met face-to-face. And so those were the three prongs of my research question was, how do you do servant leadership across cultures? How do you do distance leadership using technology? And Paul did that. John did that. They both wrote and said, "Hey, we haven't met face-to-face, but here's why I am writing you." And thank God, I think most of us could attest that Paul is probably one of the most instrumental shaping disciplers that we had in our Christian growth journey, and yet we never met him. And so it is possible. 

And then culturally, what are the key things? You can't possibly know 200 cultures, country cultures. But can you learn two or three things that are kind of indices that will help you before you drop in to ask the question? Whether it's dropping into an ethnic culture in the city that you live in, but still mimics their global south culture, or whether you're going halfway around the world to get a quick scan and in humility go, "I actually don't know what I'm talking about here," but I do know some things that are valuable. So what are the right types of questions to engage these leaders, to serve them and to strengthen them? 

So that's what resulted in my dissertation, which probably five people, my mom wouldn't even read it. So I put in a book called Close: Leading Well Across Distance and Cultures that you can find on Amazon. 

Bill Hendricks: 

So what were some of the bigger takeaways that you did learn from that research? I mean, let's start with the importance of life on life, and yet you can't have life on life quite the same when somebody's in a whole other part of the world. 

Ken Cochrum: 

Yeah, this is a very circuitous route to answer your first question. The 20 to 40 hours, I asked people, and I've done this seminar many, many times in different settings, both for-profit, non-profit, Christian non-Christian settings, but ask people who oversee people at a distance, how many actual hours of face-to-face or Zoom to Zoom do you get in a year with your direct reports? 

And it's consistently in the 20 to 40 hours per year range. This means I'm not at a conference sitting at a table with them and 500 other people, but like you and I are talking right now. 

So if that's true, what is the sufficient amount of information to align, and motivate, and connect so that that person knows that, "Hey, I'm on the right page, we're on God's agenda together," whatever that is. And I feel good that I can go away and they can run on their own for a week, or two weeks, or a month because you're not managing… Proximity covers a multitude of bad meetings. If I've got everybody right around me in an office and I have a bad staff meeting, I can read the room and I can go have lunch with somebody or- 

Bill Hendricks: 

Fix it. 

Ken Cochrum: 

Five minutes, I can fix it, or I can ask, "Hey, this seemed to go sideways. Give me some coaching here." But you can't always do that on a global Zoom call with eight people on it And half the people are in a second language and they're trying to keep up. 

So one of the key principles I learned, and this is straight from our master himself Jesus, is the larger scope you're trying to lead, the fewer things you can talk about. 

So Jesus took 613 laws and he said, "Let's get it down to two." And so that scales, because I get it. That's simple. I can't get the whole Jewish canon, but man, if you say love God and love people, I can work on those two things for quite a while. 

And the same is true I think for ministry, for work alignment. A lot has been proven. If you have 10 goals, the likelihood you're going to achieve any of them really is low. Where if you have two or three, the likelihood is high. 

So have fewer things, emphasize fewer things. But what you emphasize, really drive home, keep coming back to. We're going to stay on this until it's done and then we'll add another one. 

And that's been something that I think leaders have learned, we've learned together. That's really important in distributed work is keep focus. I asked people, I interviewed 80 leaders who had lived and worked outside their home culture for at least five years, Bill. I said, we all have our leadership framework and things you're supposed to do as leader, cast vision, formulate strategy, develop your people. We have all these things. But I asked leaders not how do you lead, but, "How do you like to be led?" And simply flipping that question. Here's what I heard. The most frequent thing voiced is, "I want to be respected. I want understanding and empathy that the job I'm in now that I said yes to is probably two sizes too big for me and it's hard, and I'm trying." 

Bill Hendricks: 

"I'm doing my best to deliver." 

Ken Cochrum: 

"I'm doing my best." So believe that. And occasionally that's not true, right? Occasionally you got a nepotism situation or something that pops up. But in general, people are really trying hard to do their best. 

They want to be led by someone that is honest, authentic, and competent in their role. And by competent, doesn't mean perfect. But it does mean, "Hey, I see you growing. You're reading things, you're listening to podcasts, you're occasionally going to a conference, you're sending me a book recommendation of something you're studying." I see that you're trying to grow in your job. And so that gives me confidence that the reality is they see that I'm not a perfect leader. They want to hear me express, "I know I'm not a perfect leader, I'm still growing just like you are." 

Bill Hendricks: 

It sounds like you're saying you believe in them, and then as a leader, you want to be believable to them. They see the same thing in you? 

