The Learning To Lead Show with Mark J. Cundiff

#18 Pebbles in the Pond: Coaching Leaders Who Multiply Impact Across Their Organizations. My Conversation with Dave Pennington

• Mark Cundiff

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In this insightful conversation, host Mark sits down with Dave to discuss his extensive leadership journey spanning pastoral ministry, private education, and business coaching. 

Dave elaborates on the challenges and strategies involved in leading volunteers in nonprofit settings, emphasizing the importance of vision, communication, and relationship building. 

He also shares his experiences transforming small businesses by aligning roles with individual strengths and discusses the value of clear expectations, timely feedback, and structured accountability in effective leadership. 

The discussion extends to the intricacies of succession planning and the role of coaching in providing much-needed external perspectives for business and nonprofit leaders.

Dave provides real-life examples of how restructuring roles and developing complementary dream teams can significantly enhance organizational success. The conversation wraps up with a focus on continuous learning and the significance of personal and professional growth for leaders.


00:00 Introduction and Welcoming Dave

00:13 Dave's Leadership Journey

01:47 Challenges of Leading Volunteers

03:47 Effective Communication Strategies

07:08 Transition to School Leadership

08:40 Leadership Styles and Influence

11:49 Developing Future Leaders

13:44 Addressing Leadership Discouragement

15:04 Aligning Roles with Strengths

18:38 The Value of Coaching

22:01 Delegation and Leadership Growth

23:12 Valuation and Selling Your Business

24:05 Coaching Leaders for Business Value

26:16 Succession Planning and Leadership Development

29:29 Characteristics of Great Leaders

31:30 Developing and Retaining Talent

34:16 Personal Development and Learning

40:41 Connecting with Dave and His Services


Connect with Dave Pennington:

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Contact Mark at: mark@markjcundiff.com

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When you're doing things you like doing and you're good at doing it, exhilarates you. You can do it all day. It's just easy for you. You're good at it, and I find a lot of discouragement is people are overloaded, they're doing too many things, and often they're doing the wrong things. They're doing things they might be okay at, but they don't really love and it doesn't excite them and depletes them. And I think a lot of discouragement comes from those two things. Doing too much. And doing the wrong things instead of focusing on the things that you love doing and you're really good at doing. So I say you need to be about 80% of your time and energy and effort in what you love doing and what you're really good at doing.

Hello, welcome to the Learning to Lead Show. I'm Mark Cundiff your host. Today we have the privilege of visiting with Dave Pennington PhD. He is the founder and CEO of Penn Coaching and Consulting. He has spent the last 35 years managing and leading organizations. He's worked in the church world. He's led churches, he's led schools. He's been an administrator, he's been on administrative boards and he's served in a lot of different types of roles over the years what he's doing today is he's leveraging that in his business Penn coaching and consulting, where he helps leaders understand their organizations better, improve those organizations and maximizing their efficiency. One of the things that he specializes in is helping small business owners. Understand their business in a way that adds value to it. So if they're ready to sell one day, it increases the value of that upon their departure. He has several assessments that he does to help leaders understand their business and the value that they have in that business, and then how to maximize that value so that when they get ready to sell one day, they have increased the selling power and the value of that corporation. One of our goals here at the Learning to Lead Show is to help good leaders become great leaders by providing you content that adds value to your leadership situation. So get out a notebook, take some good notes, and also make sure you download the leader notes. That will be included in the show notes that give you an outline and summary of the key aspects of what we discussed today.

