The leader will take feedback and questions from her people but will act on what she believes is right.

Top Ten Qualities I Look For In My Inner Circle

1. Relationship with God – Her love relationship with God is more important than any other single factor in her life. A woman can be the most gifted, intelligent and best communicator in the world, but if she does not possess a growing and dynamic walk with Jesus how can she lead others in this? Everything in her Christian life should be an overflow of her walk with the Lord. Is she passionate about this?

2. Character – Most leadership failures come from lack of character rather than lack of intelligence. You can do much to mentor a person in ministry and leadership skills but you are completely vulnerable to the person with a weak character. The weakness will show up at the time of highest stress, at the very time you need the person to step up to the plate. Character is sectional, like a grapefruit. Everyone has strong sections and weak. One person may be strongly loyal to the CEO, but irresponsible and lack discipline in the day to day. Another person person may be loyal and responsible until she gets a chance to enhance her ego. She may begin to envy the recognition of another and question why she is not getting the same. Ego will weaken character as much as anything I know. As a leader you must evaluate all the sections, build on the good ones and avoid the weak ones. The bottom line is that you need people of strong character that you can count on.

3. Flexible – Third I want a person who is flexible and does not confuse flexibility with lack of integrity. Some people accuse others of lacking integrity, when the issue has nothing to do with that. The only thing at stake is flexibility. One of the things that indicates a healthy flexibility is optimism. Positive people look at change as expected and part of growing a church or organization. Negative people are opinionated and think their was is the only way of doing something and feel threatened if challenged.

4. Excited About Learning – I like to have people around me who are hungry to grow. Nothing helps a church or organization more than a leader who wants to grow.

5. Team Players – A true team player does not poach on other people’s responsibility but is available to help at their request. When she sits in a meeting she is open in her remarks and does not go around making comments privately.

6. Confronts in a Healthy Manner – The purpose of confronting conflict is to redeem not to destroy. Deal with any anger prior to the confrontation so that your motive is pure and the relationship is not destroyed.

7. Comfortable Being Reviewed – In business this is done on a regular basis. But in the Christian setting many people seem to resist review. They feel that they have been called and gifted by God and therefore the Pastor, President, CEO or Department Head is not really their supervisor—God is. They have the attitude that “we are all equal on this team.” If their concept of what God wants them to do (which is usually what they enjoy doing) conflicts with what the organization expects of them, it’s too bad. Such an attitude brings havoc into the work of the kingdom.

8. Slow to Anger – If a person has a problem with anger it will be a show up in every area of life. They can hide it for a while but eventually it will surface. People are like a tube of toothpaste. When squeezed from life pressure and stress, what is on the inside will always come out. Angry people people are usually negative and also pout. This will suck the life out of you. “Keep away from angry, short-tempered men, lest you learn to be like them and endanger your soul.” Proverbs 22:24

9. Positive Attitude – Negative people will suck the life out of you. Run from them. Enough said.

10. Sense of Humor – Life is short so my inner circle must have a great sense of humor. My sense of humor developed while serving on staff at Skyline Church in San Diego. We laughed so much (all the time) that it’s a wonder we ever got any work done. Laughter is great medicine.

How can we find and recruit such people? My three steps are pray, invest, and select which I will talk about on another post. Next week I will talk about What To Do When You Realize You Made a Mistake in Choosing Someone For Your Inner Circle?