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: Practice Three-Dimensional Speech

“Practice Three-Dimensional Speech” is about a faithful leader turning upward and inward before speaking outward, pausing to pray to God, asking the Holy Spirit to guide the response, and examining the motives and emotions within their heart before speaking to another image-bearer.

It recognizes the power of words to build up or tear down—particularly words from a leader—and the inclination of people operating in a broken world from a business as usual mindset to react out of the business as usual assumptions of Scarcity and Self-Interest and from the anger, pride, fear, or desire to win that those assumptions can produce. It also recognizes that the same God who calls leaders to lead faithfully through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing is present through the Holy Spirit to guide their interactions with other image-bearers in a way that promotes rather than undermines that pursuit.

Integrity Ideas are practical actions toward implementing a bigger WHY for the organization.  Some are helpful ideas to consider as a faithful leader prayerfully discerns the best stewardship of the organization. Others may be important steps in the RENEW/RE-ALIGN/RE-IMAGINE/RESTORE process.

“Practice Three-Dimensional Speech” is in the “necessary” category, because prayerful leadership is an essential element of faithful leadership.

The Power of Words

We offered a refresher on the power of words in our most recent post #339 (Integrity Idea 109: Transform Through Titles), but we are including another one here in case you missed that one, because it is so important.

We addressed the power of words in several prior posts, including post #113 (The Power of Words (and Disordered Words)), post #114 (Words that Shape Work), post #115 (Words that Shape Identity), and post #116 (Words that Shape Culture).

As a quick refresher, the Bible is clear about the power of words.  The Bible tells us that words have the power to create (Genesis 1:3; Hebrews 11:3), to effect change (Mark 11:23), to give life or bring death (Proverbs 18:21), to build up or corrupt (Ephesians 4:29), to bring health (Proverbs 16:24), and to destroy (Proverbs 11:9; Matthew 12:36-37).

In words attributed to theologian and minister Tryon Edwards, which are particularly poignant for our topic:

Words are both better and worse than thoughts; they express them, and add to them; they give them power for good or evil; they start them on an endless flight, for instruction and comfort and blessing, or for injury, sorrow and ruin.

The Importance of Prayer

You may be wondering why we need to spend words reminding faithful leaders about the importance of prayer. Unfortunately, many faithful leaders do not associate God with organizational decisions.  Oswald Chambers observed:

In spiritual issues it is customary for us to put God first, but we tend to think that it is inappropriate and unnecessary to put Him first in the practical, everyday issues of our lives.

The Bible is full of warnings about leaders who fail to seek God’s guidance.  Here are just a few:

But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward. (Jeremiah 7:24)

For the shepherds are stupid and do not inquire of the Lord; therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered. (Jeremiah 10:21)

Three-Dimensional Speech

What we are calling “three-dimensional speech” begins upward in prayer, continues inward through honest self-examination, and moves outward in words that are truthful, gracious, timely, and life-giving. It involves pausing to seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance on a response.  James 1:19 cautions, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.”  Consider these passages:

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4:6)

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.  (Psalm 19:14)

In post #185 (Integrity Idea 030: Encourage “Biblical EQ”), we introduced the concept of Biblical EQ. We said that the key difference between the world’s version of EQ and Biblical EQ is that the world’s version takes into account only self-awareness and other-awareness, while Biblical EQ adds God-awareness. That God-awareness is the “upward” in three-dimensional speech.

In Psalm 141, we practically hear David cry out for three-dimensional speech.  He asks God to guide his speech, help him examine his heart so that it is not inclined to evil, and not engage in the iniquity of the world–upward, inward, outward.

Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips! Do not let my heart incline to any evil, to busy myself with wicked deeds in company with men who work iniquity, and let me not eat of their delicacies!

A wonderful Biblical example of praying before speaking is found in the story of Nehemiah in Nehemiah 2:2-5 (emphasis added):

And the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.” Then I was very much afraid. I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” Then the king said to me, “What are you requesting?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ graves, that I may rebuild it.”

Nehemiah paused to look upward before speaking outward.

Scripture is replete with assurances that God will guide our speech, including through the Holy Spirit:

The Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. (Luke 12:12)

The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. (Proverbs 16:1)

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. (John 14:26)

A faithful leader’s speech is especially powerful because it can set the tone for an organization’s culture, quietly reinforcing that “this is who we are.” It can help cultivate a culture built on the recognition of Imago Dei, the Golden Rule, and the commandment to love your neighbor—a culture that honors human dignity, reflects God’s holiness, and glorifies God. Alternatively, it can send the message that “this is who we are” is a culture in which coarse, harsh, hurtful, and profane speech is tolerated, normalized, or even rewarded.

One path aligns with the pursuit of Biblical flourishing, while the other steadily erodes it.

We devoted post #296 (Integrity Idea 084: Purge Profanity) to the problem of profanity in a culture and the importance of discouraging it in an organizational culture, starting with leaders setting an example.  When a leader’s speech is not “gracious, seasoned with salt,” it gives permission to others to join them in the gutter.  In the workplace, profanity (including crude jokes) is often dismissed as “harmless” or “just part of the culture.”

Speech that reactively reflects the business as usual assumptions of Scarcity and Self-Interest and carries with it the anger, pride, fear, or desire to win that those assumptions can produce, corrodes culture and undermines flourishing. By disrespecting and dehumanizing the recipient, it fails to honor Imago Dei, follow the Golden Rule, or obey the commandment to love your neighbor.

CONTINUUM: Prayer

The Integriosity model organizes “heart change” along six Covert-Overt Continuums.  There is nothing inherently 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.

“Practice Three-Dimensional Speech” is on the Prayer Continuum. The Prayer Continuum should also be the very first one addressed by faithful leaders pursuing faithful integrity through business a better way, toward Biblical flourishing.

