Theology of Credible Leadership - Lesson 18

Dr. John Johnson
Theology of Credible Leadership
Strategic and Tactical Tasks
Lesson Transcription

A leader's role is to keep people on task. That means a leader therefore, needs to understand what the task is. What we've said so far is a leader has to be missional to help the organization he leads be missional, have this collective group of mission-minded people we're clear about their purpose. And, somehow it's communicated in a way that everyone gets it and everyone can define it.   

Secondly, leader has this task to be visionary. People want to follow a leader who has a sense of direction, a leader who's looking out on the point and saying, that's where we need to go. We can get there. And somehow it taps into where people want to go.   

It's, again, it can't be a solitary thing. It's got tobe something very corporate. And it's hard work. And it requires at times, a, a, if you will, a, a visionary retreat to bring leaders together to collaborate and dream and keep dreaming. These move, actually, as I go through these. These go from more, static, if you will, to fluid, To say that the missional task, once that's really determined, that doesn't change.   

We may language it a little bit, stylistically, do things with the language, but the task itself doesn't change. It's been mandated. It's been revealed to us the vision. The vision is more fluid. We dream dreams that maybe in one era was the right dream, but now we're dreaming something else.   

Not that it should change every year, that would wear people out, but there's a certain fluidity that comes. What becomes even more fluid, and it's the next task is a leader who is strategic. And in this, where the mission all is asking, or I should say, answering the question why, and the vision is answering the question where, where are we going?   

The strategic is answering the question. How, and it's a really important question. It is beginning to move people to sense the potential that maybe we can actually do this. But with dreams, there has to be a plan. There has to be a way forward, what we call a strategy.   

Strategies answer the question, how are we going to get there? It's a form of problem solving. Think of it like, let's say an NFL team that has the dream to reach the Super Bowl, which is a great dream. But the strategy is answering the question, how are we going to get there? Is it going to be a, a defensive, focus or an offensive focus?   

What are the game plans? What are the steps to get there? And it is one of our most important responsibilities as leaders, but in everything I've read and observed is it is one of our least carried out tasks because here again, is where things get really hard, bringing people together to answer the question how.   

But it is so important. It requires focus. Rumelt, R-U-M-E-L-T, who has recently written, the Crux, has written a book entitled Good Strategy, Bad Strategy. It's not easy to find really, actually many books on strategy. And he is one of the noted experts, if you will, about strategic thinking.   

It's well worth reading, because we all need to learn how to be strategic. It, it doesn't come naturally or easily. It requires that leaders do some assessing. When I would take leaders on a strategic retreat, and we usually did a strategic retreat once a year, I'd bring the leaders together and we'd start talking about our game plan.   

What is our strategy to get to our vision that will fulfill the mission? That's how we framed it. But to be really good in the strategic process required, first of all, some assessing. There are lots of different assessment tools, and maybe you're familiar with, what sometimes is referred to as a SWOT analysis. I have found this to be a really helpful thing to do with staff, with leaders in which we're seeking to answer the four questions.   

What are our strengths? So as we see our church right now, what is it we're really good at? What is it that people affirm? What is it when they say, yeah, that church, the, they have a, they have a certain excellence in this area. What are our strengths? By the way, it's really important to start here.   

It, it's, it's good to frame an assessment in a positive way. Not, not that we want to demoralize people or on the other side of the coin, just have people look at things with rose colored glasses. But, but it's good to start to say, what is it God is using us to do that we're really good at? In the case of my last church, we're really good at missions. We are doing amazing things all over the world, particularly in some of the most strategic places in the world.   

That's a good thing. What are our strengths? But we must also then come back to say, what are our weaknesses? What is it we're not so good at doing. So thinking of my last church, one of our great strengths is that we were a multicultural church still is today reaching core, core cultures in our area, both ethnically and looking at age, groups as well.   

We, we had this as Ashley, part of our mission, or maybe I could say our vision or our strategy is to reflect the community in which we live. And so if our community was 13% Hispanic, we wanted to be a church that was at least 13% Hispanic.   

So as we gathered together, we would ask these kind of questions, what are we strong at? Well, we're really good at, at being multicultural, multi-generational, multi-ethnic. And then we would come to weaknesses to ask the question, what are our non-strengths? What is it we're not so good at? Which could be a lot of things. We're not so good at embracing outsiders.   

We’re not so good, at, reaching lost people. It could be a lot of things, but in a good SWOT analysis, we have to be willing, be bold, to be honest, to, to say what actually is. The third question here is what are our opportunities? So what is that God is presenting to us?   

Right now we might say, for example, well, two blocks down the road, they're doing this whole new development. So we have this opportunity to, in our own neighborhood, see some significant growth. Or maybe God has brought, as an opportunity, a wonderful gift by a generous donor. It could be lots of things that create opportunities.   

