Leadership, strategy and management form a three-legged stool. Neglect one and the other two will probably fail.
Much ink has been spilled about the role of leadership versus management in any healthy organization. Somewhat less popular to consider is the role of strategy and how, if properly used, it can make leadership more effective and management more efficient. The three together form a three-legged stool: neglect one and the other two will probably fail because they have lost their original purpose.
Leadership without strategy or management creates dysfunction. The mission gets little or no traction. The organization moves in fits and starts. The leader lacks focus and wastes energy. As a result of repeated false starts and rabbit trails, the team eventually loses trust in leadership, creating a dysfunctional environment. The reason why is because a vision without a plan is just an idea. While you need an idea to start, you can’t lead very far on ideas alone. As I have written elsewhere, a mist in the pulpit is a fog in the pew. There’s no such thing as a clearly defined strategy for accomplishing an unclear vision.
A vision without a plan is just an idea. You need an idea to start but you can't get far on ideas alone. There's no such thing as a clear strategy for accomplishing an unclear vision.
Leadership without clear strategy or strong management to balance it will lack focus, waste energy and lose trust -- all leading to dysfunction.
Management without leadership or strategy creates inertia. When leadership and strategy are weak or absent, management will fill the vacuum by turning inward, becoming an end in itself. If not directed towards the pursuit of a clear vision or in service of a defined strategy, the practice of management eventually becomes fixated on the self-serving goal of efficiency. All things large and small are managed just for the sake of management. In other words, management becomes micromanagement and everything comes to a grinding halt.
Management without clear strategy and strong leadership to balance it will be self-focused, obsessed with efficiency and riddled with micromanagement -- all leading to inertia.
It’s worth taking a look at each one individually in order to better understand how they work together. Leadership is inspiring others to pursue a compelling idea. Management is overseeing others to accomplish a detailed plan. Strategy is the art and science of translating ideas into plans.
Leadership is inspiring others to pursue a compelling idea. There is an aspect of leadership that is very personal because the seed of an idea often springs from the internal life of the leader. That’s why it’s so vital for any leader to remain emotionally and spiritually healthy. If you’re a depleted leader, you are walking in dangerous territory because you have compromised your ability to discern the voice of God and differentiate it from the voice of your own ego. The most compelling ideas eventually turn into a larger vision for the organization but the ideas themselves typically get their start from what’s going on inside the leader’s heart and head.
There’s also an aspect of leadership that happens with others because the point of any vision is for it to become catalytic to everyone under that leader’s influence. Ideas can be honed and developed in the context of community with the leader’s inner circle but eventually it must go public. At its core, leadership is a public act because it involves the movement of others. As the old saying goes, a leader without followers is just a guy taking a walk. The way you motivate others to move forward is by coalescing around a compelling vision for a preferred future that everyone will share together.
Leadership involves seeing things before others see them. It may be anticipating some external change that will impact how the church can reach its surrounding community. It may be a new ministry opportunity or a new partnership with a local non-profit. It may be forecasting how a bold move to a new location will position the church for greater gospel impact. The point is that leadership can often anticipate these things because of the vantage point of seeing the entire organization as a whole. The view at 30,000 feet is very different than it is on the runway and you can begin to see larger patterns, trends or even concerns that are emerging. Those ideas, when properly nurtured and developed, can turn into vision. The mark of effective leadership is when the organization accepts the personal sacrifice required to rally behind a new vision or direction.
If you’re an emotionally or spiritually depleted leader, you are walking in dangerous territory because you have compromised your ability to distinguish between the voice of God and the voice of your own ego.
Management is overseeing others to accomplish a detailed plan. Management is sometimes stigmatized as an introverted activity but, as with leadership, it is actually a group activity. It involves the act of accomplishing a plan by directing the work of others. The manager is accountable for both the amount and the quality of work produced but the manager typically isn’t the one actually doing the work. The point, of course, is to actually accomplish the plan. There’s a word for managing work that doesn’t accomplish anything but it’s not management. The reason we know the manager is successful is that the people under his or her oversight are effective and efficient at doing the work set before them.
Management is inherently conservative. I’m not referring to a political affiliation but to a mindset about conserving resources, systems and processes. Management is focused on carefully allocating them by avoiding unnecessary changes or excessive expenses. However, seeing the organization primarily through the lens of conservation does have its downsides. By focusing on maintaining and maximizing what is, management can become resistant or even indifferent to what could be. Leadership advocates for change and movement which management can view as too disruptive, inefficient or just downright risky. In the end, healthy management is less about conserving and more about maximizing. The mark of effective management is when a given set of resources are maximized beyond their face value. In other words, find a way to make 2 + 2 = 5.
Healthy management is less about conserving and more about maximizing. The mark of effective management is the ability to make 2 + 2 = 5.
Strategy is the art and science of translating ideas into plans. It is both an art and a science because strategy relies on the art of persuasion and the science of results. It is both right-brained and left-brained, combining high level directional decisions with low level tactical decisions. While leadership is primarily about the future and management is primarily about the present, strategy is the harmonious blending of both. The mark of an effective strategy is when current actions are only directed towards future outcomes.
