Created to Lead

Developing the female leaders around you with Kadi Cole

• The Foursquare Church • Season 1 • Episode 5

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0:00 | 45:35

Discovering the pathway and obstacles that women face as they advance in leadership and find their voice.

If you're a seasoned pastor, an emerging leader or someone passionate about championing the call of women in the church, Created to Lead is for you. This limited series podcast is presented by Women's Mobilizers, Foursquare's initiative to discover, disciple, develop and deploy female leaders. This series of six conversations is hosted by Women's Lead Mobilizer Pastor Carrie Jenkins and Pastor Nakisha Wenzel. Each of the six episodes features an expert guest who covers important topics such as the value of shared leadership, navigating gender roles in ministry, developing female leaders, discipleship, the history of women in Foursquare leadership, egalitarian theology, and much more.

SPEAKER_00

A podcast dedicated to equip, inspire, and empower women in ministry leadership, women pastors, and anyone who believes in championing the call of women in the church. Each episode features conversations with hosts Carrie Jenkins and Nikisha Wetzel, along with expert guests who bring wisdom and practical tools in areas such as public speaking, discipleship, team development, egalitarian theology, and navigating gender roles in ministry. We'll also shine a light on the powerful legacy of women in the fourth winter. This is Creative Delete.

SPEAKER_02

So we are going to have such a wonderful episode today. We're going to be discussing developing the female leaders around you, discovering the pathways and obstacles that women face as they advance in leadership and find their voices. You guys, we have today none other than Miss Katie Cole. Round of applause. Welcome, welcome.

SPEAKER_03

We're so excited. Yes, and everything within us is trying not to fangurl over this. She really is a subject matter expert and can't wait to grow with you on this episode. So let's jump right on in. We give a huge warm welcome to Dr. Katie Cole, who is with us today. Welcome, Katie, for joining us.

SPEAKER_01

We're so excited to have you here today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here with you guys and with the people listening and have this great conversation.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you. We feel like the works that you've create uh curated over the years of your ministry and work expertise expertise is going to really just go alongside with our directives with this podcast. And uh Pastor Nikisha, go ahead. You want to zero it?

SPEAKER_02

Totally fangirling. Like I know it works like we're cool, calm, and collected. We are not. Okay. We are so excited. Yes. Um we were both introduced to you at Exponential Conference. I heard you on the main stage. Pastor Carey went to one of your breakouts. And you just left such a huge impression on us. And so we're really big fans. I had to say that before we did anything else.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you both.

SPEAKER_03

You really are. Um you are being able to operate in spaces that we desire to see more women operate and walk in. And you have such a gracious, gracious way of utilizing your voice to really bring both men and women together and to raise awareness for how can we develop the female leaders around us. Um talk about the mindfield, talk about the different things that can trip us up, but also honestly, what are the benefits of us all working together and seeing women reach their full potential in whatever area of expertise or ministry opportunity they have? So I just have to say thank you for what you have put together, and we are we're all benefiting from it. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

Well, thank you so much. And I love what you all are doing. I hope we all just do the peace that God has for us, and uh I think we'll see great things happen in the next 20 years, really. I think we're just on the beginning of seeing a real wave of leadership development for women in the church. It's gonna make a huge difference in the kingdom.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, I think so too. I want to go off script just a little bit here. So if you want to say that, ask a fun question. You are newly married, right?

SPEAKER_01

That is true, yes. We are four months in. Oh, that's great. Good for you. Okay.

SPEAKER_03

So, what is one of the most wonderful parts of being just newly married that you are really enjoying this season of your marriage right now?

SPEAKER_01

Oh gosh. Well, I'm in my 50s, and so getting married at this age is not something you like dream about or think about really in your life. And so um, I think one of the most beautiful pieces is just how easy it has been for us to kind of come together and connect our lives. And he's in ministry also. And so just the overlap of that and the joy of that and the fun it is at this season of life to be able to partner with someone. Um, yeah, it's just a really, I mean, I did not expect this. God sort of dropped this in my lap out of the blue. And uh, it has been just such a, yeah, just such an unexpected blessing and treat.

SPEAKER_03

I love that. We've kind of all watched from the sidelines and just been like excited and cheer for you, and we're happy and like so. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

We're so cheesy. It is ridiculous. We roll our eyes at ourselves. It is just ridiculous. So, yes, but I'm enjoying every minute of it.

SPEAKER_03

I'm so glad to hear that. That is wonderful. Great, great news today. Oh, good. Well, I'm glad that you're able to partner together and that obviously you support one another in ministry. You're like literally living out um what you have been teaching on and I won't say preaching on, but in a sense, but that's what you've been really curating. And so being able to really live it out in real life and supporting one another and that. Um, so just thank you. Just I'm excited to see what comes from this, even like in the future, what you may bring to us as well. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

I appreciate that. Uh yeah, appreciate your encouragement and support with it also.

