Ever wondered about the challenges of championing female leaders, particularly in a ministry context? Today, we join hands with Kadi Cole, a leading light in the arena of leadership coaching, and author of best-selling books. Katie's journey from a small church in Montana to becoming a pillar of strength for budding female leaders is sure to ignite your passion for leadership.
The conversation takes an intriguing turn as we dissect the 'sticky floor' conundrum and its dampening effect on female leadership. We explore the differing perspectives men and women have towards job opportunities and promotions, and the need for a robust culture of intentional inclusion. We also deliberate on the key elements of building a culture that encourages women to lead, take bold steps and seize opportunities.
Towards the end, we converge on the significance of nurturing a leadership development culture that values the talents of both men and women. We stress the role of individual leaders in creating an environment where women can flourish. Leadership is not a one-size-fits-all concept, and it falls upon us to imbue our leadership development processes with diversity and inclusivity. We'll share practical steps men and women can take to unlock their leadership potential.
Looking for an opportunity to put this podcast into action? Registration is NOW open for our February 2024 Women in Leadership coaching group! Learn more & register at www.get4sight.com/womeninleadership.
Download Carey Nieuwhof's free guide for steps to engage your church around money and generosity. Visit engagegenerosity.com to get free and instant access.
We need your help to get the Lead Culture podcasts in front of more leaders! There are three simple things you can do that truly help us:
Ever wondered about the challenges of championing female leaders, particularly in a ministry context? Today, we join hands with Kadi Cole, a leading light in the arena of leadership coaching, and author of best-selling books. Katie's journey from a small church in Montana to becoming a pillar of strength for budding female leaders is sure to ignite your passion for leadership.
The conversation takes an intriguing turn as we dissect the 'sticky floor' conundrum and its dampening effect on female leadership. We explore the differing perspectives men and women have towards job opportunities and promotions, and the need for a robust culture of intentional inclusion. We also deliberate on the key elements of building a culture that encourages women to lead, take bold steps and seize opportunities.
Towards the end, we converge on the significance of nurturing a leadership development culture that values the talents of both men and women. We stress the role of individual leaders in creating an environment where women can flourish. Leadership is not a one-size-fits-all concept, and it falls upon us to imbue our leadership development processes with diversity and inclusivity. We'll share practical steps men and women can take to unlock their leadership potential.
Looking for an opportunity to put this podcast into action? Registration is NOW open for our February 2024 Women in Leadership coaching group! Learn more & register at www.get4sight.com/womeninleadership.
Download Carey Nieuwhof's free guide for steps to engage your church around money and generosity. Visit engagegenerosity.com to get free and instant access.
We need your help to get the Lead Culture podcasts in front of more leaders! There are three simple things you can do that truly help us:
Well, hey, leaders, welcome to the Lead Culture Podcast, part of the Art of Leadership Network. I'm your host, jenn. Each week here on the podcast, I'll be your guide as we explore powerful insights and practical strategies to equip you with the tools you need to lead with clarity and confidence and build a thriving team. My mission is to be your trusted coach, empowering you to master the art of self-leadership so you'll learn to lead yourself well, so you can lead others better. Each week, we'll take a deep dive on a leadership or culture topic. You'll hear stories from amazing guests and leaders like you who are committed to leading well. So let's get started on this leadership journey together. All right, friends, especially those of you in ministry, one of the pressures of leading a growing ministry is you end up with more mission and vision than money to accomplish it. Can you relate to that? It's understandable that you might have some hesitancy and you might worry about talking about money in your church because it's a bit awkward. It's awkward enough to talk to your spouse or your family about money, but now you have to talk about it in front of dozens or hundreds or even thousands of people. And even when you speak about it as earnestly, biblically and honestly as you know how you'll inevitably take a few bullets when you talk about money. So to help you have better conversations about giving generosity and money with the members of your church, my friend, kerry Nieuwhof, has created a free guide for steps to engage your church around money and generosity. In it you'll get practical steps and mindset shifts that you can use as early as today to start building a culture of generosity at your church. If you want to leave feeling awkward, sleazy and greedy in the past, and if you simply want to build a positive culture around generosity, this guide is a perfect first step for you. You can click the link in this episode's description or visit engagegenerositycom to get free and instant access. All right friends?