Ken Cochrum: 

Yes, I'm not in an ivory tower. I don't have it all figured out. I've had the privilege to be part of, and design, and implement several emerging and senior leadership initiatives. And one of the first thing we do in the first module, the first day is have leaders come in and talk about pick three jobs where you got thrown in, and then pick one where you were in over your head and talk about it. 

And we go around the room and everybody tells a little three-minute snippet of that, and we end with the president, or the CEO, or the highest person at the apex of the organization telling their story where they were in over their head. At that point, everybody's like, "Oh my gosh, she didn't know what she was doing? He didn't have it all figured out? He got on the floor, was up at night crying and praying, asking God to solve the situation." And we just want to normalize that leadership's hard. It's challenging- 

Bill Hendricks: 

And it's filled with, "I don't know what to do here." 

Ken Cochrum: 

"I don't know what to do. I'm open." And if you normalize that, then people can actually say that in front of their team, and they don't have to feel like I have to come in with an agenda that's in PDF format and everything's all locked down. But hey, it's on the whiteboard. We can erase it, we can change it. I need your input. And that when you do that, man, people are drawn to leaders. You just watch it happen. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, so this is where I want to bring in this cultural piece. I got a couple of three questions we could ask on that, but I'm thinking about that. You're describing, normalizing the fact that we don't all have it figured out, okay. But I can imagine in some cultures, and I'm thinking particularly honor shame cultures, boy, to lay that card down, now I'm going to lose face in front of all my peers and in front of my boss. I don't want to do that, whatever I do. Is that true? 

Ken Cochrum: 

Yeah, no doubt. There's a couple of cultural indices. One is called the Uncertainty Avoidance Index, and it's super high in Japan, Korea, a lot of Latin cultures, a lot of African cultures where you talked about losing face. And so people want to see a leader that's projecting confidence and strength. 

Bill Hendricks: 

So the fake it till you make it view? 

Ken Cochrum: 

And I think that's where we come in and we talk about, let's talk cultural aspects of leadership and biblical aspects of leadership. And it's not all one side or the other. But every culture has a CEO, or jefe, or tribal chief or- 

Bill Hendricks: 

Somebody in charge. 

Ken Cochrum: 

Somebody in charge mindset that seems unchallengeable, and yet Jesus was not that way. I have this little statue. I've had this on my desk for years and- 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah, we have one of those down here at the seminary. 

Ken Cochrum: 

It's a centerpiece at DTS, and I'm a graduate from there. And that's where I got the idea. But I love that because it reminds me that's not the posture of a saving face power leader. 

Bill Hendricks: 

No, it's the exact opposite, right? 

Ken Cochrum: 

It's a very intimate, it's actually a confrontational conversation. Foot washing and saying, "No Peter, you're trying to have it your way this way, your way that way. It's actually, I need you to do it my way and I'm moving toward you as I'm saying that. I want you with me." And it's moving toward that relationship. So that is one way to address that in a cultural context. 

The other one is what we call power distance. I'm sure you're familiar with that, but it's the higher up a leader is in an organization, the more people ascribe power to that person and feel like there's distance. And so different cultures have different levels of that, and they kind of are the same as the uncertainty avoidance cultures. 

We need to break that down if we want to build a bench that we can leave behind so that our ministry is stronger when we left than when we started. And Jim Collins did a lot of research on that 20 years ago. He wrote a couple books about it. But the level four leader is a genius with 1,000 helpers, but the level five leader is the one who is personally humble, yet has a profound clear sense of organizational direction, and he calls it organizational will. 

And I think that's what we see in prophetic Christian leadership is that really bizarre and sometimes confusing, complementary set of skills that the leader is humble but is very committed to achieving God's aims in the world without running over people. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, you've raised a point that I'm glad we're getting to about power and authority. I have been watching so many blowouts of Christian leaders over the last decade and more. And it occurred to me one day, what is our theology of power and authority? And I thought back through all of my education, and I thought about books, and I also literally went through a whole series of Christian journals directed at leadership, and didn't find a single issue, and really only one article that in any way touched on anything related to power and authority. I'm like, "Well, no wonder we got problems." When we put people into leadership, as you've pointed out, whether we realize it or not, we have put them into a position of power and authority. Which then raises the question, what's been their own experience with power and authority? And I'm talking about from their home of origin, to authority figures along the way in school, in jobs they've had. And then what's been their experience already of exercising authority? 

And obviously when you look across history in a fallen world again, and again, and again, you see just what Jesus said, the rulers of the gentiles, meaning the nations, lorded over their people. 

And you see that again, and again, and again in governments and other structures. And of course Jesus is the polar opposite from that through the servant leadership model you just mentioned. 

