If you lead an organization or team, caring well for your staff and colleagues is not just about productivity. The success of any plan depends more than anything else on the people executing it.
Other things matter, too — from good strategy to logistics. But nothing will prove more decisive than the people involved and their health in mind, body and spirit.
Jesus put it this way, “A good tree will produce good fruit.” (Matthew 7:17) In other words, if a person is deeply healthy, then what springs from their life over time will be very good, too.
No leadership investment will prove more consequential in the long run than to care well for those we lead.
So how can we as leaders cultivate that kind of deep-down health — whether in a nonprofit, business, church … or even a family or circle of friends?
Here are three things I’ve come to believe are essential:
1. Grow your affection for your team by praying for them.
To care for someone well, we must love them — really love them. We may not feel that kind of deep-down love at the start. But contrary to common assumptions, we can grow it. I’ve found no better way to deepen my affection for people than to pray for them.
When we pray for team members, our hearts are set toward them. We start seeing them more as God sees them, with compassion amidst our differences and longing for their good. Over time, subtle shifts like these in our thoughts become drivers for loving feelings and actions towards and for those we lead.
2. Care for the whole person.
Caring well for our team means seeing the whole person, including their intellect, emotions, physical health, relationships and spiritual life.
Even the dimensions of a person that seem to have little direct connection to work are a vital part of them … and ultimately affect all the other parts. Certainly, a boss can’t force an employee to get more sleep or invest in their marriage. But we can help — both in shaping an overall culture and in specific policies that encourage healthy practices in every sphere of life.
CAFO operates alongside our typical strategic plan with an internal document we call our “Strategic Plan for Thriving Souls.” It outlines both our vision and specific policies for this whole-person care. It’s first an expression of love for team members. But we believe it’s also key to long-term productivity, as well.
3. Model spiritual life through little habits.
Our “spirit” — that profound part of us that the Bible also refers to as the “heart” or the “will” — is much like a rudder. It’s far smaller than the ship, yet it is vital in setting direction.
Dallas Willard describes the spirit as the “executive center” of our lives. So the formation of our spirit — how our heart and character are being transformed over time — is the most important thing about us and the best thing we can offer those with whom we serve.
Good leaders pay attention to this. Alongside other ways of caring for their team in mind, body and relationships, they help them cultivate their spiritual life also. This begins with modeling. Good leaders don’t need to be perfect to show what it looks like to grow more like Jesus day by day — including the living and sharing of simple practices of spiritual formation.
This happens especially in the small, daily habits that shape our character over time. Of course, our formation into Christlikeness is ultimately God’s work. But like so many things God does, He invites us to participate with Him in it. As we take small steps that lie within our feeble capacity — including practices like spending time with Him each morning, receiving the gifts of Sabbath, solitude and other habits — God steadily re-forms us to be more and more like Jesus.
Faithful disciples in every era have done this, together. They’ve engaged spiritual practices in community as a way to participate with God in His transformation of us. We can do the same today, modeling this as leaders and inviting others to join in simple practices of spiritual formation together.
Cultivating this kind of deep-down health in those we lead and ourselves takes time. The cultivation of a thriving fruit orchard takes years — how much more so our spiritual lives? But we can be confident of this: as we align our hearts with God in small habits over time, He will do His transforming work within us.
-Jedd Medefind is the president of Christian Alliance for Orphans.
Join the Spiritual Formation Calendar Experience in 2026
CAFO wants to support you on the journey of caring well for your teams. We’d invite you to utilize the Spiritual Formation Calendar Experience. This simple tool was created to help leaders of organizations, churches or networks to lead a team through biblically-rooted practices of spiritual formation, engaging them together.
Learn more and sign up HERE!