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Hello, Dave. It's great to have you today. I look forward to our conversation. Thanks, mark. I'm been looking forward to being with you. I appreciated your friendship and just sharing ideas and things through the years, and I'm looking forward to it as well. Yeah, that's great. Why don't you give our audience a little bit of background on your leadership journey. Where you started out within your career and just some milestones across and the different types of organizations that you've led through your career. Okay. Really, I've had three different roles in my life. Lifetime a pastoral ministry for quite a number of years. Anything from church planning, a startup to decent sized five, 600 congregation with a private school. Been on some larger staff ministries, 11, 12, 1300 with a full school. So a lot of nonprofit in that way. So that's kinda my first, first hat I've worn. I'm just wired and gifted more administratively. It's been, more, a lot of administration and oversight and development. Second role I've been in is private education. I have been a head of school, I think of six schools. Some were smaller, but some were a good size, 630, 650 kids. So you get something like that, usually have 80 to a hundred employees and all the pieces and parts that run with that. I was an executive director with state group with 37 schools in it. On a national board officer on a national board, so a lot in private education and then also some adjunct teaching as well. For the last 10 years I've had Penn Coaching and consulting, which has been more kind of leadership development and really helping people learn how to. Small to midsize business owners learn how to scale their companies and then now have added a valuation component where they can not only learn how to scale it but increase the value of it and actually sell it when the time is right. That's awesome. Tell us a little bit about your church background, because most of the time when you're dealing in the church world, you're dealing with a lot of volunteers and so versus if you're working in a for-profit organization where you have a lot of employees, in most those cases you have a lot more volunteers than you do employees. Tell us a little bit about the dynamic of leading volunteers in the, in that situation. I think nonprofit is actually a little more challenging in some ways, because you are right. They're volunteers. So if they don't like you or don't wanna work with you or don't want to help you, they don't, just particularly if they want as a pastor, if they don't want to give, they don't give, so it's a lot of, a lot more relational. Is one of the keys. And then also casting vision and really having clarity about communication. I think a lot of times there's a lot lost in the communication piece because people aren't quite sure where are we really going? What are we really doing? Where do I fit in this organization? How can I help? I find with nonprofits, a lot of people have skills. Sometimes if they have time and they really want to help, but they don't know how to get plugged in. They don't know how to connect. And I think, when you're leading a nonprofit, that's really a key. Some people are givers, so they, that's the way they contribute. Some people have organizational gifts. There's a whole wide range of people. And then, you have to sometimes I've found with nonprofit, people wanna volunteer for things they are not always good at doing. So you have to say, okay, look, I'm glad you want to help. Let's get to know each other a little bit. And you help them understand what they're good at doing. Kinda navigate their pathway to how to engage. And often that really becomes key to getting them, if you, if they have abilities and they have passion and you can get'em tied into something where they can really contribute, that takes care of so many things, and it just really makes it work. So you talk about the challenge there with communication, and I've found that to be true in any type of organization that can, communication breakdowns are often the demise or it keeps companies from being as effective as it can. What are some tools and strategies that you've used to make sure that you can Communication is effective. I think a lot of it really begins with the the way the organization's structured even in nonprofits. I often ask, I talked to a pastor this morning, in fact, and I ask him, do you have an organizational chart? A lot of churches don't. A lot of organizations really don't. Or it's outdated. It's the way you did it 10 years ago or five years ago. Things have changed, and even as a pastor, I updated an organizational chart every year because it wasn't the same as last year. Maybe we had some staff changes, or we restructured some, or we did away with a program, or we added another program. So just having clarity about the big picture and who's responsible for what I think is a good start. And then as you get people involved, I find whether it's for-profit or non-profit, a lot of people don't really understand their roles. So having a clear job description is really, I think, important and not a laundry list, job description. What I mean by that, just a bunch of tasks that they're res, but really the big picture of what are they responsible for. I had a organization a while back, I was helping, was an educational fairly good size public school system for in Texas. And I was working with a gal and I said she had acquired not only current job, she was working with me, but she had another job. I said tell me a little bit about this other job. And I said, what exactly are you. Trying to do there. What are, what's your goal? And she didn't, wasn't sure how to answer. I said let me ask you this. At the end of the year, if you're successful, what do you need to do to be successful? To my surprise, and she was a sharp gal she said, honestly, I don't know. And I said, wow. I said that's interesting. I said have you talked to your