Tag Archives for Foundations of Church Administration book

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT: The fundamental differences & why you need both.

Commentary by Dr. Whitesel:

“Most church leaders fail because they lack management skills, not leadership skills.”

I have found church leaders are usually adequately prepared to set the vision and define objectives, but an under-prepared to manage the process to get there.

My above statements are often quoted by church leaders and students.  I think they resonate in part because in the church world there are hundreds of books on leadership. But on the corollary task of management, only a few (including two, to which I contributed chapters: Foundations of Church Administration [Beacon Hill] and The Church Leader’s MBA [Ohio Christian Univ. Press]).

To understand the differences between leadership and management read this helpful definition from Brent Gleason.

by Brent Gleeson, Inc. Magazine, 2/23/17.

Generally speaking, management is a set of systems and processes designed for organizing, budgeting, staffing, and problem solving to achieve the desired results of an organization. Leadership defines the vision, mission, and what the “win” looks like in the future. It inspires the team to embody the beliefs and behaviors necessary to take the actions needed to achieve those results.

Read more at … http://www.inc.com/brent-gleeson/the-fundamental-differences-between-leadership-and-management.html

MARKETING & Most CEOs Start Out In Which Department? Marketing! #ChurchLeadershipBook

Executive recruiting firm Korn/Ferry International has discovered that most CEOs and executives start out in the company’s marketing division.[i]

[i] Quoted in Louis E. Boone and David L. Kurtz, Contemporary Marketing, 11th ed. (Mason, Ohio: South-Western Publishing), 2004, xxxix.

For more on marketing for religious organizations see the chapter on marketing by Bob Whitesel in Bruce L. Petersen, Edward A. Thomas and Bob Whitesel (eds) Foundations of Church Administration: Professional Tools for Church Leadership (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 2010), pp. 157-181).

Download the chapter here (not for public distribution, but remember if you benefit from the chapter please support the publisher and author by purchasing a copy): BOOK ©Whitesel EXCERPT – FOUNDATIONS CH ADMIN Marketing

MANAGEMENT & Renowned theologian Archbishop of Canterbury sends bishops to business school for more education #WesleySem

Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: “About 10 years ago the current president of Indiana Wesleyan University, Dr. David Wright, asked me to put together a book in which business school professors would adapt their subject matter for church leaders. I recruited some of the best professors teaching in our IWU MBA program and asked them, ‘Write a chapter about what church leaders need to know about your subject.’ The result was two books. The Church Leaders’ MBA: What business professors wish church leaders knew about management was published by Ohio Christian University Press. And, Foundations of Church Administration was published by Beacon Hill publishers. Read this article about how in England the Archbishop of Canterbury also realizes that pastors are weak in management and is now encouraging them to take similar training. It should be no surprise that the first course chosen by Dr. Wright for our IWU Masters of Arts in (Ministry) Leadership was nonprofit management.”

Business school bishops,
by C. S-W, The Economist Magazine, Jan 21st 2015,

The Church of England encourages its clergy to get some management education

JUSTIN WELBY (pictured), the Archbishop of Canterbury, is a renowned theologian. But the head of the Church of England is not your ordinary church chief; he has brought extraordinary changes to the way his clergy manage their worshippers. At first glance, the archbishop’s curriculum vitae might appear to focus more on things pecuniary than pious. He spent over a decade working in the oil industry, half at the executive level. Though Mr Welby does not hold an MBA, he believes that there are benefits to bringing boardroom practices into religion, and as such supports a proposal to send 36 bishops and deans on a mini-MBA course run by INSEAD, that will begin in April…

Sending bishops to business school will kickstart a ‘culture change for the leadership of the church,’ the report says.

Read more at … http://www.economist.com/whichmba/business-school-bishops

CHANGE & The Difference Between Change and Transformation

Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: “Transformation and change are two different things. Change involves adjusting programs, people and tactics. While transformation involves reinventing the entire organization. Therefore transformation involves guiding an organizational culture into a new and healthier culture. Many leaders fail because they don’t recognize the difference and the different tools (below) required for each.

Change involves, ‘making the business case, building a coalition of leaders, getting early results, engaging stakeholders, executing with discipline’ and monitoring/adjusting results’ (p. 2-3)…

‘Transformation is another animal altogether. Unlike change management, it doesn’t focus on a few discrete, well-defined shifts, but rather on a portfolio of initiatives, which are interdependent or intersecting. More importantly the overall goal of transformation is not just executed to find change but to reinvent the organization and discover a new or revised business model based on a vision for the future. It’s much more unpredictable, iterative, and experimental. It entails much higher risk. And even if successful change management leads to the execution of certain initiatives within a transformation portfolio, the overall transformation could still fail’ (p. 3).

Transformation therefore involves, ‘flexible and dynamic coordination of resources, stronger collaboration across boundaries, and communication in the midst of uncertainty’ (p. 4).

I have made the case in the ‘Strategic Management’ chapter of the Wright and Smith (eds.) book, The Church Leaders’ MBA’ (Ohio Christian Univ. Press, 2009) that transforming churches means:

  1. Getting multiple cultures to work together
  2. In one church
  3. To reach and unite multiple community cultures.

This creates a healthy church with multiple sub-congregations respecting one another and working together for greater impact (steps to this can be found in Whitesel, ‘The Healthy Church,’ Wesleyan Publishing House, 2012).

Thus church transformation brings the Good News to a larger segment of the community – while also reconciling/uniting disparate community cultures.

For more on the important difference between change and transformation read this Harvard Business Review article.”

Read more at … https://hbr.org/2015/01/we-still-dont-know-the-difference-between-change-and-transformation

LEADERS and MANAGERS & What Is The Difference (Part 2) by John Kotter

Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: “One of the first exercises in my leadership course is to have students study the difference between leadership and management. As this article by John Kotter points out, both are required in a successful leader. Yet students seem to prefer studying leadership and overlook the critical ability to put leadership ideas into action by developing management skills too. Here in another seminal article on the importance of leadership and management, John Kotter not only talks about the difference but also how good leaders must develop both.”

Read more at … https://hbr.org/2001/12/what-leaders-really-do/ar/1