Mal Fletcher comments



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  • The strongest convictions will shape the culture. Leaders must have deeply felt convictions and proven values which are born out of personal revelation and practical experience.

  • Cultures tend to attract people of their own kind. If leaders want people of character, purpose, vision and excellence in their teams, and in the wider organisation or community, they need to create a culture where these things are promoted and celebrated. A negative culture will always produce small-minded, non-creative, risk-averse people.


  • Cultures must be maintained. Having set the culture - which can take two to three years in a new church or organisation - a leader must work to keep it alive. Leaders maintain the momentum by exposing their teams to like-minded, successful people from outside your organisation.

  • People, left to their own devices, will often return to their old cultures. Leaders must provide incentives and demonstrate results so that people will not give in to the pressures of entropy.

  • Culture brings people together around common ideals, not just common tasks. A strong culture can never be built around simply performing a task or meeting a goal. It must go deeper than that, to fulfil a common cause and meet a shared aspiration within people's hearts.

  • The mix of weak organisation/strong culture can grow. The mix of weak culture/strong organisation won't survive! In a church, for example, even if there are relatively 'weak' services one Sunday, it may still grow if the culture is strong.

  • Healthy culture builds access ramps not stairways to heaven. Good leaders know how to make access easier for people from outside their group to gain access, or to sample the resources on offer - without compromising their integrity in a vain attempt to become 'all things to all men.'

  • Culture is a good servant and a poor master. Culture becomes a problem only when people - and especially leaders - forget that they have one; when they expect everyone outside to automatically understand why they behave and believe as they do.

    • As I drove past Westminster today, listening to the applause of politicians for a man departing the stage of national leadership, I thought through these ten facts again and started to evaluate where I can improve as a leader.

    How Tony Blair has fared with his leadership will, I suppose, be a matter for history to decide. I'm sure that, given some distance in time, his highs and lows will even out to some degree.

    For those of us in leadership at a lesser level, whether in business, politics, community work or church life, we might take this opportunity to evaluate our own work - and seek to serve with ever greater diligence, creating cultures of compassion, hope and faith. CR

    The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.