PIC No. 40:
• Title: Three Dimensions of Leadership: Practical Insight on Management, Finance, and Boards of Churches and Christian Organizations
• Author: Olan Hendrix
• Publisher: Churchsmart Resources (March 16, 2000, 154 pages)
• Management Bucket #14 of 20: The Board Bucket
Olan Hendrix
(1931-2023)
Welcome to Issue No. 40 of PAILS IN COMPARISON, the value-added sidekick of John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. This blog features my “PICs”—shorter reviews of helpful books—with comparisons to other books in my 20 management buckets (core competencies) filing system.
Leadership Generosity: Olan Hendrix
Olan Hendrix, the founding executive director of ECFA, passed away on April 13, 2023, at age 91. According to an email from his son, Richard, “My dad went home to be with the Lord . . . following 25 days of hospice care in his own home in Sun Lakes, Ariz. He was at peace and ready to go to heaven. He was longing to be with Jesus and to see Libby again.” Olan’s wife, Libby, passed away in February 2022.
I was saddened to receive this news, but gladdened to reflect on the powerful influence that Olan had on thousands of Christian leaders and ministries. I was also the grateful recipient of his leadership generosity. In the introduction to Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit (2008), I wrote the following:
The workshop room was crowded with Christian camp directors. Oozing in passion and enthusiasm, these leaders had traveled from around the world to Christian Camping International's 1971 annual convention at Green Lake Conference Center.
The workshop topic was counselor training and I was writing notes as fast as I could (no laptops back then), when someone tapped my shoulder. I turned to see my wife, Joanne, motioning for me to exit the meeting. Expecting bad news, I followed her outside.
"I don't know what workshop you're attending, John," she began, "but it doesn't matter. Olan Hendrix is teaching an all-day seminar on Management 101, and he just described you to a T. You've been through college and seminary, but you've never read a management book, never taken a management course—and you could be the poster boy for everything managers and camp directors are doing badly. Just follow me back to Olan's session. Someday you'll thank me!"
That day-long crash course in Management 101 changed my life. I have thanked Joanne a zillion times—and Olan Hendrix dozens of times. The truth is, I was unprepared for leadership. I didn't know what I didn't know. But over the years, patient bosses, boards and mentors guided me in my lifelong-learning journey. I'm still learning.
According to Olan’s family, he had a remarkable life. Olan Hendrix was brought up in an alcoholic home, lost his mother at age six, and joined the U.S. Navy in 1944 as WWII was ending.
“After discharge from the Navy in Mobile, Ala., he rented a room from a widow lady who shared with him, and other sailors renting rooms from her, the Good News of Jesus and his life was transformed.”
Olan’s ministry years were stunning! “In the decades that followed, he served as pastor in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, and served in leadership ministries with Far Eastern Gospel Crusade (later renamed SEND International), American Sunday School Union (later renamed American Missionary Fellowship), World Vision International, and Gospel Light Publishers.” [Note: AMF is now InFaith.]
Hendrix was the founding Executive Director of Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability from 1979 to 1981. Through his consulting ministry, Leadership Resource Group, he served nonprofit Christian organizations with a strategic focus on development, board governance, plus management and leadership development. According to Richard Hendrix, Olan “worked—preaching, teaching and consulting—in more than 60 countries over a period of nearly 60 years.” He and his wife, Libby, were married for 72 years.
Olan wrote four books:
• Three Dimensions of Leadership: Practical Insight on Management, Finance, and Boards of Churches and Christian Organizations (2000) – Foreword by Ted Engstrom and John Maxwell (Order from Amazon)
• Management for the Christian Leader (1982)
• Management for the Christian Worker (1976)
• Management and the Christian Worker (1973)
Insights from Olan’s books and articles are leveraged and quoted widely. I referenced his common sense principles in three of the 20 buckets in Mastering the Management Buckets:
THE MEETINGS BUCKET. John Maxwell, writing in Leadership Gold: Lessons I’ve Learned from a Lifetime of Leading, credits his meeting management wisdom to Olan Hendrix, one of his mentors. I so appreciate Maxwell’s chapter, “The Secret to a Good Meeting Is the Meeting Before the Meeting.”
