Leading Habitat for Humanity: Purpose, Service, and Faith with Jonathan Reckford

Because I felt we could only have three our humility, courage and accountability. And so those then become a little bit of a litmus test. Are we actually living our values? So for me it starts with humility. That goes back to servant leadership. It goes back to the idea it's mission before me and that we're part of something bigger than ourselves that we get to join into. I think courage is crucial because you need to step out and push. Our vision is really bold, therefore we've got to actually be courageous. But accountability is one that we probably need to work the hardest on, which is we need to be great stewards of the resources we have and we need to be unapologetic about trying to have the most impact we can with the resources we have. So those become in a way the balance. Warren Bennis had a great model I heard years and years ago from him that we, I think took the ethos off of. He talked about a three legged stool of leadership that you need ambition, competence and a moral compass. And what I liked is he talked about a three legged stool because if you have any, two of the three would be insufficient. Can you achieve extraordinary results while making the world a better place? I'm Bruce Kempkin and together we'll explore how. Welcome to Humanity at Scale Redefining Leadership podcast. Join me as I speak with visionary leaders and top experts to uncover the secrets of humanity centric leadership. Ready to rethink leadership? Let's dive in. Welcome back to Humanity at Scale. Leadership is often talked about in the language of innovation, growth and disruption. But some of the most consequential leadership happens in places where the challenges don't move quickly, where they're persistent, deeply human and resistant to simple fixes. Places like housing, like dignity, like stability. Housing isn't just a policy issue. It's a foundation for health, education, economic mobility and human flourishing. And yet, across the world, the scale of the housing crisis continues to grow faster than our ability to to respond. Which raises a hard leadership question. What does it actually take to lead at scale on problems that can't be solved by markets alone, governments alone, or nonprofits alone? Today's guest has spent nearly two decades living inside of that question. Jonathan Reckford is CEO of Habitat for Humanity International, a global housing organization that has helped more than 65 million people build strength, stability and self reliance through shelter. Under his leadership, Habitat expanded across all 50 states and more than 60 countries while navigating the complex intersection of faith, policy, markets and community partnership. Jonathan, welcome to the show. Thanks, Pru. It's great to be with you. Now, before we talk about Habitat or scale, I want to start with you. You spent much of your early career in the for profit sector, Goldman Sachs, Disney, Marriott, Best Buy, before stepping into leadership at Habitat for Humanity. What question were you wrestling with at that point in your career that made this move feel necessary? Well, in some ways the surprise was the business side, not the nonprofit side. So I was blessed with incredible role models growing up. And my grandmother was a huge figure in my life and was one of the relatively few women in the U.S. congress and a passionate fighter for human and civil rights. And whenever I would see her in the summer and at Christmas, she would quote her favorite verse from the Bible, Micah 6, 8. He has shown you, O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you, but to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. And then she would ask us what we were going to do to be useful. So her view of the good life is we're supposed to be useful to the world. And I thought I was going to go to law school and go into politics like her and then realized I had no interest in being a lawyer and had to scramble and come up with another plan. And that led to talking my way into a job on Wall street that I was not really well equipped for. And in many ways it was an incredible education, including learning I probably wasn't supposed to be an investment banker and when I won't tell the whole story, but ended up having an incredible inflection point, going off to Korea and working on the Olympics in the late 80s and coaching the Korean rowing team. And that gave me the space and time to really think about where I wanted to go and how I wanted to serve. And so went to business school back when only a couple of business schools believed we needed professional management of nonprofits. And then there weren't a lot of career paths. So my new plan was I'll go to the business world, learn skills, and then find my mission that matters. And. And that was a more meandering path than I expected. And in some ways the last business role I had was helping lead a large retailer of music and movies that got acquired. And after the acquisition I stayed to help it work, but thought, okay, I've stayed longer than I'd ever planned. And led to another kind of inflection point of leaving without knowing what I was going to do next, but really wanting to do something around poverty alleviation and went to India on a short term service trip and God just shattered my heart around the plight of so many children, children in the world, and came back from that thinking, okay, now I really am done with the private sector, and it's time to find. It wasn't that easy then to actually find a nonprofit job. And to my great surprise, a lot of doors closed. I'd done a ton of volunteer work helping churches grow, and my local church asked if I would come be the administrative pastor of the