Speaker 2:Well, today on the podcast I'm having an in-person conversation with my longtime friend, Kadi Cole. Kadiis is a best-selling author, she's a leadership coach, she's a business consultant, she's a life plan facilitator, she is a speaker and she is a champion of developing female leaders. And today on the podcast we talk about her leadership journey, the challenges that she sees women and men face in championing female leaders, especially in the ministry context. So I think you're going to enjoy this conversation. Both ladies. I know you will be encouraged to hear Kadi speak about the challenges that we often face and her encouragement to you and guys. This episode will give you insight into how to better equip the female leaders, especially in a ministry context. So here's my conversation Kadi Cole Cole. Kadi, how fun to be hanging out Like. Actually I told somebody the other day I think we, I told you the other day I think we have more time together this week than we've had in like the 15 years we've known each other.
Speaker 1:We've been in the same place twice now this month and it's been delightful. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:So good For those of you listening Kadi, and I have known each other. I think it's been 15 years. Is it 15 years? Yeah, I was thinking it could be as many as 15, which makes me feel like we're really old but we're not. But we connected in a women executive pastor group years ago Sherry Sorette tried to gather the known XPs who were female in the country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there were only like 20 or 24 of us. There weren't very many, and now that and then we kind of created this network out of it the women executive pastor network. We have over 140 women in three different countries now in it, which is like so awesome, it's so amazing.
Speaker 2:And back then we were saying we thought we were the only ones. And then when Sherry kind of grouped us, we were like okay, we're not the only ones.
Speaker 1:I didn't even know I qualified in those things because I had a weird girl title that sounded nothing like the fancy people like you guys that you have, but I was like do I get to be a part? Of this group. What's your title? Do you remember At the time? I've had several. I think at that moment it was the director of advancement. Okay, no one knows what that is. I was gonna say, but yeah, what is?
Speaker 2:that exactly. We just knew that we were all functionally playing the role of an XP because that wasn't an XP title either. I was executive director, and that's how far our friendship goes back. That's right. And yet through the years, it's like we will connect in these quick moments. But we actually are traveling this week doing a couple of learning communities with pastors in the UK, and so we thought this is the perfect time to sit down and actually have you on the podcast.
Speaker 1:And I'm like face to face and not even on Zoom, I'm so excited.
Speaker 2:That's a different, like we never get to do this, so I would love for you to share. Just give your journey, your story, specifically leadership, wise, like some of the highlights of your journey, just so people get your backstory.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I grew up in a small church in Montana that's where I'm from like a little church of about a hundred people. I had no idea you could be paid to be in ministry.
Speaker 2:I didn't know.
Speaker 1:I just had no concept of that and no one got paid at my church, including the founding pastor, and so I just thought you kind of like, gave all your money and time to the church when you became a Christian and that's how we operated. And then I went to a Christian college near Seattle. I thought it would be just like. My home church was very different, much more progressive, way more egalitarian than what I grew up in, and so that was like another kind of extreme in my experience. I majored in nursing because I decided not to marry the pastor I was engaged to.
Speaker 1:So I thought well, I do want to serve God. I guess I should be a foreign medical missionary, because in my mindset this is the only.
Speaker 2:Those were the only options. These are the things.
Speaker 1:I look back at, I'm like I did not even know. I was thinking that no one ever said that to me, but that was the culture I was brought in and absorbed in and so I became a nurse. I had to pay back a scholarship so I moved to Florida to pay it back. I was a psych nurse. So it turns out inpatient psychiatric nursing is a great training for ministry and it realized I was taking the alternate seminary route, but it actually served me maybe better than some of those seminary degrees.
Speaker 2:Good training for life in general, but definitely for ministry.
Speaker 1:I still use my nursing degree, I still use my mental health background, especially in today's world, and so yeah. So when I was in Florida, I was a part of a church that started growing really rapidly, and so we actually doubled in size every year for eight years Crazy. I came in when we were a couple of thousand, which I just thought was ridiculous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so huge. We come from small town church.
