Hi friends! I am Ann Eileen Thompson and this is the Faith Driven Leader Podcast, where we equip and embolden one another toward a career and a life built on deep trust in our good Father God. We get inspired by the stories of our incredible guests who are letting their faith drive their leadership in life, family, ministry, and the marketplace.
Patricia Asp is a Faith Driven Leader with a seriously impressive background! She’s an accomplished C-Suite executive, having spent more than 25 years as an executive with the ServiceMaster Company, a Fortune 500 global service company with 5,000 locations around the world that were grown both organically and through strategic acquisitions. She’s a Six Sigma expert, and has help CEO, COO, President, and Board Director roles and has led multiple corporate turn arounds. These days, her passion is to “hardwire goodness” into companies - by defining and codifying core values so that goodness is a sustainable character trait of a company. As the founder and principle of ASPire, she advises, speaks, and coaches executive teams along the journey to ensure that their values, and their corporate cultures, are infused with goodness.
Countless leaders seek her counsel and wisdom through her involvement in 4Word - an organization that endeavors to help women in the marketplace reach their God given potential.
Pat has a passion for recognizing the divine in each individual, and for unification, and her commitment to both comes through so beautifully in everything she talks about.
My conversations with Pat always leave me feeling challenged, humbled, and reminded by her consistent drumbeat message about each of us as divine creations. How often are we challenged by this thought? Do you think about each of your neighbors, co-workers, board members, or clients as divine creations? When I think about others that way, it seems to spark a curiosity in me…a desire to know and understand rather than judge or criticize. That certainly feels in line with my Faith as a Christian!
A few additional takeaways for me:
Disappointment often causes a disconnect between our heart and our behavior; where are you currently disappointed, and how might that be leading to behaviors that aren’t consistent with your heart?
Labels: they are so not “who” the person is; If I use the label to ID someone, I’m only seeing 1% of who the person is…careful to not assume the person is their label - will only tap into 1% of who that person is…assumptions based on the label (story about folks thinking I was my business partners’ assistant vs partner because I’m a woman
How to bridge the gap between Christian leader values and diverse beliefs?; Need an operational definition for each word; Even then, it’s not measurable - squishy like jello; must ask what are the behaviors we expect to see evident when this value is being practiced: Can be seen, heard, measured. Gives opportunity to coach; to hard wire it into the culture
When we can’t put a label on it, we tap it down…the HS is spirit is talking…hit the divine pause button when I’m hit with a situation where I feel like there is a catch/HS intuition…do not go forward if you don’t feel like you are in alignment with the Lord…sit in that feeling and discern
I’m challenging you, as a Faith Driven leader, to pick one area from this conversation and consider focusing on growth in that area for yourself. That might be:
Seeing someone in your life, as a divine creation?
Allowing your disappointment to tempt you into actions that aren’t consistent with who you want to be?
Missing out on the full potential of someone that you’ve labeled and/or made assumptions about?
Translating values into measurable behaviors for your team?
Tapping down the Holy Spirit and the intuition He gives you?