church, which everyone I trusted for career advice said, don't do that. But we felt like that's what I was supposed to do. And it was actually when I was working happily at my local church in Minnesota that Habitat came calling two years later, which, if I could have picked one job that put all the pieces I cared about together, it would have been that I certainly didn't think they would pick me. But that was a little over 20 years ago, and that has been. I feel like when I came to Habitat, I really found my true vocation awesome. Early on, when you moved into the Habitat world from the commercial world, was there something that surprised you most about the difference in leading in that environment versus a commercial one? Looking back, I think in some ways that time in the church was really helpful, because if you think about leading a faith organization, it's all about mobilizing volunteers. The great amount of the work is actually done by volunteers, not by the staff. So you're equipping the staff, equipping the saints to do the work. And in some ways, nonprofits, I think, are harder to manage than for profits because you don't have some of the same levers. There's no bonuses, there are no stock options. You don't have the clarity of having to make the financial profit. And you also also have, in Habitat's case, a federation. So we operate through almost a thousand local chapters across the US Each of which is a local housing organization, and then in more than 60 countries. And so it's a lot of local boards, it's a lot of different staff, and you have to lead through influence versus authority. I actually personally believe that's the best way to lead, even when you have authority. But it's, in a way, the only way, I think, to lead in a complex federation. And I think that's interesting. I'd love to dig a little bit into that, which is. I love the notion you talked about being useful, and I love the notion of, like, building consensus and leading that way. If you were to go back to your earlier self when you were doing the jobs right, could you have brought those skills with you, or would it not have been possible to do that in the commercial setting? I actually think looking back, and of course, you always would be better. I think I'd be better at every one of those jobs along the way if I knew what I knew now. And it's so fascinating that my career didn't make that much sense, going from the Olympics to Marriott to Disney to. I actually went to Circuit City and we took carmax public, which was fascinating. And then was with this entertainment retailer that is long gone, sadly, as the digital world took that over. And each of those taught me things that have been incredibly valuable to make me a better leader at Habitat. But I actually think looking back, I could have been a better leader at every one of those stages if I'd learned. And I aspire to servant leadership, which is the model we use at Habitat. And I actually think it's the best model for any kind of organization. But as I said before, I think it's probably a prerequisite in a way for leading a mission driven nonprofit. Now, Habitat operates across cultures, economies and political systems, which is overly really complicated world. How do you avoid sort of the pressure to oversimplify what people's needs are? Because people are at the center of who you serve. Right. When you're scaling solutions that operate across cultures and countries. Yeah. I think a wise person said a long time ago, there are problems you solve and tensions you manage. And I really like that. And we've used that idea pretty deeply within Habitat because to your point, housing is an incredibly important need, but it's not the only need. So when you think about a healthy family and a healthy community, they absolutely need housing. But they need health, they need education, they need a good job, they need public safety, they need community. All those pieces need to come together. Now, we would argue, of course, that in some ways housing is a prerequisite for all those other things to work. If you don't have housing, children don't stay healthy, they can't get educated, then they can't grow into all that God intends for them. So we certainly think we're a piece of it. But a lot of our work has been figuring out how can we be part of a greater whole? And that's slower and messier. One of my newer axioms is the only thing worse than partnering is not partnering. So it's the only way you can get complex things done is to work, I think, across sector and bring all the right forces together. But sometimes that's slower and harder. But it gets you to the long term. I think the other thing I've observed is as we want to scale, and we should want to scale because when you look at the scale of need, so many people need housing that we need to think about changing systems and structures to allow housing to get created at scale, but not to unintentionally undervalue deep local work. And I think the beautiful part of habitat started with that deep work in the communities where you're working alongside families, literally building their homes with them and their neighbors. And that has a transformative effect that enables the scaling work. So I see them as symbiotic. The deep work we do in communities all around the world allows us to then give voice to those communities and hopefully impact policy at local, state, federal and global levels and then create influence markets to work better for those families. But I think it couldn't work if we weren't also doing the slow deep work in community. Cool. So I'm going to go in a little bit different directions. You mentioned your global impact and this wasn't on the question I was going to ask, but I noticed you were at Davos. Right. How