Speaker 1:This is the size of church they talk about in the Bible. Like this is a biblical proportions church. We'll never grow any bigger than this. And we kept growing and so they actually recruited me to come on staff. By then I had worked at a university and was promoted to dean of students. I picked up a master's degree and so I came on staff to sort of help organize and architect kind of behind the scenes things, organize volunteer teams.
Speaker 1:But my leadership really grew up with the church. I sort of went to the area of the church that was in trouble. So like I ran communications, I ran young adults, I oversaw the parking lot and figured out I'd create one-way parking and then, when it came time to figure out how to go multi-site, I was the person who sort of led that charge and did the research and helped launch our first couple campuses and so by the time I left we were 23,000 people. I oversaw our nine campuses plus an online campus and our School of Leadership and so yeah, so that was kind of like my journey in ministry leadership and at that point I had been on staff for almost 20 years. I was really tired and I had a family and some dynamics happening there that were very challenging and a lot of care taking at home, and so I decided to transition off and take a break by starting my own company.
Speaker 1:So I'm not really sure why I thought that would be helpful. Yeah, so that would be fine. Once again, you can see I operate in the space of ignorance and walking through opportunities and figuring out as you go along.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so I started working a lot with leadership network that's right Doing multi-site groups and working with groups around leadership development, a lot of executive pastor mentoring and training and, in the process of that, really ran into this issue around churches dealing with leadership development, which is really what my expertise is, and particularly multi-site, where you're doing it across geographical locations and not having enough leaders. They had everything they needed to keep multiplying, but not enough leaders. And when I sort of popped the HR hood in many of these churches, it was really about women not progressing in the leadership development pipeline and for me I'll be really honest this is kind of embarrassing, but it was an eye-opener for me because I had never really thought about it.
Speaker 1:I grew up professionally in nursing, which is a female dominant environment. So in my early career days I had a lot of strong female models. I had a lot of strong female bosses and it was just a few like five or eight years. It wasn't like 20 years in that, but it was enough of the right people in the right season of my life where I just did a question. A lot of things going into ministry and so I came in at the executive team and rode that for a long time. It never dawned on me the challenge to kind of work your way up the management system in ministry, and so to try and help these churches.
Speaker 1:I started doing all this research and as I was doing it, I was like, oh my gosh, this is actually why leadership for me has been so hard in the church. I didn't realize how many biases I held against myself, how I held against other women, how much I had been indoctrinated into sort of cultural biases around gender roles and how. I just didn't have an awareness about that. So I really have never been this big women's liberation champion person. But I was like this is actually wrong in the kingdom.
Speaker 1:And kind of because I come from a very conservative background, I don't have any real theological agenda with this, but I do care about maximizing leadership gifts sort of within that theological framework. And so I'm like I actually don't have an opinion on the theology of it.
Speaker 1:I just know we can all do better and that's really been what's kind of driven me the last few years, particularly since my book came out, is how do we as leaders and especially male leaders or people in kind of that male leadership mindset or in male dominant environments how do we become more aware of those things that we probably would never do if we realized what it was doing? Right, right, right, and a lot of it is just understanding and then making the shifts to get rid of the things we don't want to keep from our spiritual parents. It's kind of like going back to your family origin therapy.
Speaker 1:You're like OK at the end of the day, my parents are awesome, but there's some things I need to leave behind and some new skills I want to do, and I can still love and honor them. We have to do that with our own leadership experience. That's good, so that's what I spend most of my time doing now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and where did that? I think. First, I think you and I have a similar story in that and nursing makes so much sense because, yes, there's so much more female dominated there that you were just surrounded by females who were progressing in their career and so that just felt the norm, which I suspect you probably carried into ministry, just thinking, well, of course I should be able to grow and progress. Oh, I never questioned myself about anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Which women hated that about me, by the way? Sure, and we've probably talked about this before, but, like what's, one of the shocking pieces of this is how much resistance you get from women when you try to lead.
Speaker 2:Or even when.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to work with a church. I warn pastors. I'm like when you try to put women in the leadership roles, your number one resistance will come from women.
