Rick Warren: 5 Steps to Leading Change

In a Christianity Today Leadership Journal interview with Rick Warren, he made some observations about renewal and change that apply to any organization (and really individual change as well). He has found that we go through five renewals and typically in the following order:

1. Personal Renewal   This gets at a renewal of the heart—knowing yourself and getting your values, priorities and purpose straight. The first step of any leader is to first get themselves right. Of course, this is a lifelong cyclical process. You never get it right and move on. It should happen concurrently with everything else you do in your life.

2. Relational Renewal   Warren says, “It’s loving your neighbor as yourself.” A leader can’t lead unless they has a solid, honest relationship with their people. Getting your attitude right about other people—how you value and respect others—is foundational to effectively leading others. It comes out in many ways and will affect how people react to your message.

3. Purpose Renewal   What am I supposed to be doing? Where are we going? We are not here just for ourselves. “We have work to do.”

4. Structural Renewal   Warren says, “You can’t put new wine in old wine skins. I once asked Peter Drucker, who was my mentor for over 20 years, ‘How often do you have to change the structure in a rapidly growing organization?’ He said about every 40 percent growth. (Now, since that time, I’ve heard him use two other numbers, so I think he was just making it up.) But the point is that structural renewal happens pretty often.” To sustain change you need to structure everything you do so as to guide your behavior to be in alignment with your values, attitudes about other people, and you purpose; why you do what you do.

5. Cultural Renewal   The first four renewals eventually become the catalyst to make the change or renewal part of our thinking and thus our behavior. We become what we say we are.