does your message and the energy you're putting around the work that you do land in Davos with all those other people? Are they open to the discussion? Are they open to discussions around the faith based of your work or around what is the reaction in Davos to Habitat for Humanity? You know, in a way there are kind of two Davos. There's the giant commercial networking fest which probably doesn't fit quite as well. But I think the superpower of the World Economic Forum is the ability to bring people across sectors sector. And I'm really grateful that they allow me and some number of nonprofit or civil society leaders to be there. Because to your earlier point, big problems require multi sector solutions and often you have the public sector and the private sector working together but leaving out civil society. Or I'm in a lot of venues where you've got academia, civil society and government, but not the private sector. And you really need all of them, especially for something like housing. I think the good news, if we can bring good out of bad, is that the housing crisis is bad enough across the world that people were really leaning in on housing. So I was able to moderate a session on housing. I was moderating another session on how do we actually bring new technology to scale in a way that would support both resilience and housing. I spoke at a session on wildfire risk and maybe the most heartwarming to your question about faith is. My last session in Davos was moderating an interfaith dinner with faith leaders from all different faith backgrounds. And it was just beautiful because it was a reminder. And one of our core theses at Habitat is that when we go out and serve together, we focus on our shared humanity and our shared values. When we sit at home on screens, we tend to be driven to think about how different we are, how awful the other is, however we define other. So this year, maybe more than I think it was my 16th year in going to the World Economic Forum, and this was the year where housing was more on the agenda than I've ever seen it. And unfortunately, I think that's because that's. Sadly, housing affordability has become such a problem. Interesting. Now, when you talk about the partnerships you're building, what breaks down when one sector, government markets or nonprofits try to solve the housing problem on its own? Why can't one of those just take it over and solve it? You know, I think they all play different roles and we need all of them. So if you think about starting with government, government historically has not been good at building or managing housing, but government sets the rules. They set the enabling environment for housing. They set zon. And very often you need government subsidy of some kind, either in land or in financing in order to make the math work to build housing that's affordable for the lowest income segments of society. The private sector is the best at building at scale. And you actually, there's never enough government subsidy to build at the level we need. So you need private capital and you need the expertise of the private sector. And then I would argue civil society brings the voice of the people into the mix because they're real examples all around the world where if you have public private partnerships, but you don't bring in the voice of the community communities, you can end up with suboptimal solutions. And we've seen China might be the extreme example where you're building huge number of units where no one wants to live. There have been relocation experiments in many countries where you're building lots of housing, but not with access to jobs. So people abandon that housing and go back. They'd rather live informally, but where they have access to jobs. So I think the best model, the data is overwhelmingly clear, is mixed income, mixed use housing, where people live with access to where they work and can live in communities of opportunity. And I think it takes all three sectors to create an ecosystem that actually can make that happen. Now, when you're building that ecosystem. What principles or sort of operating modes have you learned are effective at building those partnerships? And what have you learned that isn't quite as effective? I think I'll start with the not effective. It's. Sadly, it turns out that not in my backyard is one of the few areas of bipartisan agreement in most countries, the world. So we have a human nature, once we own an asset and own our home to then want to protect that at all costs, even with misguided protection. And so I think where it takes, hopefully in a way Habitat's role is then to open up hearts. The reason we engage nearly a million volunteers is not because that's the most efficient way to build houses, but it's an incredible way to build community and build heart. And so the principles I think first I mentioned, one, which is mixed income, mixed use is the best model for everybody, not just for the low income families that creates a sustainable marketplace. Two, we need to build a lot more housing. And that's actually been the fundamental flaw of the last decade plus is we have not been building enough housing. Therefore housing inflation has gone up faster. And if we keep even giving subsidy or support on the demand side but don't address the supply side, we're not going to solve it. And I think the third is educating. The private sector is going to build at the high end because they can make the highest margin there's. So therefore it's actually getting the right set of incentives and requirements that would allow developers to make a fair return so they keep building. But also that we're creating mixed income or creating enough units that are at their affordable end of the market. Because today we're