So what are the opportunities we see in front of us? But then also we must come back to answer the final question that is, what are the threats? What are the things that we must be mindful of that could get in the way? Maybe it's, in our case with Nike just down the street to imagine Nike moving its headquarters to Berlin or something like that. Something that that could be a threat.   

Gi given, our people. We have many people that worked at Intel, but what if Intel moved, that would become, become one of our threats. So in that analysis, where I'm going with all of this is that when you sit down in a visionary retreat to say, where do we need to go? Or a strategic retreat to say, what are our strategies? It's really important that we have a good and healthy assessment, especially if we're going to be strategic.   

Now, we can begin to say, well, this therefore has to be our game plan. So let me give an illustration. I recently read the book, perhaps you've read the book, the Great de Churching by a couple pastors and a couple political scientists who have done a lot of hard work of assessing, and they've written this book, the Great de Churching, to make this point that we, and this is how the book starts.   

This is the first sentence. We are living amid the largest and fastest transformation of religion in American history. Let read that again. We're living amid the largest and fastest transformation of religion in American history. What what drives that statement is the fact that in their assessment, they find that we are living, in a time where in the last 25 years, the church has lost 40 million people.   

And what they're saying is, when you look at movements, revivals, these movements of growth or these movements of decline, we are in the largest decline that we've ever seen. A a decline that, that transcends movements of awakening of growth.   

And so this is, this is, this is a huge challenge for the church. Now, as an example, as I work with the church I'm working with right now, given this, I'm trying to help the church be strategic to say, how do we, what strategy should we create to somehow impact and maybe change this slide?   

So what Davis and others in this book do is a great, i, I believe a great service for the church is that in all of their interviews, and they're, they're assessing, they've come to realize that one of the great reasons people are leaving the church is because they don't have a sense of belonging.   

So what does the church do to be strategic? A church assesses looks at opportunities, threats, weaknesses, strengths. And in this case, if I was leading a strategic, retreat with the church, I might ask the question, wouldn't it be wise if we create a strategy of belonging? What, what's our plan? What would that look like? It just gives an, an idea here again, about, about how one becomes strategic in thinking.   

So it is, it is a necessary process to get beyond mission and vision. That just can be words on a page without a a plan. But as I mentioned, the great irony is that few leaders think strategically. Someone put it this way, and I think it was Lencioni that said, strategy is one of the most widely employed.   

Think about this. One of the most widely employed and poorly defined words. Most leaders are really not sure what's involved in being strategic. Most organizations don't have a clear game plan or they're unwilling to do the work. And yet, a great, a good strategy is a leader's plan for success. Now, let's think theologically for a moment.   

Does theological, does our, does scripture, does the revelation of God affirm this? I would say all over the place. God is by nature a strategic God. Everything God does is calculated. It's deliberate, it's premeditated, it's intentional. Be it with people or be it with timing or be it with methods. So with people, is he strategic? Well, he calls Abraham. He calls Moses.   

He calls Paul, he summons, he's strategic in who he calls. He is strategic with timing. Galatians four, four, Jesus came at the optimal, the kairos moment, if you will, or with methods. Jesus was strategic. Acts one, eight, start local. Go global. Don't reverse it. A strategy was to, to build the church by building disciples. So everything we see in scripture points to a strategic God.   

Or think of the apostle Paul. Have you noticed that? You read the book of vax and Paul always, almost always in every city started at the synagogue. That was his strategy. Why? Because at the synagogue, given his background, he could gain an instant hearing. So Paul was a strategist, just as Jesus was a strategist.   

All through scripture, we see a strategic God at work to say what to say, leaders, if you're going to fulfill your task, it's not enough to be missional visionary. You’ve go to be really shrewd and tactical. Personal note, let me just say this. For, for years I led strategic retreats. And if you ask me one of the most difficult things to lead, I found was strategic retreats.   

And this is why it's really hard. It's really hard to get people strategic when they all are focused as we expect in their own interests, their own ministries. And, and what we, we sometimes did is we, well, we would come back with a, a strategic statement that looks something like this, and we'd present it to the board. And then we were sort of lost until we began to realize, let's just come up with a strategy for one or two things.   

Let's just focus. Let's, and when we did, then we kept that strategy, that game plan in front of us all the time. Just to say that if you have a strategic statement that's more than one page, it probably isn't going to go anywhere.   

So let me close with the last piece of the task. That's what we're talking about. Task of a leader is to be tactical. Again, this is really, really important because if you stop at the strategic, you just have words on a page, it's a great strategy, it's really impressive.   

Maybe your board affirms it, but it's never going to go anywhere until you come to the tactical in which in this case, you're asking the question when, and you're asking the really important question, who, so who's going to do this? And when must it happen? So with the mission and the vision and the strategy, there has to be these, these objective, these tactics at this level, again, we're asking who's the best person to carry this out and by what date do we want them to be completed?   

