20/20 Leadership: A 40-Year Career in Hindsight

Preface

Experts say we get a sense of mission and purpose from something that makes us mad, glad, or sad. My motivation for writing this book and doing the other things I do stems from these three emotions for sure.

I coach, teach, and do strategic planning in the area of leadership. Why? Though I spent over 31 years in the healthcare business, I saw deeper and longer lasting pain on the faces of people who were being wounded by poor leadership than I did for clinical causes. It makes me angry that people could be in the business of healing and at the same time hurt others so deeply.

What I saw also made me sad. The company as a whole was such a good company and did such great things for people throughout the US and beyond. Yet so much more opportunity was wasted for leaders to lead effectively and create contentment and satisfaction in the lives of people.

To end on a positive note, my deepest gladness comes from helping people learn from the mistakes I made so they can be more effective leaders. I retired from the paycheck about 10 years ago and created Vision Leadership Foundation, a nonprofit organization. My goal is to invest my life in leaders to:

• Help them accomplish more in less time and with less stress. Leaders today seem to be running at a frenzied pace. They work hard and should be enjoying life. I want to help them have margin in their lives so there is more time for their spouses, children, churches, communities, friends, and overall enjoyment of life.

• Create a healthy culture wherever they are to benefit those they touch, especially employees. By applying the principles in this book, I believe leaders can empower employees to can get more done with less stress and greater contentment.

• Create more profit for business owners so they can share more financial resources with employees, ministries, and charities.

• Create better leadership and organizational administration for nonprofit organizations, ministries, and churches so that they are more effective in caring out their philanthropic missions.

I have a book called Good King Bad King/Which One Are You? So, why did I write this one? Good King Bad King is a 370-page leadership manual. It can be read like a book, but its best use is like a reference manual.

Also, over the past few years of coaching and teaching, I have learned some things that have sharpened and refined my thinking. The purpose of this book is to have something much shorter and in line with my current thinking. Using my theme less is more, I’m trying to give you something that will be more impactful and take less of your time to read and absorb.

With over 40 years in organizational leadership at businesses, nonprofit organizations, ministries, and churches, I see a constant theme. Everybody wants that creative breakthrough idea that is going to sustain the organization as a success. Certainly, innovation and creativity are needed and allow organizations to provide more and better results over time. Yet many organizations fail, and most organizations tend to not live up to their potential because many basic principles are not followed consistently. This occurs even in innovative organizations. It’s like watching professional sports teams lose important ballgames because very basic fundamentals were not followed. It’s my strong contention that most sports games at that level are not won by superior talent but rather lost by the team that makes the most fundamental errors that day. I see some of the same challenges at work in organizations of all types. Therefore, I’ve looked back over my 40-year career of leadership in various roles to pick out those things that matter most in organizational life.

The idea behind this book is that I am using 20/20 hindsight to look back over a 40-year leadership career in business, churches, ministry, and nonprofits to see what really mattered most. Why does that matter? Because these same ageless, timeless basics will still matter the most in the next 40 years.

Most competitions are not won by superior talent, whether it’s sports or business. Most competitions are won by the team or organization that does the basics right consistently.

PURPOSE INTRODUCTION

The Cathedral

A man noticed three bricklayers who appeared to be doing exactly the same thing. He walked up to the first one and said, May I ask what you are doing? The man replied, I am a bricklayer. I lay bricks on top of each other all day long and get paid $20 an hour to feed my family. It’s hard work.

The gentleman asked the second man the same question. He replied, I’m a builder. I love building. I get a good workout while I do my work. I don’t have to work out early in the morning and then go do my job. And it lets me feed my family.

The gentleman went to the third man with the same question. The man replied, Oh sir, I’m building a great cathedral. I love building. But this building is special. It will be grand and beautiful. Many people will gather here to admire its beauty. Their spiritual lives and destinies will be changed. I’m so lucky to have the opportunity to be part of this project. And can you believe it? I get to participate in something so special and actually be paid for it.

Everybody I know in business or any form of organizational life understands the importance of their people. I hear comments ranging from business would be fun if it weren’t for the people to I have the greatest team ever. Let’s consider what makes organizational life either a pain or a joy, bricklaying or cathedral building.

The Perspectives

The three people are working on the same wall doing the same work. Yet they certainly have different perspectives. Why is that? There can be many reasons. Often, the bricklayer is operating outside their skill set or what I would call their sweet spot. Either they do not know or they are not rightly connected to the mission, vision, or priorities of the organization. There are many ways the leader or manager can impact a bricklayer’s work. We will discuss some of those later.

The builder is using their skill set, operating within their sweet spot, but they are not necessarily passionate about the organization’s mission/vision. They may be able to see the vision of the completed project, but they focus primarily on their portion of the project. They take a certain pride in being part of it, but they may be willing to join any other project that uses their skill set appropriately.