doing a good job of supplying the high end of the market. And we're woefully behind on both low income and what I would call working class middle housing. Where, you know, and that's why I think it's become a political issue now, is now middle class families whose kids can't afford to live in the communities they grew up in have created a political issue. Whereas we already had an affordability crisis at the low end of the market, but now we've gotten a crisis at the middle of the market as well. So how do you organize the Habitat for Humanity to address those problems through those partnerships? What does the organizational structure look like and how do you think about like the organization building those connections it needs to? Well, I think there's a complexity to having a federated organization, but housing is inherently local. So the fact that we work in a thousand local communities and all 50 states, just in the US example, separate that from the rest of the world for a minute, means that we are known in the local community. And that's really important because you actually need to influence policy at the local level, state level, and the federal level before we get to the global level. And so that means Habitat is your local housing organization. People are volunteering locally. One strength is we have deep partnerships with the private sector. So we're bringing our corporate partners out. They're actually building in the community and getting involved. So that creates hopefully the space where we can then influence hearts and minds to create good local zoning policy. Because you've got to impact that. Second level is we work at the state level in every state, because states often are creating both financing and are conduits for federal funding. And then we also work at the national level. And actually next week will be our, what we call Habitat on the Hill. And every year we gather Representatives from all 50 states in Washington for training. But we also try to meet with every member of Congress because housing has become a federal issue as well. And federal funding for housing is an important piece of the puzzle. So our hope is to actually be bridge builders in that local community where we can bring developers to the table along with the city, along with other nonprofits, and really talk about what would it take to increase supply. Because too often I think we find. Sometimes what I've seen is actually the sectors talking across each other, not always necessarily disagreeing. But I find some nonprofits are anti business and tend to think let's just punish the developers into doing what we want. But you can actually end up just pushing the developers out and nobody builds anything, which doesn't get us there. Sometimes government and private sector don't know how to talk to each other either. And so we actually need the multi sector leaders and the translators who can kind of get everyone together to come up with practical solutions to really get units built. And I tend to be very pragmatic. It's, you know, rather than ideological, which is, hey, we have a real need. What is it going to take to get everybody together to really solve a problem and how do we do it at enough scale to matter? And I think that's where at our best, Habitat can play a valuable role. If you're enjoying this episode, make sure to follow or subscribe so you never miss a conversation. We've got plenty more great stories coming your way. So I'm wondering, what does your org chart look like? Like when you have your executive staff? I don't Even know, do you have an executive staff? But what are the big buckets of organizations of structure in your leadership team? So we tend to look a lot like other large organizations. The difference would be the federation. So I have a chief operating officer who leads all of our programs, and under him, we've got five regions, the US And Canada, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Africa, and Europe and the Middle East. And then we have operational organizations roll out through that. Then we have fundraising, we have communications, we have finance and administration. That includes it, and legal and support functions. So that's the umbrella group. And then we're each local Habitat ranges. And that's part of both our joy and complexity, from large, complex local housing organizations in the bigger cities to small cases, still all volunteer, small rural organizations. And our umbrella group really is providing tools, support, as well as accountability and training to all of those local organizations. And then our countries have essentially the right to use the Habitat name and do the work in local countries. We are complicated. Some of those are actually wholly owned subsidiaries that we manage directly. Some are locally governed country organizations that we fund, support, and equip, but that they are locally managed by a local board and local staff. So it's a little bit of a complicated organizational structure, but in some ways, I joke, we're halfway between a denomination and a Fortune 500 company, but have some attributes of both. Yeah. So I want to talk about the notion of the denomination. Habitat is a Christian organization. And working across all of that complexity that you just saw, how do you lead in a way that your values show up? Right. The Christian values that are important, but still remain inclusive, credible, and collaborative across diverse contexts where, you know, you have to work with lots of people who don't share that faith with you. I think the beautiful thing is we don't take the doctrinal stands on things that separate everybody. Because we're a service organization. A couple things are really important. Our mission statement is actually