SPEAKER_03

Ah, you're welcome. You're welcome. Well, I wanted to ask you because um when it comes to specifically like female leaders in the church, that's that's our area that Pastor Nikisha and I are in. We're both pastors. Um, we've we've been in our positions for a while. Um, but when it comes to that, there are some minefields. I know you've talked about this a little bit, and sometimes bringing awareness to those minefields, some people just don't know. Uh and so could you talk? Because I feel like you do a really good job of like describing those. What are some minefields that need to be navigated to kind of release women to their fullest potential?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well, I think one of the biggest ones is this is a pretty loaded topic. And for people who are new to church or new to um like the Christian ministry world, uh, it's usually kind of a surprise because it's not something we see in the rest of our culture. It's not something we see as black and white in the marketplace anymore. But it is still a really prominent controversial issue in the church. And part of it is theological, part of it is cultural, part of it is personal. And my posture has always been uh, I think we all have different spaces and places. It's considered a secondary theological issue, which means people who really love God and know the Bible really well make big cases on both sides of the spectrum of what those boundaries are. And so because of that, it's just a very loaded topic. And uh people have different experiences with it, both men and women, it can be a very emotional topic. And so I think the first thing is just to acknowledge that this is a really sort of big, hairy, um, emotional and charged topic for a lot of people when they begin to talk about, which is why it's so important for people like you to be having conversations and podcasts because it helps us have language, it gives us ideas and different perspectives and ways to think around it that aren't quite so personal. Uh, and it's it kind of allows us to think more theoretical about it rather than just, you know, me or what people value about me or my spouse or, you know, all those kinds of things. And so if we don't acknowledge that, sometimes we bump into issues around this that blow people up, or you get big reactions, or your job is on the line and you have no idea what you did wrong. And so just acknowledging that I think is one of the biggest um challenges and mindfields of it, and that we all come with such different perspectives on it. Um, so that's the first thing. And I've got resources around that, a theological cheat sheet and some other things that try to help just give language to that, that I would encourage people to start looking into it. It's okay if you uh never change your theology, it's okay if you shift it a little bit or take big leaps. It's okay if you don't even want to do the theological thing and just look at other stuff, but you have to know what you're going into and knowing know that everybody else has buttons, hot, you know, like kind of hot buttons around this that can get pushed easily. Uh so that's the first thing. The second thing is we have all pretty much globally grown up with biases around gender. And uh just like we have to acknowledge that there are biases around race, even if your individual journey is different than the collective journey, the collective journey informs our practices, our organizational habits. We all have bias at some level. And if we don't admit that, we're really, you know, lying to ourselves and causing a disservice. In fact, the research says that the more you think you don't have bias, the more biased you actually are. So just a discautionary tale to anyone who wants to go around bragging about how not biased they are. Yeah. We know differently. And so we have to stay really humble about this topic and acknowledge that we grew up in families where mom did this and dads did this. Or, you know, I mean, we're coming up, you know, on just family practices about like in the holidays, men do these things and women do these things, and we don't even realize how those have kind of like enculturated into our mindset. Or depending on if you're in the United States, where you grew up in the country, gender has really different significances in Dallas, Texas than it does in Seattle, Washington. And so it we carry those with us, and those are wonderful things to know about yourself when you go into this conversation. So those are kind of the two um big areas that I think are helpful to keep in mind as we jump into it. Uh, and it's the reason it's a controversial topic is we all come from such different spaces around that that have even nothing to do with church and the church we're in right now. It has to do with where we come from and the things we bring with us that we don't recognize.

SPEAKER_02

It's so good. Those of you who think you don't have biases are actually more likely to have biases. Probably have like that's a bias in itself that you think you don't.

SPEAKER_03

And can I give a shout out because your theological cheat sheet? Can I I can't say that too fast? Don't say it too fast. Let's not say that fast three times. Okay. Yeah. Your theological cheat sheet has been so helpful because it's a kind of a where are you? Like even when you're having discussions with other people, this has helped me significantly to go, okay, again, because they have a bias or their life has been framed, uh, how they've been raised, their family of origin really informs them, um, even church experience. So me to go, okay, just look at this. Where do you feel like you land when it comes to family dynamics, ministry, the workplace? And that has really helped to clear up a lot of conversations. Because I might be over here, but you know, I was raised here. Like just if you look at it as at the graph, and just thank you for that. Because that's been really a good launching pad for conversation. But also to identify, well, and you were saying earlier, I was thinking the um the biases are it helps us to have empathy and sensitivity to others when we have this charged conversation instead of because we're so polarized today, right? I mean, we all feel like we have to pick a side. Um what this does is it allows us to say, I can see this from another perspective. It doesn't change who I am, but also it allows me to appreciate they're on their journey. And what's hard is sometimes when you've had a healthy, maybe you've had a f healthy family upbringing, healthy church, and there were strong gender roles. Like, and so in some ways when you go, oh, I haven't thought about it this way, sometimes it feels like an attack on on your past or on your formation, and you're like, but that's not saying it was bad. Yeah, like we can all evolve and grow, hopefully, like in the Lord and our understanding of scripture and what that is. So um, what you said really helps us to navigate those particular mindfields for sure.