And we're not going to solve that today. But the reality is, I don't know that we've got a very robust theology of authority and culture on our side. I think we have a very robust theological principle in our Lord's example and all that he taught, but I think a lot more work needs to be done just on that area. Has that been your experience? 

Ken Cochrum: 

Well, gosh, we could talk for hours on this Bill. And I know you do a lot of work with people's story from birth and their family of origin background. So you have layers, and layers, and layers you could go on this. 

A couple of thoughts come to mind. When we read the New Testament and the way authors present themselves, you have Peter who was arguably number one. He was chosen to lead the group, and he could have started his letters saying that. "Hey, I'm Peter. I'm the chief. Here's what's happening." 

Bill Hendricks: 

"I'm Peter, I'm kind of a big deal." 

Ken Cochrum: 

"I'm a dude." But he says in 1 Peter 5, and this is my favorite go-to passage for this discussion because he says, "As a fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and I'm appealing to you," and he goes through three, "Don't lead this way, but lead this way. Don't do it out of selfishness, but do it out of this." And so he's really helping us understand. And I bet he was tempted to power up, because that was his personality. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, and just like you said earlier, I bet he had a lot of people in the church who like, "Well, you're Peter, of course you're in charge." And they wanted to confer that power on them. 

Ken Cochrum: 

Yeah. And I call that when leaders get put in the golden cage. They don't necessarily want that, but their entourage creates that, and then they can't act anymore. They're stuck. 

But you look at James, the brother, half brother of Christ. And the way he presents it, "I'm a servant. I'm a bond servant." All these people who had the legitimate way to come in with the stick and the carrot, and mainly the stick, and they're all saying, "Hey, I'm a servant. I'm a slave to Christ." And they present themselves differently. So I think there's definitely a modeling that way. 

I'm looking at another book up here right now, The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner, which I go to all the time. 40 years of research, 4 million data points from almost every country in the world, leaders, all kinds of different organizations, different levels of organizational leadership. And culturally, the same four things keep coming up of what people want from their leaders of honesty, vision, inspiration, and competence. And they may switch what culture or country has them first or second, but they same four are there. 

Culturally, people are people and they like to be led and engaged. And this was the final point when I asked all these leaders that I interviewed later as part of my research, leaders want to share leadership. This was one of the most contentious, when about 15 years ago, helped lead an organization through a massive global restructuring. 

And when leaders that were in place, we were talking about, "Hey, we want to do a different type of team structure that shares the leadership more," they were very reluctant to give up their power. But when we asked them, "How do you want to be led?" They said, "Well, I want to share leadership," meaning I want to be led, I want to have a voice. I want to have dialogue. 

And so that was the main thing is dialogue, that I came out of my research. If I can create a space where people can have honest dialogue, you create a solvable problem-solving environment. We can talk about it. It's just like a family. If we can talk about it, we can name it. And if we can name it, we can get on a path to solving it. It's dysfunction that keeps people from either fear or that power distance thing where people shut up and they don't say what they're seeing. 

And that's where I think leaders, you look at some of these failures you referred to earlier. I don't believe most of those leaders started their ministry and said, "I really want to control everybody and blow out." I think it was just they didn't address some of these issues and weren't willing to model it in a way that has been modeled for us and works quite well. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well I want to point out Ken, that there's really not a thing that you've said… Obviously your background has been in a parachurch, mission church settings, right? There's not a thing you've said though that doesn't also apply in everyday work, and in corporations, and in governments, and the other kinds of situations where Christians find themselves in leadership. 

Ken Cochrum: 

Yeah, and this book is not Christian. It's across the board. People are people. They like to be led well, they like to be listened to, and they want to give their best. People show up 8, 9, 10 hours a day and they want to contribute to the organization or the company's mission. They want to give their best. And so I think starting with that as a baseline really helps us think about leadership. 

You asked earlier about some lessons in global organization, and in light of time, I'll just riff off a couple of thoughts. One is we talked about the bigger you want to scale, the fewer things you can say as a leader. You can't come into every staff meeting with 10 new ideas. You can let the team do that, but you've got to keep things focused. 

Second in the challenge of leading a large organization is scope and complexity. When people are over a large number, either a geographic space, or a large number of people, or even different types of products or services that are being offered, getting those people with other leaders that share similar scope and complexity for conferences where it's not just park and bark teaching, but really where it's round table and they can talk about what's going on, and you create these peer networks where, "Hey, we're not doing the same stuff," but we're kind of doing the same scope and complexity. You empower people to continue to solve and grow. So that's a huge factor. And a lot of times, that's expensive because you're flying people in and putting them up for a couple of days, but it's worth it. 

