Master Leaders by George Barna
The Tyndale Media Center has graciously offered me the opportunity to serve as one of their blog reviewers. Tyndale House Publishers sent me, as my first review, a copy of George Barna’s, Master Leaders.
George Barna is president of The Barna Group. In my opinion, he’s the foremost leader in the field of Christian statistics. He is the author of a number of renowned books. Master Leaders is no less the same.
Barna, a leader himself in the field of leadership, engaged some of the best minds in the leadership field, to write a book about what he gleaned important from these Master Leaders. These were proven men in their respective arenas of work- head football coaches, ministers, CEO, and etc.- all successful and respected by many.
The beauty of the book, in part, lies in how Barna writes it. He tells a story, as if he were the MC (Master of Ceremonies) of a leadership conference that brought together these Master Leaders into one collective forum. Barna communicates the story from the vantage point of sitting in the green room, eating, drinking coffee, and attentively listening for nuggets to be dropped by each one. It is a masterful piece of work.
Each chapter addresses an essential aspect of Leadership. Each chapter begins by creating a certain tone, and then Barna rolls with a finely crafted group discussion of each chapter theme. My favorite chapters were 4, 5 and 15.
In chapter 4, he deals with how leaders create cultures. Quoting John Kotter, professor of leadership at the Harvard Business School, Barna writes,
Most companies don’t have perfect cultures, and leaders do need to work at that. But instinctively, they usually do. It starts with modeling what’s needed and then getting other people to do that, even if it’s counter-cultural. The way culture develops is that a group of people does something in a certain way and it works. And if it works over a sufficiently long period of time, it seeps into the bloodstream of the organism. They don’t do anything, it just happens. So what great leaders do is just that. If the culture isn’t right, they get the group to act differently, get positive results, and if they just keep doing it for a while, it will start to seep into the bloodstream and replace the old stuff.
Healthy, organizational cultures are created “top-down” and “naturally.” They aren’t forced. They are born out of natural leadership.
In chapter 5, Barna develops the thoughts of his Master Leaders with regards to leadership development. Good leaders don’t find other leaders; good leaders develop them. Barna communicates a Ken Blanchard story about Henry Blackaby. Blackaby, in giving his opinion of the StrengthFinder process, said of it,
It’s an interesting theory. It just not sound biblically. You name one person whom the Lord called who was qualified. They all complained, whether it was Abraham or Moses or Mary. The Lord doesn’t call the qualified, the Lord qualifies the called.
A statement such as this resonates with minister types. I am a minister, and I feel so inadequate and unworthy. It’s not bad, either; it makes me normal. God develops leaders, and the kinds of leaders he desires aren’t naturally born, they’re naturally groomed.
As the “conference” begins to wind down, in chapter 15, Barna sets his sights on, what to me, is one of the most crucial question concerning leadership: How do leaders respond to the pressures and criticism they face?
Lou Holtz, the successful coaching icon of Notre Dame, found little success at South Carolina. In his first year, the Gamecocks were 0-11. They didn’t win a single game.
The question you have to ask yourself is, Am I willing to endure the difficulties in leadership in order to be successful, or am I going to give in to the negativity and the mediocrity that everybody comes to expect from losers?
Holtz understood what Tony Dungy clearly expressed, “Pressure goes with the territory.” Barna’s final paragraph, itself, is priceless.
Our discussion reminded me that nothing worth creating comes without paying a price. For a leader, part of the price is enduring the emotional roller coaster of being on the receiving end of complaints and challenges, and the physical hardship of feeling the pressure to live up to expectations, even if it’s only your own. You have to believe in the vision and in your ability to see it become a reality to turn your critics into fans and to relieve the pressure by performing up to standards.
I’ve found that leadership books can be dry, but such wasn’t the case for this one. The crafted messages of Master Leaders are told in such a way as to cause the reader to believe that it all happened that way. That’s powerful storytelling that resonates for the long term.
It was the first time I’d ever invited someone I didn’t know into my home to stay the night. In the past, I would never have done such a thing. Too foolish. Way too foolish in my book. But one day, a homeless man walking from Oklahoma to Fort Worth and I crossed paths that forever changed me. Not long thereafter, I found my mind centering and redirecting itself, seemingly all of the time mind you, on Hebrews 13:2. For whatever reason, I haven’t been the same since. I’ve got no desire whatsoever to stereotype people anymore. In the end, I believe it to be the working of God in my life in one of the most concrete ways I’ve ever experienced. It’s God’s gift.
