~1000 words, but half of that is a story you can skip if you don’t care for my recollections
This is part 3 of my continuing Drucker series. While the series focuses on some of Drucker’s memorable sayings, the introduction focuses on a personal remembrance.
Part 1, and Part 2, are here.
During all those meetings with Peter, I was tagging along with Bob Buford, one of the founders of Leadership Network, and what was then called the Drucker Institute.
Peter had us send him long rambling letters describing our questions ahead of time. This is a practice I still use in my own consulting.
This trip was memorable because it included a dinner invitation from his wife, Doris.
As we headed towards their modest home in Claremont, California, Bob wanted to bring some wine.
Not knowing the area, and this was pre-smartphone days, Bob scouted out a place to buy a bottle to take to our hostess. With no way to find a good wine shop, I recollect that we ended up at a Walgreens Drug store, not the fine wine place.
Bob asked the clerk for their most refined bottle of red wine as if this young person knew anything about wine. She pulled a most expensive bottle, and he handed it to me. “What do you think, Dave?”
My answer: “You think a Baptist Deacon knows anything about wine? I have never touched the stuff.”
We bought it, and I was a bit embarrassed that Bob took it into Doris. “It was the best Walgreens had,” he told her. I am not sure it ever got opened.
Whenever a bottle was opened, the three of them shared it at the simple kitchen table. Doris made mushroom risotto. It was marvelous.
(the modest home of Peter and Doris, now a museum - photo from google images)
More on that conversation in the next issue. On to the sayings.
Statement 1: “The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say "I." And that's not because they have trained themselves not to say "I." They don't think "I." They think "we"; they think "team." They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don't sidestep it, but "we" get the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.”
― Peter Drucker
My career has been defined by working with large church senior pastors. The public and most of the congregation often see the out-front leader, the senior pastor. That is what many people will build some identification with. “I got to Pastor Rick’s church.”
But in all cases, while the Senior Pastor is vitally essential, the team makes it happen.
Without a great team of leaders, staff, and lay, no long-term growth churches are working to make things happen.
The best pastors and leaders will always talk about their team, not themselves.
Question: How are you building up and recognizing your team every week?
If a senior pastor is taking the credit for what God has done at the church and making it about them, then I choose not to work with them.
Statement 2: “Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.”
― Peter Drucker
This is often a misunderstood concept. I see it when I consult with some churches and their crucial staff leaders.
We do need leaders that help guide and sometimes drive teams toward action. But the critical role of leaders is to take responsibility for those they lead to help them be successful in their roles.
When the role does not fit, they should adjust, change, or help the team member to the right next thing for them where they can be successful.
When we are given oversight of a given area or set of tasks, we are not the privileged ones to lighten our load but to carry the responsibility and weight of ensuring the right actions are taken at the correct times for the right reasons.
More after the ad…..
After working with 165 churches now in their Senior Pastor Transition/Succession/Legacy season, I have learned a few things.
A few months ago, one of my colleagues asked: What is the minimum I need to know when I talk to a church about this area?
Off the top of my head, I threw off a few statements. But I told him I would think about it and develop the essential kernel of the issues and how to address them. Plus, I would try to make them memorable and colorful so they would catch attention.
I have them and will reveal them in my monthly legacy season webinar.
It’s a quick, 25 minutes camera off where I will run through them and speak to each one for a minute or two.
We don’t record these, so you have to be there live.
It’s Wednesday, August 24, at 5 ET, 4 CT.
It is most appropriate for Senior Pastors within ten years of wanting to hand over primary leadership to another leader. But staff, board members, and younger pastors are also welcome to attend.
Back to the story….
Statement 3: “Leadership is not magnetic personality; that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not "making friends and influencing people", that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.”
― Peter F. Drucker, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices
One of the best leaders on a church staff I ever knew fit the above description well. She was unobtrusive. She often had trouble communicating with the board and leaders outside her assigned area.
But within her area, no one did better at working with the team to help them understand the mission and the way to help each team member make a maximum contribution to the efforts of the whole.
She was undervalued on the pay scale, but her area helped drive much of the kingdom result for the church.
Everyone knew that her ministry area was a shining light for the church, but her seeming introversion and manner decreased her standing in the eyes of many in the church.
Fortunately, the senior leader in the church recognized her gifts, strengths, passions, and abilities well.
When some cried out for a more outgoing, friendly, and out-front leader type in that area, he just said: “Look at the fruit there. Do you think we have a better developer of people on the whole team? She gets more done with unpaid staff and volunteers than you do with three paid staff. Leave her alone and learn from her.”
It was yucky medicine for them to take, but it was the right word.
Question: Are you valuing the great talkers instead of those that can walk with people and point them to more incredible things?
It often happens in churches.
Publication announcement:
My friend Greg Ligon has been writing every other week for us, but his schedule is moving to once a month. Jim Sheppard, the principal owner of Generis, has agreed to take a once-a-month slot for Church Leader Insider.
Jim is an expert in Generosity issues and has mentored many younger church planters in the past decade. He will be sharing with us his learnings in future issues.
Thanks for reading and subscribing.