Speaker 2:From women.
Speaker 1:And they can't believe me and it's shocking to them. And then they email me back and they're like you're right. The three emails I got when I did this move were all from women or the 10 people who made appointments with me were all older women who are very upset about this and it is shocking, but it is true it's very interesting.
Speaker 2:Well, everybody's bringing forward their cultural experience, and that was my observation as well, Because, similarly, I started, as most of the listeners know, I started in the music business and, while I was still often the only female at the table, it didn't. There wasn't a. I didn't feel like. I felt like I was just the first one there. I didn't feel like I was necessarily not wanted there, and I did have great leaders and mentors who gave me tons of opportunities. So I didn't feel like there was a ceiling to my gifts.
Speaker 2:So I kind of took that, that assumption, into ministry and then bumped into like oh okay, there's some people who don't think that that is okay or don't think that's the norm. I would be curious for you like so I think more, I really wanna know what, what have you found? Give us some examples of, as you started digging into this with churches and leaders, Because I think I noticed that I just was unaware of some of the things that would and I would get surprised by the women who would hold back, because my inclination is to just figure it out and move forward and so I'd love for you to talk about some of the. How have you coached and encouraged women to step more into their leadership while simultaneously coaching the leaders to create space for them. Is that a both and?
Speaker 1:It is 100% a both and because we're trying to change culture, and so it's not something you can do just from the bottom up and it's not something you can do just from the top down. Like, women do need opportunities, we do need to invite them into spaces and invite them into leadership and invite them into training and give them feedback. We need to develop female leaders, but then also women. When we step into those roles and show up at the table, we gotta show up as a leader.
Speaker 1:We have to let go of the things that maybe aren't great leadership practices, and that is a hard thing to do, especially if you've been living or operating in a space where you haven't gotten a lot of nurturing or training or opportunity. Those are big, bold steps, but both need to happen and both can happen, and so one of the biggest concepts that I talk a lot about, that seems to be the most helpful, is a phenomenon called the sticky floor.
Speaker 1:So, you probably heard of the glass ceiling which is sort of like those invisible barriers, structural things, those things absolutely hands down matter and I spent a lot of time with executive teams working on those glass ceiling in the church, where we call it the stained glass ceiling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right those stained glass, ceiling issues, but more important than that are what's known as the sticky floor, which are those dialogues and conversations women have in their own minds with themselves that keep their feet stuck to the floor, that prevent them from taking advantage of opportunities, that prevent them from walking through the open door, that prevent them from going for something, and those are the things that I think what you and I are saying is like that sticky floor, although I know we both have it because we've talked about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't really think there's a leader that doesn't have a little sticky floor in them.
Speaker 1:But women, and what we're really talking about is when you're a minority, when you're an other when you haven't had the same opportunities or you haven't had a lot of role models or seen people like you doing these things, so men can identify with this also. Or people of color Like, but women generally, to talk specifically about women have a much stronger sticky floor that actually if they get offered an opportunity or a promotion or a new job, they will be like ah, there's probably someone better out there. Yeah, I don't. They don't really know who I am.
Speaker 1:You can call it imposter syndrome would be another way to kind of that's that kind of a crossover cousin of it. But we talk ourselves out of it. And you know, I have yet to meet a man who's been offered a raise and a promotion who said no because they think their leaders didn't see. You know, we're seeing them incorrectly. I haven't met one yet, and I meet women all the time who turned down title changes, promotions, new job opportunities, not because they don't want to do it, but because they think they shouldn't, or that they can't, or that they'll not ready yeah.
Speaker 1:And they actually. I just keep trying to tell women I'm like, at the very least, if you're going to have that mentality, then submit to your leader and trust that your leader knows more than you and take the job.
Speaker 2:Like at the right? So if they aren't even thinking logically about it?
Speaker 1:yeah, I'm like trust that they see something in you and that, oh my gosh, maybe God knows something and is opening a door. Like trust God, trust the people around you even if you don't trust yourself. Yeah, so those are the implications for women and I think we're getting better at that and there's a lot of encouragement and a lot of you know whatever about all that. I think the important thing, if you're in a leadership position, particularly if you're a man or if you're a woman like us that maybe hasn't had the same kind of struggle, is we actually have to recruit beyond the sticky floor. We can't just run an ad in the website or in the email newsletter.