SPEAKER_02

And Katie, I just love your content so much for those who are listening. Could you describe the difference between the sticky floor, the stained glass ceiling, the glass cliff, the broken rung? Could you just explain it for our listeners?

unknown

Sure.

SPEAKER_01

So these are four different pieces of research about female leaders, and I find it really helpful. Um, you may not relate to all of these, but almost everyone I know relates to at least one, if not all of them. Uh, and I found when I was researching for the book, this kind of research was really enlightening to me because one of the reasons I care so deeply about this topic, is you were just saying I grew up in a very conservative environment, which was an amazing place to grow up. And they actually gave me a lot of license to be myself and to lead, but I didn't actually see any women leading or ever holding the microphone. And so that it created a tension in me that I didn't even know was there. And um, as I started researching the book, I started to realize there are some biases I held against myself that I was choosing to keep in place that I didn't, I didn't have to live with that. And so this research is really designed. The reason I care about educating all of us about this is it allows us to reflect and say, does this relate to me? Am I limiting what God can do with me because of my own mindset? Um, and that doesn't have anything to do with other people or systems or organizational whatever. These are things that we um kind of can navigate and think through differently for ourselves. So the first one is the sticky floor. This is one of my favorite. And uh, we there are some barriers to women, and there are some, you know, there's like the glass ceiling, which are those invisible barriers that prevent women from accelerating in the church world. We call it the stained glass ceiling. So there are these pieces, and that's another whole topic. But for us as individual female leaders, trying to answer the call that God's put on our life and faithfully steward the gifts He's given us, the sticky floor are actually those conversations and mindsets within ourselves that keep our feet stuck to the floor. Uh, so there's a piece of research that talks about how men and women apply for jobs or promotions differently. When a guy looks at a new opportunity, a job description, uh, they're offered a promotion, when they read through the job description, if they feel confident of about 60% of what's on the job description, they apply for the job, they you know, kind of figure they'll probably get it. And when they get it, they, you know, they Google it, they call their dad, they fake it till they make it. But their mindset is I'm gonna learn and crush this job. Now, when a woman applies for a job, she has a totally different response to reading the job description. She needs to feel confident of a hundred percent of what's on the job description from the first day or she won't even apply for the job. She won't even apply. She doesn't even give the leaders a chance to acknowledge or decide if she she disqualifies herself. And let me just ask: if you're doing a new job or taking a promotion, the chances of being good at everything on the job from the first day of a job you've never done before is zero. Like no one goes into a job that way. We hold ourselves to these standards because we don't want to fail. We don't want to embarrass ourselves or our family. We don't want to, you know, disappoint God. And so we hold ourselves to these standards and we pull ourselves out of the running. And you too know, you're pastors in leadership. When you go to look for leaders, you're looking for the people who are interested in leadership. You're looking for the people who are raising their hand and putting their name in the hat and are hungry to do something. And many, many, many qualified, gifted, called female leaders sit in the back and don't put themselves in the position of being considered a leader, not because they can't lead, but because they don't think they'll be perfect from the first day.

SPEAKER_03

That's so difficult. To put yourself under that kind of pressure. Yeah. That means even for us as leaders, I just thought of this. And that is when I am looking to identify a leader, someone that has, I look at their, yes, their qualifications, what but I also need to look beyond and see their potential because my hope is that they will grow and learn in their capacity and competencies within whatever I'm asking and inviting them to. Um, but even knowing Jesus, when he asks and calls us to things, rarely does he call us to things that we can do completely within our own strength. There's a level of like dependency on him and the voice of the Holy Spirit. Um, an element of faith that has to be like totally um a part of your journey of saying yes, like, okay, you're gonna call me to something. It's uncharted territory, it's the unknown. But yeah, if you have that sticky floor, you won't even do it. You won't even say yes, which is difficult.

