Integrity Ideas are specific actions a leader can consider during the Re-Align step of Integriosity^®–actions that will begin to Re-Align the organization with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities.  You can find more Integrity Ideas at Integrous | Integrity Ideas (integriosity.com)

INTEGRITY IDEA: Nurture Nathans

While many Biblical characters remain obscure, Nathan is pretty well known. He is most recognized as the friend who courageously spoke truth to King David and held him accountable after the Bathsheba incident.  But Nathan served several other important roles in David’s life. “Nurture Nathans” is about a faithful leader identifying and empowering trusted friends and advisors who will speak truth to them (e.g., holding them accountable, pointing out blind spots, and raising difficult issues) and also provide faithful counsel to help guide their leadership.

Integrity Ideas are practical actions toward implementing a bigger WHY for the organization.  We believe some are critical (and necessary) steps in the RENEW/RE-ALIGN/RE-IMAGINE/RESTORE process.  Others are just ideas to be considered if they feel like a good fit based on what leaders prayerfully discern is best for stewarding the organization toward its WHY.  We believe it is critical for every faithful leader to have one or more Nathans speaking into their life.

It is likely you are familiar with the story of David, Nathan and Bathsheba.  Here is a quick refresher:

• King David sees the married Bathsheba bathing on a rooftop, succumbs to temptation, and has a sinful relationship with her.

• David eventually arranges the death of her husband Uriah to cover up the mess.

• God sends David’s friend Nathan to confront him with a story of a man who engages in a selfish act analogous to David’s. When David is angered by the conduct of the man in the story and declares “the man who has done this deserves to die“, Nathan responds, “You are the man!“

But Nathan’s role in David’s leadership was broader and longer lasting than just the Bathsheba story. For example:

• In 2 Samuel 7:2-17, we see God use Nathan to guide David in the building of the temple.

• In 1 Kings 1, Nathan intervenes to ensure David’s planned succession to Solomon was not undermined by Adonijah.

David was a man after God’s heart, but he still needed Nathan. Even in the most faithful leaders, temptations, power, pride, and fear can blind leaders to sin and compromise. Even the most faithful leader can benefit from trusted advisors and friends to help guide their leadership.

Seeking and receiving wise counsel is certainly a Biblical principle and priority:

Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety. (Proverbs 11:14)

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice. (Proverbs 12:15)

Without counsel plans fail, but with advisors they succeed. (Proverbs 15:22)

In abundance of counselors there is victory. (Proverbs 24:6)

But a Nathan goes beyond merely an advisor. Faithful leaders will likely have many advisors such as lawyers, accountants, tax advisors, financial advisors, and business consultants. Nathans are those who care for the leader and the purpose of the organization enough to risk discomfort in order to guard the leader’s heart, the organization’s integrity, and the legacy of the leader and the organization.

“Nurture Nathans” goes beyond breaking down what we called organizational Wisdom Silos and Information Silos in post #112 (Silos are for Farms (and Famines)-Organizational Silos). Those silos can prevent leaders from having have access to ideas, wisdom, knowledge and experience of other people in the organization necessary to make the best decisions for the organization and its stakeholders.

“Nurture Nathans” is more personal. A Nathan must be someone who shares the organization’s and the leader’s Biblical values and priorities and who understands and supports the organization’s pursuit of faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing.  A Nathan must be someone without conflicting interests who is willing to put the flourishing of the faithful leader and the organization over their own self-interest.

“Nurture Nathans” is more spiritual. A Nathan must also be someone who understands the nature of spiritual resistance, is willing to submit their role to prayer, and is able to surrender their will to God’s will in guiding the leader, even at the risk of losing the leader’s friendship.

When we look at the story of Nathan and David, we see that Nathan was often obediently following God’s lead in guiding and correcting David. In the Bathsheba incident, we are told “the Lord sent Nathan to David.” When Nathan guided David in the building of the temple, Scripture says “the word of the Lord came to Nathan.” In saving Solomon’s succession, Nathan was helping David keep his oath, because it was a succession that David had sworn to Bathsheba “by the Lord“.

Leaders are human, and a faithful leader pursuing the counter-cultural goal of business a better way toward Biblical flourishing will face resistance, including in the form of temptations, power, pride, and fear. Although this resistance may come in the form of resistance from worldly systems, the Bible tells us that these challenges are spiritual:

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.  (Ephesians 6:12)

Throughout Scripture, we see leaders fall to temptations, power, pride and fear. 1 Corinthians 10:6-13 provides a warning to faithful leaders:

Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. 

But it also offers a promise, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”  “Nurture Nathans” is nurturing a “way of escape”

Like seeking Vertical Counsel or seeking Horizontal Counsel, “Nurture Nathans” requires humility on the part of a faithful leader. Identifying and developing Nathans guided by the Holy Spirit requires a leader to understand who they are in relation to God and to others, to recognize that they will likely face powerful spiritual resistance requiring God’s help, and to admit they do not have all the answers.

