Step two is to build a guiding team who will craft and carry out the vision. Who is on this team is of critical importance. They must be the natural leaders of the organization. They may or may not be the people whose names appear on the organizational chart. They may or may not be Bible study leaders or deacons. They are the people that the church naturally looks to when a controversial issue comes up. Who is on this team is more important than the vision they craft. As Jim
Collins puts it, “get the right people on the bus.” Here’s another Jim Collins quote, “First who, then what.”
John Maxwell tells the classic story known as the Claude story. In his first pastorate John was smart enough to realize that although he held the title of pastor, he was not the real leader. A man named Claude was. Claude was a farmer. He didn’t hold any positions in the church, but when he spoke, people listened. When he made a suggestion, people respected it. When Claude led, others followed. That is the definition of leadership. John Maxwell got Claude on his team. The
rest, as they say, is history.
After my first board meeting, I had to determine how I was going to handle the situation in my church. I had several options. For example, I could have insisted on my right to be in charge. I’ve seen a lot of positional leaders do that over the years. They tell their people something like this: “Hey, wait! I’m the leader. You’re supposed to follow me.” But that doesn’t work. People might be polite to you, but they won’t really follow. It’s similar to something former British
prime minister Margaret Thatcher once said: “Being in power is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”
Another option would have been to try to push Claude out as the leader. But how do you think that would have turned out? He was more than twice my age, he had lived in that area his whole life, and he was respected by everybody in the community. He was a member of that church before I got there, and everybody knew that he would be there long after I left.
I pursued a third option. By the time the next board meeting was ready to roll around, I had a list of items that I knew needed to be accomplished at the church. So about a week before we were scheduled to meet, I called Claude and asked him if I could come out to the farm and spend some time with him. As we did chores together throughout the day, he and I talked.
“Claude,” I said, “you know, I’ve noticed that the front door on the church is cracked and peeling. It would look terrible to any new people coming to the church for the first time. Do you think we could do something about that?”
“Sure,” said Claude, “that would be no problem.”
I continued, “I went down into the basement the other day. Did you know there’s water down in there? Shoot, there are frogs hopping around down there, tadpoles swimming, and crawdads crawling. What do you think we ought to do?”
“Well, John,” Claude said, “I think we ought to have a work day and get that basement all cleaned out.”
“That’s a great idea,” I said. “Would you bring that up at our next board meeting?”
“I sure will.”
“There’s another thing that’s been worrying me,” I continued. “Right now we’ve got only three rooms in the building besides the auditorium. One is being used as a storage room for a bunch of junk. The other two are for Sunday school, but one of them has an awful lot of kids and is getting pretty full.”
“Don’t say another word,” said Claude. “We’ll get that room all cleaned out.”
“Oh, that would be great. Thank you, Claude.”
At the next board meeting, when I called for new business, Claude said, “You know, I think it’s about time for us to have a work day around here.”
“That’s a great idea,” everyone around the table started saying.
“We’ll have it a week from Saturday,” said Claude. “I’ll bring my truck, and, Benny, you bring yours too. We’re going to do some painting, clean out that basement, and get the junk out of that storage room. We need it for a new Sunday school class.” Then he turned to one of the board members and said, “And Sister Maxine, you’re going to teach it.”
“I second that,” said Benny, and that was it.
From then on, if I wanted to accomplish anything at that church, I just went out to the farm and did chores with Claude. I could always count on him to bring those things before the people, and whenever Claude spoke, people listened.
John C. Maxwell, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1998).
