Leadership Journal

"I just don't understand," Tom lamented. "My board is saying they don't trust me. But I'm not dishonest, and I would never intentionally do anything to hurt my church because God clearly called me to plant Community Fellowship."

Tom didn't know what to do, but he definitely knew something wasn't quite right. Although his church was experiencing explosive growth, Tom was perplexed by criticisms of his ministry at the leadership level. Board meetings were growing increasingly tense, and questions of Tom's integrity became more frequent. The more insecure he felt, the less he communicated with his board, which led to even louder murmuring among those "in the know" at the church. But Tom had no idea how this had happened, or what could be done to change it.

Tom's situation is not unique. In my work with churches and ministry leaders, I have frequently discovered an underlying current of mistrust within the organization, a current that subtly but surely erodes a church's foundation.

Trust is critical to a church's health and, ultimately, to its ministry effectiveness. When people in a church don't trust each other or their leaders, the church becomes a diseased organism that will poison those who come into contact with it, or shrivel up and stop producing fruit—often times both.

And while mistrust can and does exist at all levels within a church, its leaders generally set the tone for organizational health. Unfortunately, many leaders do not realize that trust has several key components. This misunderstanding becomes clear in situations like Tom's. Often times, when a leader is told that she is not trustworthy, she mistakenly takes it to mean that she is being accused of dishonesty or deceit.

But I've become convinced that a leader's (or group of leaders') credibility stands on not just one, but three legs; when any one of those three legs is broken or even wobbly, trust quickly erodes; a leader's credibility is called into question, and the church's health is compromised.

These three legs are character, competence, and communication.

1. Character. This component of trust is the most obvious, and the one that is most often singularly equated with trust. Character can be defined as a leader's sense of moral fortitude, an inner compass that determines how a person acts when no one else is looking, and it is often described externally as a person's reputation. In ministry, there is no dispute that great leaders are people of good repute who exhibit strong, godly character. A person of weak character, on the other hand, will by definition be dishonest or double-tongued.

2. Competence. But even if a leader demonstrates honest and trustworthy character, he or she might not be competent for the task at hand. In Tom's case, he was an amazing and truly inspiring visionary, but he was not at all gifted in the areas of strategy and day-to-day execution. In these areas, Tom was not trustworthy. It's not that he was dishonest, but he was unreliable—not as deep-seated ...