Bill Hendricks: 

I was going to say it's cheap money if it then has a multiplied impact. 

Ken Cochrum: 

And it avoids the million dollar problems that come with scope. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Exactly. 

Ken Cochrum: 

I think another thing, we want to grow, and healthy things do grow. But the paradox of growth I think has taken me by surprise multiple times, and the paradox of growth is this. Growth creates complexity, and complexity is the silent killer of future growth. Growth creates complexity and complexity kills future growth. 

So there is the admonition to keep pruning. Growth is intoxicating, and more people, more money, more stuff, more opportunities. If you're good at what you're doing and you're in your mid-thirties, you're going to get more opportunities to travel, to speak. And you're going to feel the tension of, hey, maybe I have a home life or a home. Maybe it's a marriage, maybe it's a family, maybe it's just people in the community that I'm very committed to, and there's a tension because I'm traveling more, I'm doing more out there. 

Prune. Learn to prune as you go, and that will create a healthier you. It will create a healthier team and a healthier organization over time. 

Bill Hendricks: 

How do you know what to prune? 

Ken Cochrum: 

Man, discernment. And that's part of the objectivity of, is this paying off in what our core mission is? And so constantly going back to, what's our business about, what's our church about? What's our organization about? And avoiding the two mission problems of mission drift or mission creep. 

So mission drift is when… And I've seen this a lot in the last five years, the social environments, particularly in North America and the US, and the cancel culture. It's when, "Hey, we're doing this, but we need to be saying it in a different way, or maybe we may need to shift over here because this is what people are really excited about right now." 

Bill Hendricks: 

You're no longer leading at that point. You're being led. 

Ken Cochrum: 

You're capitulating. 

Bill Hendricks: 

You're capitulating. 

Ken Cochrum: 

And it may be, and I think this is the hard thing. If we're in the culture and the culture's changing, and we're trying to either serve the culture, produce goods and services that are providing legitimate needs now that have shifted, or we're in ministry and it's hard to get a hearing for a clear presentation of who Jesus Christ is because of the cultural blocks. We need to adjust and change. We absolutely need adaptive leadership. However, that's different than mission drift. We were doing this and now we're selling whatever. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah, we're in a whole different business now. 

Ken Cochrum: 

Yeah. And so it is an adjacency that gives us access, but then that drift has caught us. Or mission creep is when, "Hey, we're really supposed to be focused here." I'll speak for East-West where I am right now. We focus on making disciples in the spiritually darkest nations and among unreached people groups. And that's really hard ground. And a lot of times, they don't walk around with little red lights blinking on the top of their head saying, "Here we are." You have to go find them. 

And in our modern culture that's so transient, especially with all the immigration and refugees, a lot of times the best place to reach Afghans is in Houston, Texas right now in some of the refugee communities, which is where we are. 

But we are constantly, should we be in this country? And why? Because we have limited resources, and the places God has called us to are really hard to reach. And so we need to constantly review that every year. 

And so we've put in an annual, whether it's semiannual, annual, biannual review cycle, whatever's healthy for a timeline for your organization to do a product market check and a mission check. Should we be doing this anymore? 

And maybe it's, "Hey God, we didn't expect this. God got us here and he's opened up new venues." Well, that's how innovation happens. It's always happening at the fringes. Do we allow that? Do we welcome that? How much resources are we going to allow for that? 

And I know some of the best businesses say, "We're going to limit our innovation budget to 5 or 10%." We're okay if we take a risk and that doesn't pay out, but we're not going to gut the other 90% of the organization until that is proving that this has really got some legs and it's- 

Bill Hendricks: 

That's the new horizon, yeah. 

Ken Cochrum: 

Yes. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, Ken Cochrum, I could talk with you about leadership all day long. Thank you very much for… I mean, this is wisdom that's come from a lot of, I'm sure challenging times and lots of experience. 

Ken Cochrum: 

Lot of scars and broken budgets, I will tell you. 

Bill Hendricks: 

But if you want to find out more about what Ken's been talking about, he referenced his book Close: Leading Well Across Distance and Cultures, and I highly recommend that you get a hold of that if you're a leader, and particularly as I said, at a large organization with a lot of complexity and a lot of diversity culturally, and in a lot of locations. I mean, you're dealing with a very challenging thing there, and Ken can help you out with that. Ken, thanks so much for being on The Table today. 

Ken Cochrum: 

What a privilege. God bless you, Bill. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Thank you. It's been my privilege, and I want to thank you for listening in to The Table. If you've enjoyed this podcast today, I would encourage you to head over to Apple Podcasts or wherever your favorite podcasting app is, so you'll not miss an episode, and subscribe to that. 

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