CONTINUUM: Practices

The Integriosity model organizes “heart change” along six Covert-Overt Continuums.  There is nothing magic about these categories, but we believe they are helpful in thinking about practical execution of a Re-Imagined Purpose, Re-Imagined Values and a Re-Imagined Culture.  The Continuums are Prayer, Proclamation, Policies, Practices, Products, People.

Each Continuum represents an area in which leaders can begin to think about, plan and institute Re-Alignment changes to the heart of the organization.

“Nurture Nathans” is on both the Practices Continuum.  Practices reflect, and at the same time help shape and reinforce, an organization’s culture.  Purpose and values define the culture of an organization; the culture shapes the behavior of the people in the organization; and the behavior of the people drives the results of the organization. Because humility is the “HOW” of righteousness, kingdom and love and the key to wisdom, “Nurture Nathans” reinforces the priorities of the Creation Mandate, Imago Dei, the Golden Rule and the commandments to love God and love your neighbor.

The pursuit of faithful integrity by an organization requires faithful integrity in its leaders, and an organizational culture aligned with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities needs faithful leaders who live their lives in the same alignment. Putting in place practices to “Nurture Nathans” will help ensure the cultural alignment by helping ensure the leader’s continued alignment.

COVERT-OVERT RATING: Highly Covert

The Integriosity model breaks the Covert-Overt Continuums into six gradations–from Highly Covert to Highly Overt–that we believe are helpful in beginning to pray and think about what is most appropriate for an organization at a particular moment in time.

Most Integrity Ideas will have one place on the scale.  Some can vary depending on how they are implemented.

“Nurture Nathans” is Highly Covert (an action that would be taken by a secular company). Although the leader of a secular company is unlikely to call a trusted friend or advisor a “Nathan”, every organizational leader would benefit from having trusted colleagues or advisors empowered and willing to speak truth to them.

STAKEHOLDERS SERVED: Employees, Owners, Kingdom

When we categorize faith-based actions, we also consider the stakeholders principally impacted by the action: Employees, Customers/Clients, Owners, Suppliers/Vendors, Community and Kingdom.

Although “Nurture Nathans” is primarily about helping a faithful leader, the continued faithful integrity of the leader positively impacts employees, owners and the Kingdom.

IMPLEMENTATION

Implementing “Nurture Nathans” is straightforward. It requires identifying and developing Nathans, which can be a challenge.

Identifying Nathans

A Nathan must be someone who shares the organization’s and the leader’s Biblical values and priorities and who understands and supports the organization’s pursuit of faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing.

This can be difficult because the pursuit of faithful integrity toward Biblical flourishing is so countercultural.  John Maxwell writes about “integrity”:

Integrity is antithetical to the spirit of our age.

If mere “integrity” is countercultural, consider how that disconnect is magnified by the addition of the word “faithful”.  In post #243 (Integrity is Not Enough), we discussed what it means to take “integrity” up to a level of what we call “faithful integrity”.  Faithful integrity offends the kingdom of the world.

We believe finding Nathans among financial advisors, accountants, business consultants and lawyers takes effort, to say the least.  Advisors whose advice will take into account the pursuit of alignment with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities are not the advisors most organizational leaders have on speed dial.

You may remember from earlier posts that some faith and work organizations concluded, based on surveys of workers, that only 5-9% of the workers who self-identified as Evangelical Christians had a Biblical understanding of work as a sacred activity and a calling.  The number of Christians who have crossed the Safety/Surrender Gap and surrendered their will to God’s is even smaller.  The potential pool of Nathans may be quite small for a faithful leader committed to leading with faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing.

Faithful integrity is also counter to the culture of faith as usual.  Many good-intentioned leaders genuinely seeking to integrate their Biblical faith and their work have unwittingly been detoured onto Side Roads by faith as usual Placebos.  They may be faith/work authors, conference speakers, consultants, or members of cohorts and roundtables.

But they may be the wrong counselors for a faithful leader trying to “Nurture Nathans” and pursue faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing.  They may be the wrong counselors because their counsel is likely be to follow them down the same Side Roads on which they are detoured.

A faithful leader seeking Nathans from other leaders of Biblical faith–whether through books, talks, conferences, cohorts or round-tables–in their pursuit of faithful integrity through business a better way must be vigilant to avoid being drawn toward faith as usual.

Developing Nathans

Developing Nathans is more about development of the faithful leader than the Nathan.  Development involves communicating to the Nathan clearly and authentically that the leader wants someone to prayerfully speak truth–holding them accountable, pointing out blind spots, and raising issues that are undermining or could jeopardize the leader’s pursuit of faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing.

That development of the leader is rooted in humility, and humility is contrary to what our secular culture (and even our faith as usual culture) elevates and rewards. The incredible challenge of being humbly countercultural as a leader has been recognized by many commentators. James Hunter observed:

To the extent that Christians exercise leadership, then, they face an unavoidable paradox between pursuing faithful presence and the social consequences of achievement; between leadership and an elitism that all too often comes with it. The paradox is that all Christians are called to a life of humility, of placing others’ interests ahead of their own, of attending to the needs of “the least among us.” Yet leadership inevitably puts all in relative positions of influence and advantage. There is no way around this paradox and it is especially acute the more social influence one has.