Habitat for Humanity puts God's love into action by bringing people together to build homes, communities, and hope. So I love that, if you think about the first part is our motivation. The reason we want to do it is to share God's love. The methodology is by actually bringing people together. So right in the middle of our mission statement is the effort to work across all kinds of difference. And then the impact we're trying to have are building homes, communities, and hope. So we have really twin pillars. And one of the phrases we've used for years, which I love, is, God is our center, but not our border. So it can be the motivation for our work, but we can joyfully have our arms open and welcome everyone to that work. And I've just seen amazing things happen through that Habitat, actually. With President Carter, our most famous volunteer, and Desmond Tutu, another of my heroes. Habitat built the first mixed race community in South Africa after apartheid. The day before the Good Friday Accords were signed in Northern Ireland, Tony Blair and his team and Jerry Adams and his team spent a day building a Habitat house together. And all the homes at Belfast were built by Protestants and Catholics building together. And we have built post conflict in Sri Lanka. We have built, done peace building in many countries around the world. And as I've joked, we've even had Democrats and Republicans build together. So it shows anything is possible. But I think that which, as I said earlier, the fact that we are service first and we're not a church, we're a housing organization, we're a 501, we have always welcomed anyone into the mission. And I think one of the principles that goes with that, that is embedded in a lot of our interfaith work, or work across RA, or work across political difference, is that no one has to give up who they are in order to work together. And I think that's a really important principle, which is I've been part of interfaith gatherings where you're trying to reach theological agreement, and that ends up actually being in some ways offensive or ineffective. But I think the effective model I've seen work beautifully is, hey, we can come together and serve. And in serving, we can refocus on our shared values and build relationships, but everyone can. No one has to give up who they are to do that. A friend of mine, Eboo Patel, is a great metaphor. He said, rather than thinking of the, you know, as a melting pot, think of it as a potluck supper. For those who know that idea that everybody brings their best dish to the table, we have a feast together, but everybody, we can celebrate all that difference and still be in fellowship together. And I think that that's the best vision. And in a way, the Habitat build represents that. When you come out to the Habitat build, doesn't matter what your skill set is, doesn't matter what your faith, political, ethnic or religious background is, you're there to help and serve, and you get a feeling of community that we all want and too rarely see. So I love that potluck dinner metaphor. So I'm gonna push that a little bit because also everyone brings their dishes. I may hate what three people brought, but I still love being there and being a part of it. Right. I don't have to like what everyone brings. I don't have to eat it. I'll try something else. Great metaphor. Exactly. But you can appreciate the feeling and you can be together. And I think face to face is always better than on screen. Great. So you talk a lot about values, right. And it's easy to talk about that in the abstract. Right. Because it's a powerful thing, it pulls you together. But you're leading a very large organization. It's complex. Right. You have to make decisions all the time about things. And across the organization, people are making decisions. How do you ensure that the values of the organization remain central in all of those decisions? I think that what I talked about before, tension is probably the right way to think about it. But we have a clear set of. We call our core documents and you can find them on our website. But our vision, ultra clear, non negotiable. A world where everyone has a decent place to live. I shared our mission statement and we have a set of principles that in a way become the frame. And for instance, we're a housing organization. So there's a lot of big problems in our world that I care personally deeply about. But those are not habitats core issue, even though they really matter. So we are not going to be focusing on immigration, though it's a huge deal. We're not going to be focusing on food, even though it's really, really important. And we might work with organizations that supply food because our unique space is housing. So those become a frame. And then we realized we had a hole around behavioral values on top of the principles. So the principles sort of frame what kind of work we ought to do, our behavioral values. And we really wrestle with these because I felt we could only have three are humility, courage and accountability. And so those then become a little bit of a litmus test. Are we actually living our values? So for me it starts with humility. That goes back to servant leadership. It goes back to the idea, it's mission before me and that we're part of something bigger than ourselves that we get to join into. I think courage is crucial because you need to step out and push. You know, our vision is really bold, therefore we've got to actually be courageous. But accountability is one that we probably need to work the hardest on, which is we need to be great stewards of the resources we have and we need to be unapologetic about trying to have the most impact we can with the resources we have. So Those become, in a way, the balance. Warren