In 10 quick-reading pages, Maxwell builds the case for turning routine meetings into productive action-oriented gatherings. Olan Hendrix introduced him to the brilliant concept of “the meeting before the meeting.” Maxwell writes that the meeting before the meeting: 1) helps you receive buy-in, 2) helps followers to gain perspective, 3) increases your influence, 4) helps you develop trust, and 5) avoids your being blindsided.
THE OPERATIONS BUCKET. On this webpage, and in my buckets book, I quote Olan Hendrix: "Leaders must learn to manage, and managers must learn to lead. When we see the two as interdependent we are more apt to improve at the work of getting work done through other people. When we see the two as totally separate we more easily excuse our deficiencies in one or the other and thereby deny ourselves the potential for learning." (Read the two-page article here.)
THE DONOR BUCKET. I quoted this pithy wisdom from Olan: “Where there is no vision, the people perish. Where there is no plan, the vision perishes. Where there is no money, the plan perishes.” (From: Three Dimensions of Leadership, by Olan Hendrix)
Dan Busby (1941-2022) served as ECFA’s sixth president from 2008 to 2020. It was my privilege to co-author four governance books with Dan, including More Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom. The book features 40 lessons—and my two favorite lessons came from our friend, Olan Hendrix. You can read Olan's lessons on the ECFA website.
• "Lesson 32: There Are Two Things You Should Never Joke About—#1: Prayer." (Read the lesson here and read Cameron Doolittle’s guest blog here.)
• "Lesson 33: There Are Two Things You Should Never Joke About—#2: Fundraising." (Read the lesson here and read Joe Snoep’s guest blog here.)
PAILS IN COMPARISON: Olan Hendrix dispensed wisdom that fills all 20 management buckets/core competencies—especially the Results Bucket, the Book Bucket, and the Board Bucket. Olan was a prolific writer and author. Google his name, along with numerous organization names, and you’ll have dozens and dozens of helpful articles on Christian leadership. (And he doesn’t hold back!) Examples:
[ ] “Living Without Regrets,” by Olan Hendrix. (Read the article from Christian Leadership Alliance’s Outcomes magazine and learn why he wrote, “If I could start over, I would have become a better student sooner.”)
[ ] “The Board: Bane or Blessing? How to decide whether a board is functioning well.” (Read the article from Christianity Today.)
[ ] “Development and the Local Church,” by Olan Hendrix. (Read the article on the Prosper Leadership website—and learn why a pastor was upset with a major giver!)
[ ] “Hope for Boards,” by Olan Hendrix. (Read the article on the Prosper Leadership website—and learn why Hendrix wrote, “…I went to my files and threw away everything I had collected on the subject of boards.”)
[ ] ECFA has curated 21 short articles, “From the Pen of Olan Hendrix,” and posted them on the ECFA website. You’ll appreciate Olan’s wisdom on “Four Effects of Unclear Objectives.” The first effect:
“Unclear objectives lead to unclear methods of operation. The absence of a goal justifies almost any activity espoused by an individual under the guise of, ‘This is my burden,’ or ‘This is my calling,’ or ‘This is the Lord’s leading.’ I do not mean to minimize this nor speak lightly of holy things. But I think there is more evasiveness in these pronouncements than most of us in Christian work are willing to admit, and it is tragic. If you do not have a goal, then any road will get you there.”
To order Olan's most recent book from Amazon, click on the title for Three Dimensions of Leadership: Practical Insight on Management, Finance, and Boards of Churches and Christian Organizations, by Olan Hendrix, with the foreword by Ted Engstrom and John Maxwell. For more book reviews, visit John Pearson’s Buckets Blog and subscribe to Your Weekly Staff Meeting.
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