Avodah Leadership: When Purpose Shapes Culture

There is a Hebrew word I've come to appreciate: Avodah.

Depending on the context, it can carry the meaning of work, service, and worship.

Three things we often separate.

I'm not sure we should.

I've spent more than 25 years working around heavy equipment, parts, operations and the people who keep those operations moving. I've worked for companies, built businesses, dealt with customers, made good decisions and made some I would certainly make differently today.

Through all of it, my understanding of work has changed.

I don't see work simply as what I do to make money.

I believe there is purpose in it.

Culture Is Built in Ordinary Decisions

Companies like to talk about culture.

There are mission statements on walls, values on websites and carefully written descriptions of what organizations supposedly believe.

But culture isn't really built there.

It's built when nobody is making a presentation about it.

How do we treat somebody when they make a mistake?

What happens when doing the right thing costs us money?

Do we tell a customer something they don't want to hear?

Do we keep our word when keeping it becomes inconvenient?

How do leaders behave when there is pressure?

Those decisions tell you much more about a company's culture than anything written in the employee handbook.

Leadership Is Stewardship

My Christian faith has increasingly shaped how I think about leadership.

I don't believe that what I build is ultimately mine.

The business.

The opportunities.

The relationships.

The experience.

The money.

The influence.

Even the time I have to do something with all of it.

I see those things as something entrusted to me.

That changes the question.

Instead of simply asking:

“How big can I build this?”

I also have to ask:

“What am I building it for?”

Those are not always the same question.

Profit and Purpose Don't Have to Fight Each Other

I believe businesses should make money.

They should grow.

They should compete.

They should create value and reward the people willing to take risks to build them.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to succeed.

But how we succeed matters.

If the only objective is the next transaction, eventually people become transactions too.

Customers.

Employees.

Suppliers.

Partners.

That's not the kind of company I want to build.

I want the people we work with to know that we're trying to do what we said we would do, even when nobody would know the difference.

We won't always get it right.

But the standard still matters.

Service Changes the Way You Look at Business

Service doesn't mean weakness.

It doesn't mean saying yes to everything.

And it certainly doesn't mean giving away the value of your work.

Sometimes serving somebody well means telling them no.

Sometimes it means admitting you don't have the answer.

Sometimes it means recommending something that doesn't benefit you financially.

Sometimes it means having a difficult conversation instead of avoiding one.

That kind of service builds something a transaction can't create very easily.

Trust.

And trust compounds.

The People Closest to the Work Matter

One lesson the equipment industry has reinforced for me repeatedly is that titles don't necessarily tell you where the knowledge is.

The operator may see something the executive doesn't.

The mechanic may understand a recurring problem long before it appears in a report.

The person working in the parts warehouse may know exactly where a process keeps failing.

Good leadership should make room for those voices.

You can have authority without pretending you know everything.

In fact, I think some of the strongest leaders I've been around were comfortable saying:

“I don't know. What are you seeing?”

There is strength in that.

Work Can Mean More

I still have ambitions.

Probably more now than at other points in my life.

There are businesses I want to build, ideas I want to test, and things I want to accomplish.

But at this stage of my life, success by itself isn't enough of an answer.

If Avodah means that work, service, and worship don't have to live in separate boxes, then that gives me a much higher standard for what I build.

Build boldly.

Do good work.

Treat people well.

Make money honorably.

Serve where you can.

Give generously.

And remember Who entrusted it to you in the first place.

I'm still learning what that looks like in practice.

But I think that's part of the point.