The cathedral builder is committed to the mission, excited about the vision, has the talent to contribute, and feels lucky to be part of such a grand endeavor and still be paid.

As leaders, we need to wrestle with the fact that God didn’t make anybody to just be a bricklayer. Each person is uniquely created for a specific purpose at a particular time in history that no one else can fulfill. Therefore, the question is, how do we move people from where they are to being cathedral builders? Obviously, we have to make sure we are meeting their most significant needs. What are they?

The Bottom Line

• The mission needs to be executed efficiently. Misalignment in the structural process to make progress causes inefficiencies, deviations from the mission, and frustration of the team.

• Leaders engage people. Managers use them.

• An organization of cathedral builders will be most effective and efficient.

Chapter 1

Leadership vs. Management

I’ve observed over many years that a set of basic and deep-seated needs must be met for a person to contribute their best to the organization.

Meaning: People have a deep need to matter, to be important, and make a difference in the world around them. Viktor Frankel made this clear many years ago in his book The Meaning of Life.¹ He wrote about how some people survived the Holocaust while so many didn’t. Those who had a purpose or reason to continue to live beyond themselves tended to survive, while those who were focused primarily on themselves did not. Those who survived found some meaning in their pain. The meaning they found was in caring for and helping others in that horrible experience. In the context of work, people find meaning or significance in what they do and the organization they are part of. To be part of something bigger than ourselves. There is a limit to what we can do or accomplish on our own. Since we all need to feel important, we like to be part of organizations that we take pride in and that make us feel more important than we would be on our own.

Vision: We all need vision or hope of a future that is better than today. It is part of how we are made. No matter what we have or what project we just finished, we tend to hope for more in the future. We are designed to make progress. We see this in the New Testament in the parable of the talents. Regardless of the talent level an individual had, God expected them to take it and multiply it. Hope of a better life in the future is engrained in all of us. Where there is no vision, there is no hope, and despair soon sets in. Scripture says, where there is no vision, the people perish. We may continue to breathe and exist, but there is no real life without vision. Only despair.

Social connection: We are social creatures. We were made for relationships with others and our Creator. The social connection at work is very important, since we spend most of our waking hours in the workplace. This is a key reason why the major firms that do employee surveys ask if you have a best friend at work. They know if that is the case, your likelihood of leaving for another job is greatly reduced.

Esteem: Everyone needs to feel valued and that they are esteemed. We want the respect of those around us—our coworkers and superiors. You may think that is the same as having meaning or being important. The fact is, we can be important and have meaning without being esteemed by our associates.

Security: We need to feel safe. We need to feel that our job is secure, that our work is acceptable, appreciated, and that our behavior is appropriate for the environment.

Progress: We need to make progress. Built within us is the desire for a future that is better than the present. We have to make progress to achieve that.

Leadership vs. Management

There is a big difference between leadership and management. Some managers may provide some leadership, and leaders do perform some management tasks. However, the best leaders manage through a leader’s lens.

Managers:

• direct, and

• control people and tasks

They are more interested in a person’s compliance than their passion and more interested in maintaining control than empowering people. That doesn’t mean you can’t have kind and benevolent managers, but they are still mostly focused on tasks and keeping control. By contrast, leaders:

• inspire with vision

• guide with priorities

• empower with goals

• encourage, coach, and correct for accountability

• share feedback and progress

The generation born in 1980 or later is called the Millennials. In fact, they are often called the blank Millennials. My generation, the Baby Boomers, and the generation after me, the Gen Xers, don’t quite know what to do with Millennials. We are often confused and frustrated. It’s important that we understand this generation population-wise is the largest in the world and soon will have the most purchasing power of any generation. Also, they are increasingly making up much of our workforce.

Dr. Kent Wessinger has done serious study and analysis of Millennials and has the best understanding of them that I’ve encountered. I do have some firsthand experience though, because I raised three of them. One thing I am confident of is that Millennials will not be managed. But they will respond to good leadership. Why am I singling out this one generation? Because it is now the largest demographic in the world, will experience the largest transfer of wealth in history, and will make more than any previous generation. They will have a great influence on the world for the rest of my life.

It’s possible to be in a manager’s role and have a leader’s mindset. It’s also possible to be in a leader’s role and have a manager’s mindset. The difference is crucial, as we will begin to discover in Chapter 2 and beyond.

Chapter 2

The Highly Functional Organization

For over 31 years, I worked in a large company with hundreds of subunits, had dealings across the spectrum, and saw the functionality of hundreds of units. Since then, in my executive coaching and consulting role, I have seen how many organizations function. So the question is, in what type of organization can people’s needs be met? Let’s break this down in the following pages.

The following diagram depicts what I call the functional organization. We will describe each element of what makes an organization functional.

The foundation of an effective organization is prayer. Why? Because God knows the future and we don’t. I don’t care