It is the humility needed to ensure that the relationship with a Nathan will not be undermined by the type of leadership behavior that can create wisdom walls in an organization. In post #112 (Silos Are for Farms (and Famines)-Organizational Silos), we identified two:

• “I’m the Smartest” Wisdom Walls are when a leader believes he is smarter and more skilled than those who could advise him (or is so insecure in his ability that he needs to give the impression he is smarter and more skilled) and does not seek their insights.

• “Just Tell Me What I Want To Hear” Wisdom Walls are built by leaders who give people a “voice” but do it in a way that obstructs the flow of wisdom. If a leader’s ego (whether through pride or lack of self-confidence) leads her to surround herself by people who only affirm her decisions rather than challenging them (or if the leader has created a culture in which challenges are perceived as “dangerous”), that leader will be making decisions in a vacuum.

Just as Scripture is clear about the need for advisors, it shows us what happens when a leader does not have or want a Nathan. For example, Ahab surrounded himself with false prophets who only told him what he wanted to hear (1 Kings 22:6-12).  When Jehoshaphat suggested seeking a second opinion, Ahab said about the prophet Micaiah, “I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil.” Ahab was not ready for a Nathan.

A faithful leader must be intentional about nurturing Nathans by prayerfully seeking faithful advisors and then inviting accountability, modeling receptivity, and rewarding truth-telling.

PERSONAL NOTE (from PM): This post was inspired by a recent Fast Company article titled “This is Why Senior Executives Stop Hearing the Truth”.  It is focused more on ways that leaders can break down the types of wisdom and information walls I discussed in post #198 (Integrity Idea 035: Tear Down Those Walls) and post #246 (Integrity Idea 064: Seek Horizontal Counsel), but it is worth a read.

I started Integrous precisely because I sensed a need in the faith/work movement for a trusted guide to provide integrity advice and legal counsel to a faithful leader as they pursued the integration of their Biblical faith with their leadership of an organization God had given them to steward.  It was intended for the leader who understand the limitations of content, conferences, coaches and cohorts and wanted an experienced advisor and trusted counselor walking with them–offering truth, guidance and practical advice–as they pursued God’s purpose for business and work.  This is what I wrote back in post #001 (Integriosity–The Foundation) in January 2020

We believe there are many leaders who are guided by the Bible in their personal lives and sincerely want to live an integrated faith life at work. They have heard about “faith/work integration” in a sermon or conference or book and genuinely want to pursue God’s purpose for their work and for the people and organizations they lead.

Sadly, many are confused or frustrated or even intimidated. Some have given up. Others think they are doing it, but they are actually missing the mark. These problems frequently are the result of hearing a misguided message, an incomplete message or a purely theological message (and then wondering how it practically applies “back at the office”). Many fall into what has been called the “knowing-doing gap”.

There is an answer–we call it Integriosity®. . . . Integriosity is a new word, but these are not new ideas. It is going back to Biblical basics and then rolling up our sleeves to see how to actually implement them “back at the office” in a way that humanizes people, beautifies the world and glorifies God. It is seeking an “ancient path” referenced in Jeremiah 6:16.

ESSENCE:  Integrity Ideas are specific actions a faithful leader can consider in leading faithfully through business a better way.

INTEGRITY IDEA: Nurture Nathans

While many Biblical characters remain obscure, Nathan is pretty well known. He was the friend who courageously spoke truth to King David and held him accountable. But Nathan served several other important roles in David’s life.  “Nurture Nathans” is about a faithful leader identifying and empowering trusted friends and advisors who will speak truth to them–holding them accountable, pointing out blind spots, and raising issues–and also provide faithful counsel to help guide their leadership. David was a man after God’s heart, but he still needed Nathan. Even in the most faithful leaders, power, pride, and fear can blind leaders to sin and compromise. Even the most faithful leader can benefit from trusted and faithful advisors and friends prayerfully helping guide their leadership. But a Nathan goes beyond merely an advisor. Nathans are those who care for the leader and the purpose of the organization enough to risk discomfort in order to guard the leader’s heart, the organization’s integrity, and the legacy of the leader and the organization. “Nurture Nathans” goes beyond breaking down what we have called organizational Wisdom Silos and Information Silos. “Nurture Nathans” is more personal and more spiritual. A Nathan must be someone who shares the organization’s and the leader’s Biblical values and priorities and who understands and supports the organization’s pursuit of faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing.  A Nathan must be someone without conflicting interests who is willing to put the flourishing of the faithful leader and the organization over their own self-interest. A Nathan must also be someone who understands the nature of spiritual resistance, is willing to submit their role to prayer, and is able to surrender their will to God’s will in guiding the leader, even at the risk of losing the leader’s friendship.

COVERT-OVERT CONTINUUM (six Continuums for action):  Practices

COVERT-OVERT RATING (several levels from Highly Covert to Highly Overt):  Highly Covert

STAKEHOLDERS SERVED: Employees, Owners, Kingdom

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Photo credit: Original image by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash
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