SPEAKER_01

Well, one of the things we can do as leaders is really uh reach beyond the sticky floor. And these aren't research things that are only limited to women, they just tend to develop in people who are in environments where they are not commonly seen. So this is sort of research around women who grow up in mostly male populated leadership environments. But this can apply to anybody. So part of what we have to do as a leader is, like you said, look beyond and see, I wouldn't say like unfounded potential, but if someone is, you know, running a huge business and has multiple people reporting to them and then shows up in church and is afraid to volunteer for something, something is not connecting, right? She's not measuring herself appropriately. So one of the most powerful roles we can do as spiritual leaders is to actually help reframe that sticky floor mindset and speak truth around giftedness and calling. We can't really know our giftedness or our calling without a community around to affirm it. It's not like we dream up some calling and decide we're gonna do it for God. God affirms it through his people. And so one of our roles as leaders is to go to someone and say, hey, I just wanted to point out that we're looking for someone to run our first impressions team. That may not be anything controversial. Like, you know, we want someone, and you've been, you've been a greeter for 17 years, and you also have taken on organizing the volunteer list and you do all the training and you're the best one we have. And and you may not feel like it, but you've actually been doing this job. And I just want to point out that on these 10 things on the job description, you've already been doing seven of them for at least a year. We're gonna train you in these next three. We don't, these are key phrases. We don't expect you to be perfect from the first day. We're gonna check in with you. We'll give you a whole year to learn the job. Uh, we're gonna give you a mentor to answer. These are all things that help rewrite those lies she's believing in her head so that she can actually imagine herself taking this job, envision herself doing a good job, hearing from you that you actually see these things in her already. They're not out of reach for her, they're uh qualities she already has. All of that reframes for a female leader what's possible. And it's so easy to do because it's the reason you want her to take the job. And it's the reason you would give it to her. You don't have to make things up. This isn't prophetic. This is just reality checking against what's going on in her head that it's not reality for that way. So the second one that you'd mentioned is called the stained um or is the uh glass cliff. So uh we talked about the stained glass ceiling. The glass cliff are those opportunities that women are given that are high risk opportunities. So uh if you think about like on a cliff and you're sort of teetering on the edge of the cliff, it's uh a great potential role, um, but it has high risk. So my career is basically built off glass cliff opportunities. So I kind of went into ministry with the mindset if they're gonna give me a chance to lead, I'm gonna say yes, and we'll just sort of figure it out. God is gonna have to step in and help me. Um and so many women get those. In fact, in the marketplace research, we have more research around this in the marketplace. Uh what we find is uh Fortune 500 companies who are on the decline have a higher rate of women taking over as CEO. And the reason is because most men have a lot of opportunities for leadership jobs. Women don't have many opportunities. So when a guy gets offered, hey, here's a company declining, it needs turnaround, they're like, Yeah, I think I'm good where I'm at, or I'm gonna take this other job that's actually doing great. Uh, but women are like, you're gonna, you're gonna let me lead. And it's a turnaround. It it feels almost like uh they must really see something in me that they would give me this crashing company. Um, but so we don't recognize it for what it is, which is like, well, we'll go to tier two, I guess, of leaders. Uh, and most of us are so grateful for the opportunity. So we take it, and most of the research says when a female is taking a declining company, they actually have a very high rate of turning it around. But what happens is as the company starts to get rebuilt, uh, they're replaced by a male leader who then takes it.

SPEAKER_02

Katie, you should not have told me that elements that just happen in ministry. That just ruined my whole time. Oh my goodness. Yes. Yes. Wow.

SPEAKER_01

So this happens in ministry all the time. And I grew up doing these kinds of high-risk jobs, and I'm so grateful for it. I I actually am kind of built for it. I have wiring for it. I am a builder and an initiator. I don't like long-term management, but I had sort of uh framed those things for myself as I'm the turnaround person, I'm the hotshot crew, put me into the fire, I'm best in a crisis. I turn things around. What we don't take into account with Glasscliffe opportunities is the extra work it takes to turn something around versus just lead something that's already moving, the emotional cost it is to rally people against the odds, the leadership capital you have to spend in order to do that, and the relationships you leverage in order to make those things happen. It takes, it's way more stressful in all aspects of your life and all aspects of your leadership. So I'm not saying don't take a glass cliff opportunity. I actually think that space when things are struggling is prime real estate for female leaders to come in and learn how to lead, prove their leadership, gain momentum, gain respect, but you have to do it with eyes wide open. And you have to ask for what you need to succeed in a Glass Cliff opportunity so that you don't end up on the other side burnt out. This is why I ended up leaving my job, is I had back to back glass cliff opportunities. And what I should have asked for was a sabbatical for a job really well done on our, you know, four most difficult departments. And instead, I was like, I don't think I'm cut out for this. I am exhausted. I feel like I'm neglecting my family. I feel like I've spent, I've made enemies along the way because I like made people give up. Budget and I had to fire people. And you know, it costs a lot to turn things around and get them to the right. And so if you go into one, ask yourself, is this the right season for me to be taking this on? If I got a senior in high school and a kid in middle school who's struggling, this might not be the year to take on a glass cliff opportunity. But like now I'm in my 50s. My kids launched, my life is stable. Like now's the great time to take it on. I'm like, I got extra time. What am I gonna do? Like work out? Like I might as well go for it. So um, is this the season that I can take on something more? And then what do I need to do it? Do I need a new admin assistant? Do I need a raise, even if it's a temporary bonus to take on an extra job or uh give me a second job as a contract worker? Not because my value is different in this job, but because I might need to outsource something like house cleaning, cooking, which for in my world, when you outsource cooking, you just get to eat out every day, which I think is a fantastic use of resources. Uh you might need to get different childcare so that your kid is in an aftercare program they want to be in, not the one you're schlepping them to one day a week because you have to. Uh, you want to be able to like drive wherever you need to go. You want to be able to order clothes online, like get Instacart to deliver. What do you need to make this work? And then ask for what you need. Do you need an assistant director to take over your current job so that you can really focus on what this is going to take and give it your all? Um, and I want to encourage people, please don't give up your current departments that you've made that are now thriving to do a glass cliff. Keep them. You've built them, you might as well manage them from a distance and maintain your authority level. Don't trade a great team for an unhealthy one and then lose out on the ability to just gain the fruit of your labor. We planted all the seeds, reap the harvest while you do something.