Even though you hear far less about strategy than about leadership or management, it plays a critical role in the success of both. Particularly as an organization grows, it becomes increasingly important for two reasons. First, strategy acts a hedge against complexity. By the natural order of things, organizations become more bureaucratic over time. More programs get added but few get removed. Old methods become entrenched making it harder for new methods to replace them. A clearly defined strategy has a way of cutting through this tangled web by defining what needs to happen, when and by whom. There are fewer places to hide and fewer excuses to make. Clinging to the hold way of doing things doesn't provide much protection which means it is harder allow the complexity and bureaucracy to gain a foothold to begin with.
Second, strategy also guards against mission creep or sideways energy. In a sales environment, a way to stay on task is to focus on something they call IPAs (this has nothing to do with beer). Income Producing Activities are those things that contribute to generating sales which is the universal goal of anyone selling anything anywhere in the world! Even the best leaders can get distracted by new ideas and opportunities. Strategy occupies that sometimes murky space between vision and execution when it’s not clear how to distinguish between good, better and best. Strategy helps to define what the organization should be doing right now in order to accomplish the plan. By definition, it also helps to identify what we should not be doing.
Two benefits of a clearly defined strategy: 1) It is a hedge against bureaucracy by revealing old ideas that don't work. 2) It is a guard against sideways energy by eliminating new ideas that don't advance the mission.
Leadership is inspiring others to pursue a compelling idea. Management is overseeing others to accomplish a detailed plan. Strategy is the art and science of translating ideas into plans.
Using Leadership/Strategy/Management to Build a Team
It’s also critical to understand how each leg of the stool functions in relation to the other two. Leadership, strategy and management are not interchangeable and neither are the people gifted in each of these areas. Leaders are capable of generating their own thoughts and ideas about where the organization should go. It’s not that managers aren’t thoughtful people but they tend not to demonstrate that kind of innovative thought leadership for the overall organization. You should not put a management-oriented person in a role requiring the dynamic energy of leadership. Likewise, you should not put a leadership-oriented person in a role that requires the steadfast, dutiful function of management. Because strategy is the bridge between leadership and management, strategy-oriented people can usually flex between the two. They may not generate ideas as often as the visionary leaders do but they are usually good at taking an idea and improving on it. They are as likely to iterate on the ideas of others as they to generate their own. They may not demonstrate the passion for mining the depths of organizational efficiency, but they can be more than competent as managers. Strategy doesn’t live at 30,000 feet like leadership or on the runway like management but has the best of both by hovering around 10,000 feet.
As a church grows, you have the opportunity to hire different staff who specialize in these roles. But in most cases, the same person has to function in multiple roles. In the early years of a new church plant or campus, the pastor has to do all three. This isn’t as daunting as it seems because if the organization is relatively simple, the distance between leadership and management isn’t that far and not a lot of complex strategy is required. As the church grows, there is an increasing need for strong management of ministries as the number of day to day details increases. Pastors often experience burnout because leadership practices don’t evolve and adapt with the increasing volume of work. They are inclined either towards leadership or management and begin to struggle when more and more work ends up being outside any demonstrated gifts or passion. That’s when it’s time to bring in team members to offset the leader’s weaknesses. Any executive team making directional decisions would ideally have a strong representation of all three types of leaders. Too many visionary types can make the team unfocused and unrealistic. Too many administrative types can make the team unimaginative or unambitious.
Think of your organization as a car. Leadership is the gas pedal and steering wheel, setting the overall direction and creating momentum to move everything forward. Management is the dashboard, reporting on various functions of the car and providing indicators for whether the engine is operating at peak productivity. But strategy is Google Maps which connects the direction the car is going with all that is happening under the hood. The map gives context to the car’s direction and to what the gauges say. A report of what’s left in the gas tank is more helpful if you know the distance to your final destination. A map is what turns a joy ride into a road trip. In the same way, strategy is what turns ideas into vision and details into plans.
Here are some other practical suggestions for how to benefit from leadership, strategy and management in your organization:
·A well crafted strategy should include viewpoints of both leadership and management. If you can get 100% of the team to agree on 80% of the strategy, you are probably right on target.
In the end, a healthy, growing organization should be able to answer these three primary questions:
Leadership: “Where are we going?”
Strategy: “How will we get where we’re going?”
Management: “What are we doing NOW to get where we’re going?”
Be sure to use the right function at the right time. If you shift into management mode before leadership has had its full effect to create momentum, you’ll get confusion or pushback.
You can’t lead using details and you can’t manage using ideas. There is a time and a place for each one, but not many people will ever be inspired to embrace change by first hearing a detailed plan of execution. In other words, you can’t lead from down on the runway and you can’t manage from up in the air.
What role does strategy play in building a healthy leadership and management? I would love to hear what you're learning. Send a quick note to mv@michaelvolbeda.com.