Accountable for Building Sacred Community

I have always wondered about the narrative that precedes and follows the incident of the Golden Calf.  In Parashiot Terumah and Tetzaveh we find all of these instructions about how to build the ritual objects of the tabernacle. In modern terms, we are building the hardware for the system.  We learn about the crafting of the Menorah. We hear rich detail about the cloth and the bells around the hem of the priest’s garments. 

In Parashat Ki Tissa we learn that Moses has gone up to the mountain to get the law that will help provide the ethical software to bring the holy space to life. At the base of the mountain, however, the people are falling apart. They are unraveling. The people get anxious when Moses is gone for 40 days. Moses’ brother, Aaron, wants harmony. He is a people pleaser. He wants to quell their unrest. He agrees to make a golden calf to provide a tangible object of their lost leader (God and/or Moses). Aaron creates a mold to hold the outpouring of their gifts of fear. They react to his gesture by throwing their gold into the fire.

Moses reacts as well. When he hears the singing and sees the dancing around the calf he breaks the tablets of the law. The people are rebuked. Moses and God step back from the precipice and process the event.

When confronted by Moses, Aaron tries to remove his fingerprints from the crime scene.  On the retelling of the story, Aaron says that the people just threw their gold into the fire and “out came the calf.” He does not admit that he framed the situation, used his craft and made the mold.

God assures Moses that he will temper his anger. He will be “compassionate, gracious and slow to anger” (Ex 34:6). He commits that he will “go in their midst,” despite this betrayal, as long as they uphold the covenant (34:10-11). Good news!

Then, surprisingly, in the next parasha after Ki Tissa (Vayakhel), we pick up more details about the building of the tabernacle. “Why the bookend parashiot about building the tabernacle?” I wonder. My rabbi suggested, that as often happens, the texts may not be linear. He explains how the twelfth-century French biblical commentator Rashi argued for a different timeline:

Rashi’s Timeline

• The people mold a Golden Calf in Ki Tissa.
• God chooses to be compassionate. The people were weak and got poor direction.
• Now God provides detailed instructions for the structure in Parashiot T’rumah and Tetzaveh.
• In Parashat Vayakhel, God calls on the talents and gifts of the people.
• God chooses gifted leaders like Betzalel to build the tabernacle according to a plan.
• We hear about how the clothing of priests were constructed and how the tabernacle is built. We learn how the plan was completed.

The Sulam Accountability Plan

This now makes sense to me. In our Sulam Accountability Plan we follow a similar timeline from reflection to action:

Reflection

• We make an honest assessment about the ways we have failed to be a team with shared values, covenants and agreements. In the past we may have operated with unclear roles and expectations (like the Israelites in the story) which may have led to conflict. In the past, when things went badly leaders may have thrown up their hands and said, “We don’t know how our board became so contentious and dysfunctional” (i.e. “Out came the calf.”)

Action

• We design a set of structures that will help us move toward sacred team work.
• We call upon the gifts of all of those at the table to comment on what they expect from themselves and each other.
• We create a board expectations guide and then put these principles into action.  
• We conduct a self-assessment about how leaders are addressing these expectations.
• We make the expectations a living covenant by referring to them throughout the year.
• We provide them to the nominating committee so that we can ensure that new leaders are also committing to the covenantal board values.

Molding Sacred Teams

Sulam leaders take responsibility to mold their leaders into a team through reflection and action. In this series of stories we can contrast the leadership of Aaron and Betzalel. When the people complain, Aaron just reacts and gives in. Like many of our leaders, he enables the people. He buys some peace for a few hours. The cost for the people and their mission is high. In Rashi’s reading, Betzalel gets a chance to harness the gifts of the people and put them to work in an intentional step-by-step process. This process will allow them to contribute to the creation of sacred space for a committed leadership - a place God will dwell.