SPEAKER_02

I think women are so often just thankful for the opportunities that they don't even realize they get to ask for more. Yeah. They're just so thankful to have been trusted or to have been empowered. You know, people have been using that word empowered as a buzzword for years. And so I just love that you kind of gave us permission to say, like, no, if I'm gonna take on more, I'm gonna need more in order to do more. And that's okay. I just love how freeing it is, what you just shared.

SPEAKER_03

No, that can I tag on that too? Because one thing I appreciated that you said is what can you outsource? Because so many women have, whether it's mom guilt, or do you know what I mean? There's roles that have been put on them. They're like, I can't outsource my house cleaning. Yes, you can. I know. Like fine, because where are your gifts best utilized? What is the strength? What can really what can you outsource? So thank you for giving us permission to take a holistic look at our lives, knowing what demands. Obviously, we're not surrendering parenting or if we're married or marriage, that type of a thing, but what can we in very practical ways? What can we outsource? Okay. So that where we are putting our best, you know, our gifts, especially if you're a high-level leader, you've got to be able to do that. And so And it's not a sign of weakness.

SPEAKER_02

I think, I mean, even imagining experiences I've had in the past, I would have been reluctant to admit that I need help or that I need extra support for fear of seeming weaker than my male counterparts, my male co-workers, when in reality, a lot of my male coworkers had wives who fully supported them and behaved as admin assistants. And so I was afraid of looking, you know, weaker than them or, you know, so I just love how awesome that observation is that you shared. That was really encouraging for me. That was really good. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01

Well, yeah, one thing to really keep in mind, another piece of research that's really valuable to know is what's called the double shift, which is most women, especially if you have a family, um, but even for single women, there is a different weight or load that happens when you get home. So a lot of my single um friends who are in ministry, they're caring for their parents or they're integrated into their neighborhood more because they're creating family for themselves. And so I want to just make sure we're not thinking this is only a married and motherhood issue. This is actually in many ways a female issue. And so, um, but specifically with a wife and mother, is that you work a whole day at your work and then you come home and you really do a double shift. Now you work a whole shift at home. You're getting dinner ready. If you're doing traditional things and you don't have a partner that's shit co-laboring well, but even the guys who think they're co-laboring 50%, the research is it's about 12%. And so their mentality around them is different.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, and in addition to that, they just did just dishes because I had to come back and do the dishes right. So, like, did he really do the dishes? Oh no.