Speaker 1:You can't just like make an announcement or put something online or let friends know in your network hey, we're looking for a new staff role or a new pastor or a new director of whatever and expect women to flock at the opportunity Right. Even your strongest female leaders are going to go like they're going to wait for the invitation directly Right yes? And well, or they need someone to help them see themselves in the role.
Speaker 1:So one of the research pieces I love is how men and women apply for job opportunities or promotions differently, so they look at the opportunity differently. So men, when they look at a job description of something that's new, if they feel confident of about 60% of what's on the job description, they apply for it. They kind of figure they'll get the job. If they don't know what they're doing, they'll fake it till they make it, or they're like Google it or you know they're like I'm going to figure this out.
Speaker 2:Kind of what we were saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, women, generally speaking, when they look at that job description, they have to feel confident of 100% of what's on there from the first day or they won't even apply for the job, like they disqualify themselves and don't even give people the opportunity to know that they might be interested in something. Yeah, and the challenge for us as leaders that we have to realize is most of our leadership cultures, particularly in churches, which have a lot of volunteer base, is we look for. It's kind of that John Maxwell principle, like look for the Eagles right Among the. Who's volunteering, who's showing up, who's raising their hand, who's sending you their resume inappropriately. You're like you know what I'm, you know who do you think you are sending me your resume? But now I'm reading it and I'm like gosh, maybe I do have a role for you.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean, Right right it's.
Speaker 1:You're looking for the person who's initiating yes, almost every female leader, particularly if they've been in church a long time and they know that women in leadership is an issue and they've been following the Lord a long time with their life which, by the way, when you lead in church, are the people you want in leadership, right, right. So the very women that are qualified and trustworthy and godly and seasoned and mature that you would want in leadership are the exact women who will never apply for your opening. So we have to have a different conversation and it doesn't take much.
Speaker 1:It just says like hey, you female leader that has a hundred women coming to your Bible study and we keep having to split up your small group. Are you greater? Who's been organizing things behind the scenes among a pastor who doesn't even have to think about this ministry because you run it all? Yeah, here's why we think you would be great at this job. Let me show you the job description. Of these 10 things, you're already doing seven of them, so take and these three. We will train you. We'll give you six months to shadow someone. We don't even expect you to be good at this. For at least a year. We'll give you feedback on it.
Speaker 1:You just normalize the fact that you can be good of seven attendees, or two attendees or actually we actually only need to be good at two things and that degree is not necessary or you've already proven yourself. So just language, that kind of helps a woman see herself, the way you see her as your leader, the way you know God sees her, and naming her gifts and she probably has not had very many. If anyone say I see this gift in you or I see the fruit of your work, she's like, well, that's not that hard, I just help some people and that's really God's work. I'm like, yes, it's God's work, but it's God's work in and through you. She probably hasn't had many people in her life connect the dots of that that's right.
Speaker 1:And so she doesn't look at that as a way to think of herself, and so, therefore, she doesn't bring that to the table, and she's exactly the person you want for the job.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I talk a lot in coaching leaders of give the gift of belief, verbalize what you see and the potential you see, and kind of coaching and encouraging that and others. And so what surprises the male leaders? Because I know a lot of organizations will bring you in saying, hey, help us develop our female leaders, right, like they're saying, we want to be better at this and that's probably been one of the most encouraging things for me as of late is how many, particularly in the church, lead pastors, executive pastors, who have said it to me, but I know they reach out to you even more of, hey, how do we do this? I want to do this. I'm not even sure how. So what's the most surprising things that they notice when you come in and start talking to them about the challenges for women leaders?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I do speak male and so it is helpful, and so I do think the sticky floor is one of the biggest ones. It's kind of like an aha moment, it's like, oh, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:That actually makes sense why all these women I've tried to recruit into these roles haven't done it or why we got stuck on it. I think the other thing is a lot of men want they see great leadership potential in someone and so they want them close to them. But for most men, when they develop other young male leaders, there's a lot of social dynamics with it.