Leaders Help Teams Learn to Count on Each Other

In his recent book Leaders Eat Last, Simon Sinek uses examples from the armed services where leaders learn to build trust by putting the welfare of others first. This high level of trust is critical for their ability to operate in stressful combat situations. Soldiers need to count on each other.  You can listen to his Ted talk on the book here: 

In his book, The 17 Laws of Teamwork, world famous management consultant, John Maxwell, lists the Law of Countability (p. 117). “Teammates must be able to count on each other. In order for me to count on you I have to know what I can expect from you and trust that you will meet those expectations consistently.”

Unfortunately many synagogues’ boards lack up-to-date board expectations that really relate to the work they do. According to United Synagogue’s Succession Survey (2012), even those synagogues that have board expectations often fail to hold people accountable for those expectations.

Many synagogues are going through challenging and stressful times. A team with a strong shared vision, values and expectations can create a circle of trust and security for leaders to be their best. According to Sinek, when people get stressed out, they produce cortisol, which impairs their health.  When leaders create communities (circles) of trust, they produce healthy chemicals. So for Sinek, team chemistry really matters. In our Sulam leadership process, we take these team-building expectations seriously.

Our Sulam Team-Building Process: Shared Expectations

• Shared Ownership: Involve the board in the creation of expectations. Expectations should be realistic. Board members are not realistically going to commit to go to daily minyan. Expectations should be fair. Each board member engages in board service in different ways. Some may be very active in social justice, others in volunteerism and some in ritual. Expectations should honor these different paths to service.
• Relevant Values: All leaders need to know what values driven leadership looks like. Leaders often talk in generalities (respectful and accountable) but do little to show what these values mean in practice.  Effective boards use their board expectations throughout the board year. When the president is recruiting people to be on the bimah or to solicit for the annual campaign, they should do it with this board covenant in hand. This is what some call “The Teachable Moment.”
• Reflective Leadership: Board members should take a self-assessment that helps them reflect on how they have progressed during the year. This will prepare them to talk to the nominating committee about their desire to continue for the next board term.
• Accountable Culture: Nominating Committees can use these categories to reflect on the performance of board members. Leaders are shaped by what they focus on. In terms of Sulam Leadership strategies, it is inconceivable that the nominating committee would not have board expectations in hand when they recruit leaders on the way in or at moments of assessment.
• Supportive Colleagues: Teammates help one another. Some synagogues train mentors to help develop new members to be more effective teammates.

The Sulam of Service

In Sulam Leadership we often say that we seek to be “steady in purpose, but flexible in strategy and tactics.”  We have some core values which we bring to the table and we expect kehillot to engage them:

• We expect each congregation to come up with their own board expectations. We are not neutral on the importance of expectations. We expect them to be created.
• We are open as to how the board engages with their expectations. We are not neutral on the need to engage with them. We expect an on-going process.
• We are open on the many different places people begin when they join the board. We are not neutral on the direction. We expect growth.

“Sulam” is Hebrew for “ladder”. A leader may come into leadership at different rungs of the ladder. What is important for us is that a leader role models a commitment to continuous improvement. It doesn’t matter if a leader has the same Torah study practice as I do. It is important that they have some aspiration to learn more. John Maxwell argues that effective business team members need a personal growth plan. If this in true in business, how much more relevant is a personal growth plan for leaders of a synagogue?

In our Sulam for Emerging Leaders program we end the 6 session program by helping emerging leaders create a Sulam Personal Growth Plan. If this is important for emerging leaders, how much more important is it for leaders at the top of the organization? Judaism argues that the higher your authority, the greater your responsibility. In our Sulam for Strategic Planners survey, we found that approximately 17% of the respondents strongly agreed that they would like support in order to increase their level of Jewish learning. When a board creates the expectations that they will be a learning and growing team, they send a powerful message to emerging leaders and aspiring members. We are all committed to growth.

Synagogue leaders can learn valuable lesson from high functioning teams. Board expectations provide one example of shared values. We encourage leaders to learn about the personality preference and management styles of their teammates.  We encourage leaders to have Briefing Books on key facts they need to know. They should understand the vision and strategies for the congregation. While just one element of a successful team, board expectations lay the foundation for other steps along the way to a cohesive and accountable team.