SPEAKER_01

Well, we might need to, we might need to lower our standards then around that. Uh but even the mental load, because while we're at work, we're also scheduling the doctor's appointment or wondering how the homework went or getting the phone call that the t-shirt isn't right. There's all these other pieces that are happening that um that need to be carried by someone and women are are made. I mean, estrogen just primes us to be adaptable and managing multiple things at one time. Um, it's one of the reasons why when women go through menopause, that estrogen blanket comes off and they just stop caring about any of those things and they do one thing. They're like, where'd my brain go? And we're like, well, sorry, you lost your estrogen and you get to like, you get to operate like guys. You think about one thing at a time now, isn't it pretty? So navigating that, we can talk more about that. It's one of my favorite subjects right now, but um acknowledging all that you're carrying and being realistic with yourself. The very first stage of burnout is unrealistic goals. And so most women have extreme goals for themselves. So they don't only want to just like, you know, make holidays great for their kids. They're like, you know, hand stitching, matching pajamas for the perfect Christmas picture. I'm like, when you take things on like a glass cliff opportunity or you're just working full-time, it may be time to just like order those suckers online, you know, or maybe you just wear last year's pajamas and everyone just wears what they want to come, right? Now, if that's really important to you, then by all means prioritize it. But you can't make every single part of perfect motherhood the top priority. There has to be something you're okay outsourcing. So, one example, my best friend Karen and I, we've grown, we've known each other since we were 15. We both have careers in kind of the same, she's not in ministry, but we both do leadership training and development. Uh, we both have been parenting in the same generation. But when she outsources, she outsources things like tutoring. When she tries to tutor her kids, they fight, they battle. So she's got like executive coaches for her son, she's got tutors for her daughter. But when she's stressed, she starts cleaning. She cleans her house, she cleans her tub, she's toothbrushing the kitchen sink. That's how she processes and thinks. Now, that is not my strategy. Not one of my gifts is teaching. So when my son's struggling in math, I take a day off of work and we pull him out of school and we go to Panera with Cheerios and learn the times tables. Like I'm all over homework hours. That is a top priority for me when my son was growing up. But I outsourced housekeeping starting in college. The last thing I want to do is clean my toilet. That is not what I'm gonna do. Now we're both parenting great and we're both keeping good homes. We're doing it in different ways that align with our giftedness. So as a parent, you want all the right things for your kids. But how you go about doing it needs to be selective and strategic based on who God made you to be and how he wired you and what you can outsource to other people, whether it's dad or grandma or your kids in the fourth grade, it's time that they start doing their own laundry or whatever it is. You can delegate those things. Your job is to make sure it's done. Your job is not to do all the time. Can we double click that like? Yeah, no, seriously.

SPEAKER_02

Your job is to make sure it's done. Your job is not to do every single thing. I'm gonna go ahead and get that embroidered onto a bag.