Bennis had a great model I heard years and years ago from him that we, I think took the ethos off of. He talked about a three legged stool of leadership that you need ambition, competence and a moral compass. And what I liked is he talked about a three legged stool because if you have any two of the three would be insufficient. You really need all three. And actually the most dangerous are somebody who is both competent and ambitious but has no moral compass. And so we tried to think about the three values that would balance one another and that we would need all three to be successful. So it's interesting, you've clearly sort of have a nice view of what your role is and what you want to bring to the organization. So over the years, as you've been CEO of Habitat, what types of behaviors have you taken on as a leader and how have you changed sort of to fulfill the mission that you have for the organization? Thank you. You know, I think over time my role has. When I first jumped in, there was a lot of operational work that needed to happen. And so a lot of energy to go into and still does, certainly building a strong leadership team, strengthening our board and getting alignment. And at the beginning, our founder was an amazing event. You know, essentially social entrepreneur. And if you rode airplane with him, by the time you got off the plane, you'd start Habitat wherever you lived. So we were really wide, but not very deep, with no operational stuff. So at the front end, we had to roll out a common logo, we had to roll legal agreements, operating standards, a whole bunch of infrastructure stuff that's not much fun, but really important to kind of raise the foundation for growth. I would say now much more of my time is on the external side, so on policy, on advocacy, on fundraising and building partnerships. And we've got a really solid operational team. So I think that's been some of the personal shift and in a way it's mirrored some of Habitat shift to trying to the words we adopted. We want to be a partner and catalyst for worldwide access to safety and affordable housing, that we would never be able to build enough housing to solve the problem. Therefore, could we do what we do as a demonstration that allows us to be at the table in a way that allows us to influence markets and systems. And we could talk more about that, but I think that's been part of my personal evolution along with the organization's evolution. How would you describe yourself as a leader today? In a way that's different than you were a leader five years ago. I hope I'm still learning and growing. I think an area I'm better than I was, but not as good as I hope I will be is being really good at both being clear and kind. That's been a big focus of our cultural work the last couple years is around courageous conversations and around the idea that it's not only important to be both clear and kind, it's not kind not to be clear. And I think nonprofits and even more faith based nonprofits can tilt towards being nice but not sufficiently clear. Now, on the other hand, being clear and not kind I think is not a great recipe either and wouldn't do well in our culture. But I'm trying personally, I think learning through painful mistakes that I used to be so good at being kind. I wasn't always sufficiently clear. And I've had to learn to be more direct while still trying to be kind. And I think being clear and direct is kind from what I've learned. Exactly. That you're not doing anybody a favor or letting them continue to exhibit a behavior that's ineffective, continuing to do something that's hurtful, hurting their performance or their team's performance. Absolutely. So I'm wondering if you were to. Because, you know, obviously my humanity at scale, your message resonates with me and probably most of my audience. But I'm wondering if you were to package up what you've learned about being a leader who's very values driven and sort of permeated those values across the organization. How would you advise a CEO of a for profit to lead their organization based on what you've learned in your leadership journey? I actually deeply believe the things we've been talking about are equally needed and right in the for profit world as well. If you think about we have this conversation with corporate partners all the time. The best talent wants to work for purpose driven organizations. And so I think we're seeing companies having to get clearer about their purpose, which has to be more than selling widgets but figuring out how they're actually making impact. And then in the same way, I think most of the business leaders I know who are really good, I think about one of our former board members, Ed Bastian, I'm a huge fan who leads Delta Airlines. He leads so deeply with purpose. Now there's no disconnect between purpose and operational excellence. You need operational excellence behind it. But I think he's led. And one of the things I've watched is all of us look pretty good in the good times where leaders are tested, are always Going to be in the tough times. And that's when your values are tested as well. And if you think about it, it's always in the storms. Sadly, I started my career with the tsunami in Asia and Hurricane Katrina. And I've watched, you know, we've had to deal with way too many disasters. And I think that's an interesting metaphor, because in a way, when in the big storms, it's when your foundations are revealed, and the homes that are built on strong foundations withstand the storms. And I think in the same way our values are revealed in the storm, that's when we're tested. And that's where you see leaders either step up and shine or not. And I think that goes back then to. For a leader, whether private sector or nonprofit, understanding