COVERT-OVERT RATING: Very 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 have one place on the scale.  Some can vary depending on how they are implemented.  We identify “Practice Three-Dimensional Speech” as Very Covert (an overtly faith-based action known only to the faithful leader).

It can be moved toward the Overt end of the Continuum by, for example, explaining the practice to others and encouraging them to do the same.

STAKEHOLDERS SERVED: Employees, Customers/Clients, Owners, Suppliers/Vendors, Community, and 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.

“Practice Three-Dimensional Speech” serves all those with whom the leader communicates.  As a faithful leader leads faithfully through prayerful speech, the example set by the leader influences how the organization conducts business in alignment with God’s design and guidance and advances God’s Kingdom.

IMPLEMENTATION

Implementing “Practice Three-Dimensional Speech” is straightforward in concept, but it may not be easy. Although economically inexpensive, it could be personally costly.

Conceptually, “Practice Three-Dimensional Speech” simply calls on a leader to listen, pause, pray, listen, and reflect before speaking.

Listen. The first “listen” is about listening to the other person. As we noted in post #185 on Biblical EQ, it is the key to “other-awareness.” Stephen Covey observed that, “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” 

Pause. Pausing can be difficult. First, it can be difficult if the leader has been preparing their response instead of listening. Second, it can be difficult because the Scarcity and Self-Interest assumptions of a business as usual mindset might have been triggered by the situation that has led to the need to speak or by the words of the other person.

Pray. Prayer is impossible without the pause.  Even with the pause, the step of prayer requires remembering that God cares about the words that the leader will utter, and that the Holy Spirit will provide guidance. Those are not natural remembrances in a business conversation.

Listen. This listening is continuing the pause to listen to the Holy Spirit. Pauses can be challenging. Hearing from God requires practice in discerning his voice.

Reflect. Reflect can be the costly part. It requires the leader to examine their motives and emotions—motives and emotions like the anger, pride, fear, or desire to win that can flow from the Scarcity and Self-Interest assumptions—recognize how those motives and emotions might lead to speech that is not “gracious, seasoned with salt” and would not be “acceptable” in the sight of God, and finally surrender any motives and emotions that do not align with Biblical beliefs, principles, and priorities or promote Biblical flourishing, no matter how satisfying those motives and emotions might feel.

“Practice Three-Dimensional Speech” is a choice. With each utterance, a faithful leader gets to choose whether their speech will promote flourishing by Humanizing, Beautifying, and Glorifying, or erode flourishing by ignoring God’s design embedded in the Cultural Mandate, Imago Dei, the Golden Rule and the commandments to love God and love your neighbor.

PERSONAL NOTE (from PM): I did a very poor job of practicing Three-Dimensional Speech last week. I had a one-day trip to Atlanta on Tuesday and was scheduled to fly out at 7:00pm, arriving home at 9:30pm Tuesday night.  Through some combination of weather and the crash of American Airlines’ IT system that caused a nationwide ground stop, my flight was cancelled.  American rebooked me on a 7:00pm flight the next night.  I saw that they had a 5:00pm flight, but their app kept crashing when I tried to change flights. I called customer service and was on hold for two hours before someone came on the line.

It all kicked in—anger (that I was on hold, unable to use the app, and had to spend a night in Atlanta with no toiletries or clothes), pride (about having to wear the same clothes the next day), fear (that I would not make it home for Lisa and my anniversary on Thursday), and the desire to win.  My desire to win in a winless situation expressed itself in a Facebook post about how American used to be a good airline and now was terrible.  A number of people jumped on my anger/pride parade with their own experiences.  Even though it wasn’t getting me home any faster or providing a change of clothes, the Facebook post and the responses made me feel better.  That is, until a friend pointed out that they were probably looking out for my safety, shared stories of the American Airlines people who had been helpful to her when struggling with a health challenge, and urged grace.

I never listened, paused, or prayed before posting, but God spoke through my friend, and I listened and reflected.  I remembered that American Airlines has one of the most active Christian Employee Resource Groups.  I promptly deleted my Facebook post, together with all the satisfying comments.  I didn’t think about whether that was the quiet inspiration behind this post–until just now.

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

INTEGRITY IDEA: Practice Three-Dimensional Speech

“Practice Three-Dimensional Speech” is about a faithful leader turning upward and inward before speaking outward, pausing to pray to God, asking the Holy Spirit to guide the response, and examining the motives and emotions within their heart before speaking to another image-bearer. It recognizes the power of words to build up or tear down—particularly words from a leader—and the inclination of people operating in a broken world from a business as usual mindset to react from the business as usual assumptions of Scarcity and Self-Interest and from the anger, pride, fear, or desire to win that those assumptions can produce. It also recognizes that the same God who calls leaders to lead faithfully through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing is present through the Holy Spirit to guide their interactions with other image-bearers. Three-dimensional speech therefore begins upward in prayer, continues inward through honest self-examination, and moves outward in words that are truthful, gracious, timely, and life-giving. A faithful leader’s speech is especially powerful because it can set the tone for an organization’s culture, quietly reinforcing that “this is who we are.” It can help cultivate a culture built on the recognition of Imago Dei, the Golden Rule, and the commandment to love your neighbor—a culture that honors human dignity, reflects God’s holiness, and glorifies God. Alternatively, it can send the message that “this is who we are” is a culture in which coarse, harsh, hurtful, and profane speech is tolerated, normalized, or even rewarded.  One path aligns with the pursuit of Biblical flourishing, while the other steadily erodes it.

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

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

STAKEHOLDERS SERVED: Employees, Customers/Client, Owners, Suppliers/Vendors, Community, Kingdom

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