SPEAKER_03

Please do, Nikisha. I feel like too, even you, in a sense, have like taken us behind the curtain of Oz. Like, just thank you of how you've explained the um different things that women deal with and struggle with, whether mentally, their own expectations of life, all that they carry. Because now other male and female leaders that are around them can be aware of this is this is a potential battle that they're struggling with. Or why do they seem burned out? Why do they seem run down? Or what can I do to create margin for them that will allow them to open up and lead more effectively? I mean, isn't that what it's all about, really? Is how can we help them lead to their best potential? And if it's a small sacrifice or it's something we could easily implement within our structure, our leadership structure, our church structure, to where more female leaders, whether it's providing childcare, if if the onus of home care of children falls on women, it usually does. Like, can we provide child care whenever there's a leadership meeting? Because then women leaders can come to the meeting instead of just one of the couple. Yes, that's right. It makes such a difference. Um I kind of want to pivot a little bit because I feel like we've talked about um those things that women fall into as far as whether it's sticky floor mindset, uh, the glass cliff. As women escalate and or uh continue to progress into higher levels of leadership, like I think the challenges differ there. Like there's a couple different nuances and things they have to navigate. Can you explain kind of what it means to go from whether it's middle management on up or beginning to middle management, like just from another leadership position? What are some of the things that because that's what we've got within I say our denomination, our movement, we do have women pastors that are in our movement. We have some that are co-pastoring and senior pastoring, but I believe there's more that are kind of stuck in between one position to the next or progressing forward. I'd love to hear hear that from you.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's a really great observation, and it's very normal for that to happen. And what we find in sort of organizational leadership pipelines, so kind of climbing it, we can, it's not really the corporate ladder because it's not always about getting to the right role. Some people are designed to be at certain levels. Um, but even if you don't go up the ladder in a role, you should be coming more and more of an expert where you're reaching out to train other people, to supervise other people, to expand. So um, as a leader of any kind, you should be always expanding what you're doing through influence. So either moving up the organization or moving out in mentoring, coaching others, designing curriculum, all that kind of stuff. So either one is valid, and you can see both in scripture um and in real life. So as we talk about this, keep that in mind. Um, but in the pipeline spaces of moving up into leadership roles, uh, there are uh research around, it's called the broken rung. If you think about it like a ladder, for women, there tends to be some broken rungs at key levels, and it moves from baseline entry-level roles into management, and then from management into director, and then director into senior leader. Those are sort of the four big chunks that women uh in the research drop off dramatically. So if now, not again, not everyone's gonna move up, but let's just, and I don't have the numbers accurately, so I'm making these numbers up as figurative, just to be clear on that. But um, if you have, you know, 80% of your men who enter into volunteer leadership move into coordinator or team lead, it's probably only 50% of women do that. And it's probably in areas where women can grow in leadership, children's ministry, greeters, that kind of thing. Now, when you go from kind of that team lead onto a staff role, then again, it might be 80% of men move forward and now only 30% of women move up. And that middle management role of um kind of overseeing departments, moving into director or higher levels, again, uh 70% of men maybe, and now we're down to 10% of women. This is why the pipelines get smaller and smaller of women. They get dropped off at these broken rung moments. And so a couple of things that are really important to look at that as leaders. First is if you're leading teams and departments, you can pull uh reports and find out where are the promotions happening. And again, just because of our culture, the way we think about leaders, the qualities we're looking for, the fact that women are stuck on the sticky floor and never apply for jobs, all of those things are reasons why they kind of drop off. But if we recognize it, we can start recruiting women differently. And so usually the goal is uh when you're interviewing for a job, to make sure 50% of the people you're interviewing are women. It doesn't mean you have to have 50% selected because we're still in a drought where not all women are qualified for jobs. So I'm not an advocate of putting women who are unqualified or not called or not able to do a job, but we begin to change the dialogue and we begin to change our mentality when we in when we discipline ourselves to interview at least 50% of the candidates women. So let's say you have 10 people who are applying for a youth pastor job. When you make sure five of them are women, I'll tell you what, you can fill up 20 guys to interview for that job in about two days. You just text a few people, put an ad out in the local seminary, you'll get all sorts of things. It will take you six months to get five qualified women into that interval pool because you have to reach out to different networks, you have to have different kinds of questions, you have to write the job description differently, you got to have a different kind of package that a woman would actually want to take. It challenges us to think about how do we recruit women into the process. And then we learn about these women when we interview them. We learn about who they are, we learn, and they may not be right for this role, but you guys don't know. You interview someone, and then six months later you're like, you know, who would be great for this new job? This girl I interviewed six months ago. So it put it just starts to change our mentality. And then our leadership team starts to get used to talking to women about leadership things in these interviews. So that's one of the most important things that we as leaders can look at as we go up the room. Now, as a woman, as you get promoted, I'm sorry, do you want to make comments on that? I tend to keep going. This is great. Thank you, Katie. Okay, so um, for us as female leaders, as we grow in leadership, one of the biggest challenges is that as you grow in leadership, you have to start making hard calls. You have to start confronting the person that used to be your best friend and has been with you for 15 years in ministry. And now all of a sudden, the job and your job isn't at a place where she can be your right hand anymore. She doesn't have the skills, she doesn't have the time, the relationship has gotten funky, like all sorts of things happen. Um, that happens to guys also, and they struggle with it, but the repercussions aren't as deep. For women, our relational nature, the network of female relationships that tend to support us get really hit as you grow in leadership. And women often feel like they're caught in this uh rock and hard place or this crossroads. They call it a double bind in the research because you're sort of bound up with whatever you choose. Do I want to be liked or do I want to be respected as a leader? Am I liked as a woman or respected? When men make those hard calls, when they cut a budget, when they have to fire someone, when they have to change the dynamic in a relationship, when they have to not have their best friend on the elder board anymore because of conflict of interest, they tend to be, it's hard and it's stressful, but they tend to be both more respected and more liked when they make those calls. Women tend to lose credibility in one or the other. So if you make a job or you make a call that makes you more respected, you are unliked by people. And if you make a call that makes you liked by people, they don't respect you as a leader. So we feel caught between those two things. Now, that's the reality of bias around gender. It's so helpful to know that because you can decide. If you're in a church of a hundred people and everyone in your family goes there and all of your friends have come to Christ in the last five years from high school, I would probably choose to be liked. Like so your church doesn't grow as fast as it could. That is a really valid reason because you're still in the relational nature of growing church. But if you're in a church of 2,500 and God is blessing and scaling, and your leadership is getting stretched, and you know you're supposed to go up, or you know you're supposed to lead at a higher level, or you know you got more leadership in the tank and you want to give it a go, then you probably need to choose to be respected as a leader more than to be liked by your middle school friends. And that is a hard decision, but in the long run, both end up happening from the right people. It's not the same people, but the both tend to, when you make that choice at the right moment, both happen, but it may be from different persons.