clearly what I or we or they need to do spiritually, physically, emotionally, to be able to show up the way they want to show up. I think all of us want to show up as good leaders. Then the question is, how do we actually build the kind of accountability structure, support structure, to be able to do that both in the good times and the hard times, if that makes sense. But I don't think there's a difference for that between private and nonprofit. I think the nonprofit side, we win big on purpose. I mean, our staff are all in on purpose. Now, what we've got to be stronger on sometimes is some of the other levers that private sector have more scale, have more resources, have more levers they can pull, and we have to then balance those. I think on the corporate side, they've got to figure out how to pull those levers in a way that still pull the best talent to their organization and allow them to stay aligned around something more than just making money. And making money is a good thing that allows people to get paid and take care of their families. And I'm all for it, but it's probably not sufficient to as a driving purpose to rally people around. So making money buys you a bed, but it doesn't get you out of bed in the morning. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I'd love to shift a little bit of focus to the future. As you step back and look ahead, I'm curious how you see the future unfolding not just for habitat, but for society and for leadership more broadly. When you look over the next decade, what worries you the most and what gives you the most hope? I think the worry, sadly, is pretty clear that we are becoming atomized and polarized in a way that's really concerning. Again, Just look at the US but these trends are global. Last year was the first year that fewer than half of Americans gave even a dollar to charity. And that's really just a reflection of the fact that people are less engaged in faith, less engaged in community activities, less engaged with their neighbors, and more lonely. We have a loneliness crisis. The surge of the former Surgeon General laid out a really compelling case around all the costs of that. So we are just more disconnected. And I think that is worrisome. And then with that, I was just talking to a pastor yesterday, we're seeing that people's political identity is where they're then finding meaning. So people are becoming locked into a political ident that then informs their faith or their values or their other pieces, as opposed to their core values, faith, or guiding principles informing their politics. Which means we then defend the indefensible if our team is doing it. And we will attack even the beautiful if the other side is doing it. And I think that is a very worrisome divide. I think what gives me hope is actually what I see out there when people are out in their communities and that people want better than that. And. And I was recently in Egypt and saw Coptic Christians and Muslims working together in a beautiful way. Just tell a quick anecdote. It's an older one, but I love this where if you remember a tragedy, the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh was there was a devastating massacre. And in North Carolina, actually Durham, North Carolina, a Jewish congregation that was their synagogue was being rebuilt. They were staying in a Presbyterian church and worshiping. And they were supposed to come out the next day and work on a habitat house. And they got together and said, gosh, given the tragedy, should we not do this? And their response, which is so lovely, was, no, we should actually do this. So the next day this congregation went out and finished building a home alongside an immigrant Muslim family. And that the best response to hate is love. And I think when we see that, that becomes infectious. And you see those are the hope giving moments to me where I see actual people in the community working together. And I know when people experience that it's infectious. And how do we just create more of those environments for people to have that experience as opposed to the algorithm driven sitting on your social media screen at home. Well, I love that story and that's a great place to end the formal part and move into my closing questions. So I'm going to share with you some questions I ask all of my guests. The first one is what is one leadership skill that you think will become even more important in the future. Future, I think. Agility, continuous learning. So things are changing so fast, I think leaders are going to have to be able to respond and move very quickly to a rapidly changing environment around them. Great. The second question is if you could wave a magic wand and immediately make organizations more humanity centric, what would you change? I know it gets pooh poohed, but I think it would be thinking about a truly balanced scorecard that would value both the human piece, the community piece, the needed profit piece, and the care of their employees and stakeholders. I think if that were broadly held and we had a long term view, that would have a huge impact. Love that. And what's one final piece of advice you'd like to leave with our listeners? You know, I think the axiom I probably use the most with my team, they get tired of is be religious about your principles but not your tactics. Be deeply anchored in who you are and what your core values are. But then be incredibly open to how you can then engage with others across all kinds of difference and in terms of how you navigate problems. And I love that because the way you describing religion there is not religion specific, it's more values. Sort of the essence and holding of values as the centerpiece. Very much so. So the last question is just for our