Is joy an underrated asset in your leadership? In our latest article, Matt Rusten explores why joy, much like humor, plays a vital role in building a thriving company culture. From increasing team engagement to fostering resilience, joy can transform workplace dynamics and inspire purpose-driven work. Discover three key ways to cultivate joy in your organization and why it’s essential for leaders who seek both results and fulfillment.
‘Do not worry.’ We’ve read Matthew 6:25-34 in the Sermon on the Mount, but what does that look like on a day-to-day, minute-by-minute basis? God knows our every worry, fear, and concern – and He can handle it. Many thanks to Darrell Passwater, Convene Forum Team leader, for his encouragement to think about how our lives might be different by truly living out this scriptural principle.
Got a quick minute to chat? I’ve been wanting to share something with you as you lead in the midst of the election cycle in the USA or when your political election takes place in your country. When the dust settles on the election and the new country leader is declared, one thing will still be as true as it is right now. You’ll still be the one leading your firm the day after the election. Your team members will still come to work the day after the winner is declared. They’ll still be looking to you for leadership, for a paycheck, for a sense of community at their workplace.
What do they want most that only you can deliver? It’s meaning. That meaning they’re looking for begins with you and your leadership. To be sure, what Washington DC does actually can impact your business significantly, however, the president of the United States or the leader of any country does not lead your firm. You do. It’s an enterprise entrusted to you to lead as a steward. It’s a place where people look to you for answers, where people want to be part of a team that cares about them and where people want to be valued, appreciated, and loved. The next president of the country will not show up this week at your office to encourage your team, fix a broken piece of equipment, hire the next team member, sell a big account, or cast a bold vision about how your team will reach your goals and impact the culture.
As we find ourselves mid-October and a blink away from a new calendar year, it is an opportunity to prepare for how we view transitions. Transitions allow for reflection and renewal, for letting go and beginning anew, and for learning from the past and creating the future. Instead of laying out trends for the next year, I would like to comment on a fundamental enabler of any transition: hope. Leaders who want to improve, CEO’s who work toward excellence, HR professionals who aspire to deliver more value, and employees who seek well-being all achieve their transitions by realizing hope.
Hope integrates many of the positive traits that shape transitions for others and matter to me personally: learning, patience, service, faith, humility, optimism, gratitude, and so forth. I send hundreds of formal and informal e-mails every month to invite people to programs, to thank people for attending programs, to check in on those I mentor, and to stay connected to those I care about. I begin almost every one of these notes with “Hope you are well.” Hope is one of my personal desires, tag lines, and biases and an enabler of any transition.
If I could implant one trait in my family, friends, and colleagues who are undergoing continual transition, it would be hope.
I gazed into the faces of two of my brand-new granddaughters this past week as our family welcomed Violet Fisher and River Leith to planet earth. I couldn’t help leaning down and putting my cheek on their cheek and whispering, “I love you…everything’s gonna be okay.” It was a special moment coming face to face with new life, life that was clearly only able to be created by the power of God to create from nothing.
"How about if we send wreaths to our pastors at church?" My wife suggested this while I was in the process of ordering Maine balsam pine wreaths for my Convene members for Christmas. We used to do this several years earlier but due to budget constraints the last several years, we had forgone it. This year would be different. For two of our four pastors I didn’t have home addresses, so I had their wreaths shipped to our home so I could personally deliver them. They arrived the week after Thanksgiving so I took them to the church. Not finding either pastor present, I left the boxed wreaths in their offices. As I came out of the building, I ran into one of the pastors, John David Crowe, our youth pastor, and we began chatting about how he and his wife were doing. In April of this year he and his wife Jessica had lost their four-year-old son Noah to cancer. This has been a particularly hard year for them.
As we chatted his wife Jessica came out of the building, walked up to me and hugged me. She had found the wreath in the office, and she seemed extremely grateful for the gift. She then asked me quietly, “How did you know?” I replied that I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, and she asked again, “How did you know?” She then turned to John David and mentioned the wreath, and he teared up as he began to explain how he had told Jessica earlier in the month that he couldn’t have Christmas this year. He couldn’t have the tree and all the trimmings. He couldn’t have any of those things that would remind him that his son Noah was not going to be there for this Christmas.
But Jessica had to have something that said Christmas. Not something big, just something that would remind her of this important season, in spite of her deep hurt. So the day before I came to the church she asked John David if she could at least get a wreath for Christmas. He said she could. And God appointed me to deliver it the next day.
We stood in the parking lot weeping. Weeping over the joy of knowing a Savior who sees to all our needs, before we even see them ourselves. And as we talked and praised God, our tears turned to laughter as we started to imagine the kind of Christmas that Noah was going to have with Jesus—a Christmas that we couldn’t begin to think about—but a Christmas that Noah would never want to miss out on.
This Christmas Eve John David preached a wonderful sermon on “Being Like Shepherds,” and he coined a word I’ve never heard before: Godsequence. As he said the word I flashed back to our wreath experience, and I knew just what he was speaking about. I silently praised God that He allowed me to witness that Godsequence.
