to Quack or to Soar?

Baylor Business Review, Spring 2007 by Blanchard, Ken

A lot of people say "How can you lead and serve at the same time?" You can if you understand leadership. There are two parts.

Part 1 : Where are you going?

The first part is vision and direction. At Baylor you have Vision 2012. You've got to have somewhere you're going. Otherwise your leadership doesn't matter.

A vision is made up of several parts. Do you know what business you're in? What's your picture of the future if you do a great job, and what values are going to guide your journey? If you have a really clear sense of that, then people who work there know what to do.

Let me tell you about Walt Disney's vision. Why have the Disney parks lasted for so long? I asked Walt. He said he was in the "happiness" business, not the theme park business. Here's what he said: "My picture of the future is that everyone leaving the parks will have the same smile on their faces that they had coming in."

Now, there are values that guide our journey, and some people have too many values. Three or four is the most we need, and they have to be ranked in order, because life is about values conflict. You can't do two things at the same time. The first two values are the most important. If you believe in them, the rest will take care of themselves.

At Disney, the number one value is safety, because Walt Disney knew that if someone got carried out of one of the parks on a stretcher, he wouldn't have the same smile on his face leaving as when he entered.

The second value for his parks was courtesy. But you have to rank them because you don't deal with courtesy when the number one value calls you. The third value is the show, the entertainment. And the fourth is success or efficiency, which helps ensure a profitable organization.

A lot of places don't place financial security as a value. If you don't, everyone then knows that your values are a joke because if there are financial problems, you spend all of your time looking at the financials. But when it's the number four goal, you know you're not going to do anything to save money that will put people in danger. Why? Because safety is a higher value. Your values must drive your behavior. If you have a clear vision and put your goals under that, now you have a sense of where you are going.

That's the "lead" part of servant leadership. Was Jesus clear on this? Yes. He said, "I'm going to make you fishers of men." Was he clear on his picture of the future? Yes. He said, "Go and make disciples of all nations." He didn't say "Go evangelize," he said "Make disciples." What is a disciple? It's somebody who behaves like he's trying to teach.

You have to be a follower of the Lord first to be a disciple, but we forget that it's about our behavior, and not just signing up for a one-time deal, and then behaving completely inconsistently with what we've pledged to do. These values are love God with all your heart, and love thy neighbor as thyself. You are number three - it's God first, your neighbor second, and you third.

Remember, he said, "Even I have come to serve, not to be served. So the vision part of leadership has got to be the responsibility to hierarchy. This doesn't mean you don't involve other people. The responsibility to say, "This is where we are going" comes from the leadership. It's the visionary direction part.