Involves a lot of prioritization and accountability. Keeping everyone's feet to the fire. It means that when you gather together as a core of leaders, you're keeping in front of everybody. If I could put it this way, the operational plan. Now, just my observation, a lot of organizations don't get to this level of leadership because this is when it gets personal.   

This is when as a leader, you have to be willing to not be loved or liked, because a really good meeting is when you're saying something like this. So Jim, you're in charge of us getting from here to here.   

You’ve been tasked to do this in September. It's October 4th. So where are we? And people get nervous. They, here, here are staff meetings that I often, have, have participated in staff meetings. I'm not really proud of staff meetings where we tended to skirt the issues and go around and say, so Jim, tell us what, a little bit of your objectives this week.   

Oh, same. Oh, same o Okay, great gem. Thank you. So Ted, how about you? Well, and then he'd give some broad, sometimes in an answer, instead of exercising my leadership to say, so Jim, our plan says you need to be doing this. Where are we at?   

And the plan also says, by December 1st, we're going to be doing this. Where are we at with, with that? This is, this is leadership that you remember. It goes back to the skill of implementation that takes that serious that says, we're not done until there's execution. And that's the leader's task. Now, I'm just going to guess for a moment, because I've taught this enough over the years that sometimes, especially in the ministry context, is to have people say something like this, oh, that just sounds so corporate, even is irrelevant.   

Aren't we just called to be faithful? But here's what I wonder. You can come back with that. And frankly, if I could be really frank to just say this, I think often it's a cover for laziness. It's also this here that when I worked with leaders out there in the corporate world, leaders working in secular environments, leaders who were all about mission, vision, strategy, tactics, I would ask myself this question.   

So if it's important at that level, why is it, why shouldn't it be even more important at the level of what we're doing? May, maybe to rephrase this, occasionally I would go down to see a parishioner working at Nike, which just was a couple blocks down from our church.   

And I would step onto this campus, and whoa, was it impressive? These sleek buildings and people who were busy at their task, and it was clear that they had vision and they were dreaming, and they were looking at where things are going to be, and they were strategists, and it was clearly, it was clear. They were tactical. And then I'd get in my car and I would drive back to church. And I, I'd asked myself, shouldn't we be more?   

So, see, it seems to be, I know this sounds really simplistic, but they're about S-O-L-E-S and we're about S-O-U-L-S. And you tell me which one's more important. We'll, we'll need, we know the answer to this. So therefore seems to be, and this is my preaching point, if you will, we have to be the most missional leaders in the world.   

Those of us in the church. We have to be the most visionary. We have to be the most strategic, and we have to be the most tactical. But I tell you my, maybe my frustration a bit is when I look at the average church today, they, they aren't very much that way. And in fact, they, they get nervous. I've had people at times say to me as a, as a leadership instructor, oh, you've been reading way too many corporate books.   

And I'm going, no, it's there in scripture, isn't it, wasn't Jesus tactical? He had certain leaders in particular like Peter James and John, he said, you guys need to do this. Isn't God tactical in saying this is, these are timelines. This is what we need to be after. This is what leads to healthy ministry.   

This is what the church must be about. If we do anything less, we're careless and we, we are not taking the church to core outcomes, which even then, we're not done until we have figured out the way to measure what we do. For example, ask yourself the question, what do we measure to determine whether we're successful or not?   

I I close with the story. Years ago when I was teaching the seminary and pastoring the church, it was our annual meeting time. And in our annual meeting time, we'd always have lots of great anecdotal stories. So someone from children's ministry would get up and tell how he had a, a personal encounter with the parent and the child, and that child gave their lives to Jesus.   

It's all really good. People would applaud and someone else would give an anecdotal story about something we're doing. But as a senior pastor, I found myself thinking, yeah, but what are we really accomplishing here? Are we getting to our mission? Are we moving towards our vision? I began to realize if I pulled up the hood and looked underneath, I saw a lot of loose bolts.   

I saw a lot of measurables that made me really nervous, that were covered up, if you will, with anecdotal stories, which were really good at. There's nothing wrong with anecdotal stories as long as they're backed up with, I think, really essential metrics that tell us how we're really, what we're really doing. So it was then when I looked to see that the metrics weren't measuring up with the anecdotals, that I decided to take a break from being a professor to giving more of my time to being a pastor until we could get things tightened up under the hood.   

I'm not here to say it was highly successful and everything came back together. But what it did teach me is again, the task of a leader. At the end of the day, I have to be willing to say I carried out the task of clarifying the mission, leading the church into a dream of vision, of helping us be highly strategic with this game plan and be willing to be, to be bold to say, you, and by this day, it needs to be done.   

And then measure at the end of it all to say, to answer the question, did we really get to our outcomes? If we can get there, if we can train the church to do that, be that, think that way, I think we'll have a lot healthier churches, on the landscape.