LEADERSHIP
Leadership defines our faith and our world. Despite our beloved anti-authoritarian streak, we appreciate inspiring, visionary, loving leadership. My leadership style is one of "leading with." I am naturally collaborative, and enjoy working with others towards a shared vision. Our faith is rooted in shared principles, and leadership calls us back to those principles again and agian. Leadership also has a sense of the horizon, a sense of where we are going, and what it will take for us to get there together. Leadership calls us to focus on what matters most as a people.
In this section, you will find information on:
-
Leadership in Unitarian Universalism (see also: UU Witness)
Leadership in Unitarian Universalism
Environmental Justice Collaboratory
I currently serve on the Steering Commitee of the Environmental Justice Collaboratory, a new UU group that brings together representatives from a number of current UU organizations in order to construct a more wholistic approach to justice issues. We work to bring issue-based groups into conversation with one another, challening our Unitarian Universalist institutions to see the intersections of race, class, gender, and the environment. I am currently co-editing a book on the subject with Rev. Manish Mishra-Marzetti entitled Crossing Lines: Embodying Our Environmental Justice Commitment.
Chicago Area Liberal Ministers team for Racial Justice
Last year, the Chicago Area Liberal Ministers selected me to serve on a new team on racial justice. We have created resources and facilitated trainings and discussions for UU ministers on racial justice. Our team produced a theology of racial justice for this Black Lives Matter moment in history, which I curated and edited. We are building momentum in Chicago for racial justice.
Candidate Liaison to the Ministerial Fellowship Committee
The MFC is the denominational body with jurisdiction over all phases of ministerial credentialing. Each year, they invite four recently fellowshipped ministers to serve as liaisons to the Committee. As one of these four liaisons, I was invited to fully participate in the Committee’s Spring 2015 meeting: I read all the candidates’ packets; participated in all three days of the interviews; collaborated in the Committee’s decision-making process; and attended the Committee’s business meeting. It was a moving and insight-provoking opportunity to witness the process by which our credentialing body makes the decisions about what candidates are qualified to serve as Unitarian Universalist ministers. I was honored to have been invited to serve in the process.
Organizational Development
Leadership Development
Leadership developoment is key to building any organization, especially one run by volunteers. I have over 10 years of experience training and developing new leaders in volunteer-led organizations. Prior to becoming a minister I worked in non-profits. I trained interns, recruited grassroots organizers, led several canvasses, and built organizations on volunteer strength. In my ministry, I have relied on my skills with leadership development to build new teams for social justice, bolster struggling committees, and share vibrant ministry with burgeoning lay leaders. At Third Unitarian, I created a now-thriving Worship Associates team. My Transition Team has come together to create a new small group ministry program. The new Action in Austin team is driving the congregation deeper and more fully into its mission. I have recruited two new committee chairs to replace leaders who told me they were hoping to step down.
Policy Governance
I learned the transformative power of policy governance from Unity Consulting, a UU consulting organization whose mission is to "liberate the leadership of progressive congregations ... to awaken compassion, transform lives, and bless the world." The governance model is a tool that will release the leadership of a congregation to do what it does best, in order for it to succeed. The transformative power of the model lies in its capacity to clarify roles and responsibilities among leaders so that they can lead. At Unity-Church Unitarian, a large UU congregation in St Paul, I served on the Executive Team, and, as such, participated in drafting the Executive Team's interpretations of the congregation's Ends Statements, which had been prepared by the Board. I was also part of the ensuing dialogue between the Executive Team and the Board honing the understanding of The Ends--where the congregation is being called over the next five years--and what that will look like in terms of concrete measures of how the Executive will get there (The Means). It is a beautiful and vexing process of articulating the vision of transformation the congregation most desires to enact, and then attempting to materialize measurable steps towards that transformation.
Third Unitarian church has adopted Policy Governance in theory, but in practice has more of a hybrid between a Policy Governance model and a Committe-centered governance model. This year, I have been working with the Board to more clearly articulate roles, responsibilities, and lines of authority in the congregation. I have been giving brief presentations and facilitating discussions for about 30 minutes at every Board Meeting this year in order to bring them closer to a defined governance model in both theory and practice. The program will bring them to a place by the end of the year where they understand Policy Governance and how it works so that they will have the capacity to begin using it fully for tranformative leadership next year.
Cultural Competency in Leadership
Third Unitarian particularly needs an anti-racist orientation and cross-cultural skills, as it is a majority white (~85% white, 15% people of color) congregation in a majority African American neighborhood. In my ministry with them, I have focused on developing anti-racist analysis and cross-cultural competency. My ministry team organized an Intercultural Competency workshop in June 2015. We targeted the leaders at Third in order to have the greatest cultural impact, and about 90% of them attended. The Rev. Adam Robersmith of Second Unitarian Church led the “Who Are Our Neighbors?” workshop, which gave participants a framework for understanding how to communicate across difference. Leaders learned the Development Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS), which showed how we can learn to communicate more effectively across difference and gave us tools for that learning, including a better understanding of ourselves and our conflict styles. It gave us learning goals specific to our stage of experience and ability with cross-cultural communication. At the end of the workshop, we talked about how to bring some of the concepts into our congregation and our work in the community. The model tells us that "differences make a difference" in every setting--whether that be race, class, culture, gender, sexual orientation, or any other difference that might be key in our interactions.
My ministry team and I followed up a month later with small group conversations among workshop participants, exploring their learning, their questions, and their intentions for bringing what they learned into their work in the church. Participants expressed a desire for continued learning and deepening relationships across difference, and leadership is creating those opportunities.
Management
I manage through what is called the “authoritative management style”—working with staff to guide them in developing their goals for the year, and then tracking the work on those goals. At Third Unitarian I have created a formal system for staff evaluation and supervision. I have monthly one-on-one supervision meetings with each team leader of my staff. They have clear job descriptions, goals, and get regular feedback from me. I expect them to own their work towards their goals and I hold them accountable for progress or lack thereof. I am an encouraging team leader--I support them in their work, praise them regularly, and make clear that we are all in this together, driving the mission and the vision of the church. I organize an annual staff retreat, at which we discuss office systems, working as a team, navigating conflict, and internal communications systems. During my time at Third, I have overseen 100% turnover of core staff. High turnover is normal during transition, as people often decide to move on as the transition is happening. I have developed new leaders on my staff, trained them in, and created a new staff team.
Executive Functions
The Third Unitarian Chalice Team
Adminstration and Operations
I came into ministry with more than a decade of experience in administration and operations. In my previous career I managed databases, created and maintained organizational systems, and developed processes for large numbers of people to share access to data and resources. In a number of my positions, I was the first staff person hired to manage large, sometimes international and national systems of people and information. I created systems out of chaos and then adjusted them for maximum efficiency in a variety of areas: travel; communications; websites; United Nations documentation; negotiations; drafting consensus language for statements and policies. I have created and managed dozens of programs. At Third Unitarian, I created a new system for tracking maintenance projects.
In my previous career, I developed budgets, tracked expenses, and reported on them. At Third Unitarian, I have been involved in the budget process and in tracking expenses. We were without an Office Administrator for a month and a half, and during that time, I processed payments in Quickbooks, wrote checks, paid the bills, and managed the other administrative work of a congregation.