Speaker 1:So like you can come with me to a conference and you're the young adult intern or you're like the new youth pastor at one of our campuses, but I'm gonna sort of pluck you out of your job and connect you to me in these relational ways so that you can sit in on a meeting or go to a dinner, like we're at all these dinners and everyone's got their kid or their person with them that they're developing, which is like what you do in leadership you always take someone with you.
Speaker 1:The challenge is, when we're talking about crossing genders, is that we also have a lot of boundaries and helpful guidelines that prevent us from having temptations, and we wanna be above reproach with all of those are very good things to have in place.
Speaker 1:The problem is, when we aren't used to bringing women into those work space or into those relationship environments and we're not really set up to do that we bring them into formalized work environments and so they end up hiring them as their assistant, and an assistant role is not a role to build a leader, it's a role to build an assistant, and so assistants are there for you. They're not there to be developed, and so it feels like and I totally get why we do this it feels like the way to get her into these environments, into these things. But then you've got someone who's like making coffee and doing notes and setting up calendar appointments. You're not really in the meeting and even if you're listening, you're not looked at as a leader being developed and you're on the support admin side of the house and it is almost impossible to cross from the support side to the ministry leadership side.
Speaker 1:Even if the senior pastor puts you there, the eyes of the people have not seen you as a leader and so you almost start behind the game. If you wanna develop a female leader, you gotta put her in leadership positions. It would be way better to take a up and coming female leader and put her in charge of a bunch of small groups as a volunteer.
Speaker 1:She will be better and learn more leadership and more ministry and how to disciple people and how to lead volunteers, how to build a team, how to manage your time. Those are the leadership lessons you need to learn. You don't learn any of that as an admin. In fact. What ends up happening is we create, almost like, artificial leaders. She can talk the talk, but she's never done any of it, and that's a lot of times the women I end up coaching. They've been over promoted from their skill set because they've been around leadership but they've never actually led. And no wonder she feels insecure, no wonder she doesn't have the confidence to work and she's never led anything.
Speaker 2:She's never led anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and so that's probably the biggest eye opener, because we want to bring women in, but we don't think about it in terms of development. We think about them in terms of bringing them close to us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not always a strategic place, so I encourage men.
Speaker 1:It's actually time to rethink your leadership development overall, because men developing men in sort of these like one-on-one, more intimate relationships, like a Paul, timothy, father, son thing, really is no longer above reproach, just like in developing a woman that way, like we live in an LGBTQ world, you can't just take a young guy and go and share a hotel room somewhere at a conference and think that that's gonna give you any sort of protection, like it's any accusations. So my thing is, rather than just taking one person along with you, just change your rule to always take two. Just always take two people. Take two guys, take two girls. Take a guy and a girl, pay the extra expense. Have multiple hotel rooms. Take two people to the hospital. Take two people to the funeral. Take two people to the sermon prep meeting.
Speaker 1:Take two people and just force yourself to always create diversity in the people you're developing. Force yourself Even if it's a person that you're like I don't really get her or she's nothing like me force yourself to have the discipline to develop all sorts of people, not just the people that are a lot like you, that you see yourself in. That's good. Develop the people that God is raising up in leadership in your church and then everybody wins, especially your congregation. That's huge.
Speaker 2:That's huge. Okay, talk about. You and I were talking offline about this a little bit, about just how critical developing female leaders is for the actual culture of your organization, your team, your congregation, et cetera. So I'd love for you to speak to that a bit.
Speaker 1:Well, I think we are in a leadership crisis in the church.
Speaker 1:Like we have more leaders retiring, we have more leaders quitting, we have more people even just volunteer leaders who are disengaging from church. We really don't have the luxury to say God's brought leadership gifts to our congregation and we don't need them. We don't. We didn't even have the luxury before, but we could kind of overcome it with other resources and just the just share number of people. We don't have that luxury anymore. And so I really think, as leaders church leaders it's important that we look at all the gifts that God has brought to our church. He's the one who gave them, whatever package they come in. I'm not in charge of that part, but how do I steward and develop all of the gifts that he's given? And so, when it comes to female leaders, there is a role that they have to play and again, this is not. One of the things we found in our research is that the theology of a church actually had nothing to do with how well they developed female leaders.