SPEAKER_03

And even thinking, I know you used the example of a woman as a pastor of a 2,500-member church, she's probably been making those incremental changes in her decisions all along the way and has probably felt the the whether whether it's a cut or whatever, you know, you're there's a tearing away, right? There's a grieving process of letting go of feeling a sense of loss of either one of those things. But seeing uh for her to get to her to that place, um, it's not the first time she's probably had to make those kinds of decisions. Never thought of it that way, that a woman it might suffer one or the other, where for our male counterparts, uh, they still elevate in both areas of being likable as well as well respected. Um men and women, it's I I think I know for I can speak for Nikisha and myself both, but we are where we are because both men and women have deposited in our lives. They have given us opportunity, they've believed in us, they've seen our potential and really opened up doors and opportunities. Um kind of would you explain just to us? This is one question I wanted to ask you, and that is the benefit of men and women working together. Because that's ultimately our God. It's not that we don't because to me, when there's an imbalance, when there's only male leadership presence, or if it's only women leadership present in something, there's like we need one another. Like the full Imago Day, if you want to say that, partnering together. But would you share kind of like what you've seen in your area of expertise, the benefits uh of men and women working together?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean the best metaphor for all of those pieces, um, because I am a big you know, together person. That's kind of like my goal is I'm not interested in just women leading. I want men and women to lead together. And uh the the best illustration for that is to remember why we have church is to raise up young disciples into strong disciples who have their own disciple children, right? It's a family metaphor that Paul gives us. And when we look at a family like a regular family, and a parent is missing, a mom is a mom has died, and there's a dad raising five kids, we all know those kids are missing something. We know it. We know it to our core. Even if they're 30 years old when their mom dies, they're we know they're gonna miss something. And for those of us who have had great moms, we want to help supplement that. And the same thing would happen if you had a single mom whose husband died or left or whatever the circumstances, but you've got kids without a dad. We there's so much research around kids without a dad. We don't have as much research as kids without a mom, but that's what we, those are the kinds of disciples we grow in our churches every week, is motherless disciples. They have strong spiritual dads and they have almost no spiritual moms. We've seen it in the marketplace where we have male-dominated leadership, is we have a whole bunch of young leaders coming up with dad leadership mantras, voices, like, and that's been very we actually need that. So we've been missing motherhood voices. This is why a Brene Brown is creating such a disruption in it because she's coming with a female motherhood voice that's saying, Hey, let's talk about soft skills. Hey, let's talk about vulnerability, let's talk about emotional connection at work, let's talk about the power of community. She's talking about things that moms teach kids. And so now dads teach kids that too, but in sort of the way that men and women have been operating and kind of our gender spaces, we have a whole bunch of people that are leading that are motherless. And so what we want is for every kid in a business, in a family, and in a church to have great spiritual moms and great spiritual dads. That's how you make a whole person. So part of what we have to do as we grow is we don't want to give up our spiritual dads mentoring and leading. So in fact, we need them because they're the ones populating leadership. But we have to acknowledge that our moms haven't been leading much. And so just because I've got five female mentors who are married to the pastor and been leading women's ministry for 20 years, she's never been an executive pastor. She's probably never had to fire someone, she's never had to make decisions that have ripple effects on people's families. She's she's not been in the likability, respect, bias gap before. Right. So it doesn't discredit all that she's giving me. It just says, I'm not getting the same thing I can get from a dad who's led for a long time and can address that. So when we fall into the trap that women need to be mentored by other women and men need to be mentored by other men in leadership, we're really missing out on the people who have leadership experience. And when guys naturally want to mentor in leadership other young men and don't make space in their leadership uh kind of repertoire to put women in those spaces, we're we're underparenting the leadership development of the leadership.

SPEAKER_02

What a great picture.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Wow. Thank you for that. And for putting just the perfect words to express what is missing when there truly is an absence of male or female leadership in context. That is, I'll tell you what, today. Um, can I say thank you? You've not only helped to bring language too, um. But also painted an incredible picture for us to know how to develop the female leaders around us, how to identify them, how to champion, how to discover the gaps. I say in a a woman's leadership, but honestly, let's look at the gaps as a holistically as a a church, a community in our leadership team. So thank you, Katie.

SPEAKER_02

I think Nikisha and I both could just say this was so encouraging, so inspiring. I know people are gonna be really, really blessed.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, we are. So thank you again. And I hope that we can have you again in the future in some capacity, just to be a voice that speaks into us as a, I'm gonna say as a denomination, as a movement, because what you bring is exceptional and things that we need to hear. So thank you for being on the Creative to Lead podcast today. It's been amazing and we appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01

Well, thank you both so much, and thank you for what you're doing to encourage and equip and champion women. It really does make a difference. The future is going to be built together. And so when we make pathways and we have people like you championing that inside organizations and then in ways that are going to reach the world through a podcast like this, it really is the thing that's going to make the difference. So thanks for the work and effort I know you all are putting into it and moving on the front line of that.

SPEAKER_03

Well, today was such a rich conversation, and again, looking forward to even more resources that we get down the pike from Katie. But again, thank you for joining us on this Created to Lead podcast and catch you next time. Yeah, see you then.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you for listening to Created to Lead Podcast. Don't miss a single episode by subscribing to our channels on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts today.