listeners who are interested in Habitat for Humanity, either finding out more or helping more. What's your advice for them? Well, we need a lot of help. We've got a big housing crisis. If you go to habitat.org you can learn more about our work, including some things that will probably surprise you. Not just the core work, how to get involved in your local community and go out and get involved, but also some of the exciting work we're doing around policy and trying to change markets and systems and how you can get engaged with that as well. Well, super. I recommend that everyone go take a look and if you have the opportunity, help this wonderful cause. Jonathan, thanks for joining me on the show and maybe even a bigger thank for the work that you do. Thank you, Bruce. I'm grateful. I feel very blessed to get to be a part of it. And thanks for having me on today. Great. Well everyone, I hope you enjoyed our conversation with Jonathan Reckford. Now let's dive into the After Show, a segment where I'll reflect on the key takeaways from the episode. Foreign. Welcome to the after show. When I think back on this conversation with Jonathan Reckford, what stays with me isn't housing policy or organizational scale. It's that his leadership has a moral starting point and everything else flows from there. Early on, he talked about his grandmother. She didn't ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up. She would quote a verse from the Bible and ask a simple, simpler, harder question, what are you going to do to be useful? That word, useful, cuts through the ego of leadership. It gets down to the floorboards of what we do and why we do it. And it set the tone for a conversation that wasn't just about building houses, but about building human connection. That distinction matters because Habitat for Humanity is a Christian organization. But what we talked about wasn't religion. It was how faith shows up in action, in decisions, behavior, and how leaders bring people together. Here are five insights from the conversation that stayed with me. The first was the power of influence over authority. Jonathan made a fascinating point about moving from the C suite at companies like Disney and Best Buy into nonprofit leadership. In the corporate world you have levers, bonuses, stock options, hire and fire authority. In the nonprofit world, you often don't. You have to lead through influence and shared vision. But here's the kicker. He believes servant leadership isn't just a non profit necessity. It's actually a superior way to lead any organization because it forces you to bring people along rather than dragging them. The second takeaway is that managing tensions, not just solving problems, is what it's all about. I love this distinction, jonathan said. There are problems you solve and there are tensions you manage and housing is a tension. He talked about the three legged stool of society. Government sets the rules and the funding. The private sector brings scale and expertise and civil society brings the voice of the people. Leave one out and he gave the example of empty cities built far from jobs and you fail. He summed it up perfectly. The only thing worse than partnering partnering is not partnering. The next takeaway is that clear is kind. Jonathan was very open about his own growth as a leader. Coming from a faith background, he admitted he used to mistake niceness for kindness, avoiding hard conversations to preserve harmony. Over time, he learned a harder truth. It is not kind. Not to be clear, what struck me is that faith didn't lower the bar for leadership. It raised it. It pushed him towards clarity, not avoidance. The next takeaway is that purpose matters most under pressure. Jonathan used a metaphor that stuck with me. In fair weather, most houses look fine. It's only in a storm that you see which foundations were actually built to last. He applied that directly to leadership. When things going well, incentives and performance can carry an organization. But when pressure hits those levers weaken. That's why he said Habitat wins big on purpose and why he was so clear that while making money matters for those profit organization, it's probably not sufficient on its own. When things get hard, purpose is what holds people together. And of course I loved the potluck supper metaphor. That was my favorite visual of the episode and it captured something important about leading a faith based organization in a diverse world. When talking talking about inclusion, Jonathan rejected the idea of a melting pot where everyone blends together. Instead, he described a potluck supper. Everyone brings their best dish. You don't have to like every dish, you don't have to change your own recipe, but you sit at the same table and share the meal. It's about shared action, not shared theology. So as we wrap up, I'll leave you with two questions. First, where are your values actually showing up in how you lead, especially in small everyday decisions people feel most. And second, who are you inviting to your potluck supper? Someone who brings a dish you might not usually choose, but who makes the whole community stronger. That's it for now. I hope you enjoyed this episode and remember, you are the flame that can spark humanity at scale. One decision, one conversation, one moment at a time. Thanks for tuning in to humanity. Redefining Leadership Podcast Remember, true leadership isn't only about achieving short term results. It's about creating a lasting, positive impact on all of the people you touch. Join me next time as we uncover more insights and strategies for humanity centric leadership. Until then, I'm Bruce Temkin encouraging you to lead with purpose and empathy and to be the spark that elevates humanity at scale.