Speaker 1:We had very conservative churches who had women leading at all levels of the organization, including the executive team, and we had very progressive churches who would welcome women into all levels of leadership, but almost no women leading at any level, and so it really had nothing to do with the theology. It was the type of culture they created around leadership development, and so we have to challenge ourselves to build the kind of cultures and the way we do that is our own individual practices. So this really comes down to each individual leader and we see this all the time and people who are listening. You probably see it in your own organization or church. Like there's a culture on this team where there are women thriving all over the place and men, and then there are cultures over here where almost no women are thriving or maybe no men. And when it comes to diversity and inclusion like I challenge a female children's director as much as I challenge a small groups leader Like if your team and children's ministry is a whole bunch of 30 year old white moms, you are not representing the body to those kids.
Speaker 1:You're raising an entire generation who only hear from women.
Speaker 1:That is just as harmful as an entire congregation only ever hearing from men. We need moms and dads, spiritual moms and dads and again there's like you can put that in the framework of your theology, but there's still a role for them to play and our discipleship. One of the reasons our discipleship processes have failed us in the last 30 years is that we have not actually accessed the gifts that God brought to our body fully. We created roles and leadership around outside qualities, not inside character and giftedness, and so we have real. It's kind of like having a bunch of kids who grew up in an orphanage or a single parent family, like they didn't have spiritual parents who developed them like the New Testament describes to us, and so we need both moms and dads in the house to be able to do that, and so, at the very least, creating spiritual leaders that are raising young men and women in our churches, and then you can even look at the organizational and leadership sides of it as well. That's huge. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I have to wrap us up because we have to go actually go do something, go do something, yeah, yeah, you're looking great, by the way, and your opening session is gonna be awesome.
Speaker 2:It's like we got a few other things we have to do here. How would you encourage? I think two people are listening. I think guys are listening saying, okay, how do I do better, how do I more intentionally invest in the women in my team? And then there are a lot of women leaders maybe aspiring leaders, wondering if they're a leader. But there are women listening saying how do I step into my leadership gifts more? How would you encourage both of those groups?
Speaker 1:So I think for the guys out there who are kind of like, oh, maybe I need to think about this, or maybe you have been wondering about this and it's been stirring in you, or maybe you're like a lot of guys where your wife is like, excuse me, I'm ready to lead. Our kids are grown. Or maybe you raised a daughter to be a leader and you're like, she's like dad, what am I supposed to do at your church?
Speaker 1:Like this might not be the place for me I mean it's personal In this generation. We're the crossover generation about this issue, and so I would just encourage you to be open to investigate this topic. So my book Developing Female Leaders, I wrote specifically for men to be kind of a resource of practical how-tos about how to open up this dialogue. Here's some language, here's some research, here's some ways you can look at this in your context. I have like a whole chapter on just the theological viewpoints. You can really learn to articulate that One of the biggest challenges is that, again, godly women who want to lead and are gifted to lead and are probably the kind of women you want leading in your church, they know that women in leadership is an issue in our culture and they know it's an issue at your church, even if you don't have any concern or question about it, it is unclear in the culture of your church.
Speaker 1:I think I would put my year's salary on it. And so when you give clarity to the theology of your church around this issue and you help people align to that, you give a breath of fresh air to women to step into roles they never thought they could do. So my favorite thing is to get together at a staff meeting with a senior pastor and have him talk through his theology and then I ask him questions. So does that mean a woman can pray out loud in front of a man and he looks at me like I am ridiculous? And I'm like I am guaranteeing you there are women in this room on your paid staff who do not know if they're allowed to do that.
Speaker 2:Now, that has nothing to do with your leadership.
