Matt Perman on Management and Leadership

These are quotes from the What's Best Next Toolkit (mobi file) - a free resource of online extra chapters and articles that accompanies Matt Perman's must read book

“Leadership is not about you. It is about serving others, building them up, and making them more effective.

“if you keep trying to do the sorts of things you did as an individual contributor, you simply won’t have time to lead at all.”

“Now, the leaders should sometimes, frequently even, pitch in directly by working along side the people on his or her team. But this shouldn’t be the main thing the leader does. He needs to be setting direction, looking out ahead, and aligning people.”

“Leadership in the pastoral role is practiced primarily through the ministry of the word and prayer.”

“every week or so, review the org chart and reflect what actions you can proactively take to keep things going in the right direction, or to help make someone more effective, and so forth.”

“There is a significant reflecting component to leadership.”

“one cannot build on weakness”

“The most effective approach to delegation for a leader, though, is to delegate entire areas of responsibility rather than one-off tasks as they come. ”

“The first secret of effectiveness is to understand the people you work with and depend on so that you can make use of their strengths, their ways of working, and their values. ”

“It is far more effective—and efficient—to adjust the job to fit the person rather than the person to fit the job. We should not have some sacrosanct view of jobs, as though they always have to be done a certain way. Make sure the outcomes and values are clearly defined, and then let people develop their own approach to achieving those outcomes so that they are free to work most in the way that they are most effective.”

“when people are self motivated (as the people you hire ought to be), you don’t have to worry about them wasting time. They love what they do and are driven to do it. They don’t want to sabotage themselves. They know the right time to take breaks—when it will actually benefit their overall energy and productivity rather than compromise it.”

“most people are going above and beyond every day. If they miss a deadline, it’s because their heart is bigger than their head, and we should cut them some slack. It is better to aim high and miss a few deadlines in the process, than to only do the minimum.”

“The one book on leadership that I’d recommend for a pastor would be Next Generation Leader: 5 Essentials for Those Who Will Shape the Future by Andy Stanley. Stanley “gets it” when it comes to leadership, and as a pastor he has a biblical point of view that explicitly informs his thinking. Then, I would also read an article by John Kotter called, “What Leaders Really Do.” It’s the best article on leadership I’ve ever read.”

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A couple of bonus tips on wise management that I got from a friend some years ago:

1. Three stage decision making process. When there is a serious decision to be made – especially one involving quite a lot of resources or touching sensitive personal/HR issues or having a lot of ramifications or theologically complicated – then the issue is raised the first time in a staff or eldership meeting simply for consideration and prayer. No discussion at this stage. People go away and maybe some would be tasked to come up with research or reports. The second time there is a proper discussion at the staff meeting but no decision made. The third time there would be a decision. Shortcutting that process and trying to do it in one meeting often goes badly. 

1. Reviews that make a difference: quarterly meetings. There's the formal annual staff reviews but then in between these – and this is key – quarterly more informal reviews where the reviewer/supervisor looks with the member of staff at how they are doing on the targets and action points they wrote down three months ago. This has the great advantage that the targets and points are not forgotten until 51 weeks later but actually have a guiding positive effect. Both staff member and reviewer are kept accountable for what they said they’d do or address. Another helpful thing is at the end of the quarterly meeting, the reviewer makes notes which will build up to become the next annual report – so when the time comes for the annual review much of the material (achievements, progress, challenges) writes itself / is already there.