Speaker 1:That has nothing to do with your theology, nothing to do with your preaching. Some Yahoo usher somewhere along the line looked at her and said you can't close in prayer. You're a woman and she has never prayed in front of a man since. So you are combating decades of bad behavior of people that aren't even your responsibility. That's not your fault, but it is our responsibility. And so you get to bring freedom with the truth of your theology to those spaces and empower women and help men know that they should be not only allowing it but encouraging it and asking for it.
Speaker 1:So simple things like that. Can she lead a small group? Can she disagree with her husband in a discussion about theology? Like these are the things that trip women up and they seem ridiculous to men because they have never, ever questioned those things. But this is the reality of this new generation of women leaders and again, these are them. This isn't like a 21 year old who just graduated from college, who thinks she rules the world and has some big following. I'm talking about like 35, 40 year old, 50 year old, 60 year old women who have been sitting on a leadership gift dormant, that you can unleash in the kingdom in her final decades of life, like there is something for her to do in her calling and it's our job as leaders to steward our congregations. Calling that's what our?
Speaker 1:job is, and I think, for the women out there, I just want to encourage you to not give up, to not pull back from the table that you are sitting at right now. You have leadership, you have voice, you have something to say. Right now I see women all the time disqualify themselves for leadership and I just say, if you're not doing a good job, trust that your leaders will tell you, stay in the game until your leader comes and fires you.
Speaker 2:Because I can almost guarantee you.
Speaker 1:You are measuring yourself against that. 100% perfection, yeah Right, and perfectionism does not belong in the kingdom. It's the whole point of the gospel. And so stay in the game, keep learning, keep growing, and they will tell you if you're not doing a good job. Trust that your leaders can lead, trust that they will be honest with you, even if you trust them more than you trust yourself. It's okay, just keep going. We need you in the game, we need you in the kingdom. We need you fulfilling your role, for yourself, for the work that you're going to do, but also because we are opening doors for people coming after us, and they need role models. They don't need perfect role models. It's not a role model like you aspire to. I just need someone holding a microphone To know that one day I can hold a microphone.
Speaker 1:They just need to see. I remember going to work some days, just going like, as long as I don't quit today or get fired, it's a good day.
Speaker 2:We've made progress.
Speaker 1:If you're feeling like that, just stay in the game. I promise you, promise you, promise you, it will be worth it. That's so good.
Speaker 2:Kadi, where can people connect with you? I know folks will want to check out your book and just stay connected to you. How can we best do?
Speaker 1:that the best place is my website. So, kadicole. com, you can follow me on socials. At kadicole. com I do have a monthly newsletter about these kinds of topics. That's a great way to just kind of keep updated on resources and things that I'm putting out there about this.
Speaker 2:So good Thanks for your leadership in this conversation, helping equip so many female leaders, but also helping the male leaders understand how to support us even better. So appreciate your voice and your leadership.
Speaker 1:Thank you, girl. Appreciate you and our friendship.
Speaker 2:All right, friends. I hope this episode was helpful. I know that it was an encouragement to you, so share it with another leader that you think would really benefit from this conversation. And speaking of female leaders, I'm hearing more of you share your anxiety in the roadblocks that you're experiencing in leadership. Do you ever feel as if you're working twice as hard for half the impact? Do you feel that your capacity just can't keep up with the demands of leadership? All too often, these feelings contribute to just a lack of confidence and a feeling of loneliness in leadership. So if you resonate with some of these challenges, I would love for you to check out our next Women in Leadership group that begins in February 2024.
Speaker 2:In these groups, we learn so much from our fellow women in leadership, and my heart and my team's heart is to help you become the leader that you truly want to be. So if you're a woman in leadership and you feel like this is the time to invest in your growth and development, I want you to go to Get4sightcom/ Women in Leadership and, guys, I want you to be thinking about some of the female leaders on your team who maybe could benefit from a community of other women leaders that are learning and growing together. Again, send them to www. get4 sight. com slash Women in Leadership. That's wwwGet4sightcom slash Women in Leadership. All right, friends, I hope this episode was helpful. Let me know what you thought. Send me an email. You can email us at podcast at Get4sightcom. You can connect with us on Instagram and Facebook at Get4sight. That's G-E-T, the number four S-I-G-H-T dot com, and we will see you next week.