boss? In this area, she said, I have, and she doesn't know either. I said look, how are you gonna be successful if you're not even clear about what you need to do to be successful? So we kinda zeroed in on that, and then we came back and I said, all right, what are the three to five things you need to do to accomplish that goal? And just helping her get clarity. Then I kinda encourage her to put all that in writing and then take it to her immediate boss her supervisor, and get the kind of the sign off on it. And the supervisor loved it because it just brought clarity. And I think a lot of times communication is the lack of clarity. People just aren't sure, aren't certain, everything's ambiguous and they don't really know what to do. And then I would add one more level, which is if you're in charge, you want metrics. That will evaluate the objectives or the responsibilities that they have. You measure what you're wanting them to achieve so that they're actually working on what you want'em to, and they're measuring what you're wanting them to do. And if you do those few things, it just completely changes the game. I completely agree. I, one of the things I always talk about with leadership is that there's three key things I think you've gotta have in place. Clear expectations. You have to provide timely feedback on those, how those expectations are being met. And then have accountability to those expectations. And that sounds like that's exactly what you're doing in this situation. How did that translate that you're talking, that translates across any type of organization, profit or nonprofit. Yep. Transition us a little bit into the school world that'cause the academic world is a whole nother type of industry, if you want to call it y you're working with academics. Okay. Yes. So they're very knowledgeable. They understand. Instructions and lesson plans and all that kind of thing. But often in school administration, they don't really know how to run an organization. They know how to maybe observe teachers. They know how to order curriculum, but they've never really learned how to dev set up a structure and how to develop the, get the right people and to develop those people. So it's, it can be a little challenging and they're smart people. They know a lot but sometimes you have to kinda work through, you have to talk to them about what's really happening. What are the problems, what are they really facing in order to get them to see that there are things that they may not be good at, that they need some help with. If you can find a, an administrative person, the administrator? Head of school, whatever he is called, who really recognizes that he needs to learn how to really develop the organization, grow the organization, grow the people that are within the organization, then you have a goldmine there because typically they're smart and they're hard workers, and then they just begin to execute once they get a little help. That's great. What I'm hearing you say in this, both the nonprofit and the school system would be a nonprofit as well in a lot of ways, but. You're talking about leading with influence versus what we see a lot of times people leading with positional or authoritative type of influence. Explain about your leadership style and how you've had to navigate that in both the church world and academic world and what as a consultant and a as a coach. What that leaders struggle with in, in the leadership area. I find a lot of leaders, frankly, just don't know how to lead. Some of that is because they've never really been under a good leader. So they've never seen a good model. It's always been top down or, hit or miss style. One of the things I always do with clients is I'm certified in a number areas, but one of the areas I'm certified is in is disc. And if you're familiar with this, yes. I always tell leaders, I say, you can be a good leader and have one leadership style. But if you really wanna be a great leader, you need to learn how to lead in multiple styles. Most of the time when we come into corporate or in even nonprofit organization, whoever the alpha is has a default style. So let's say he, he's a high D, okay? Which is very driven, task oriented kind of bottom line. Everybody adapts to that leader and understands if I'm gonna be successful in this role within this company or organization, I have to adjust to the alpha, who's the high D? And that will work to a certain extent. But if that leader wants to really be a great leader, what he needs to do is learn this. You don't lead everybody the same way. Rather than forcing everybody to adapt to you and adjust to your style, a much more effective way is to learn your people, your, at least your key people, and understand what kind of style would be effective for them. And you adjust. And I like to think of it like hats. Okay? I put one hat on when I'm leading one person, another hat when I'm leading a different person. And I'm constantly changing hats all the time because I wanna be impactful in the life of that individual. And I think good leadership leans in, gets to know the person that you're leading and you help develop that person in his or her role so that person becomes a more productive employee, a more productive leader within the role that, he or she has been assigned. And you really make it not about the company or the organization so much, you make it about the person you're leading. And I usually word it this way it needs to be a win-win. And a lot of companies or organizations, the employee comes in, they sacrifice, they give. And the company wins. That'll work to a certain extent, but not forever because the employee feels like I'm killing myself and I don't, what am I getting out of this? No recognition, no appreciation, no value. So I'm a really firm believer in having clarity about the person I need. Getting the right person on the bus in the right seat, and then leaning in and really developing the people that you bring on board so that they're functioning at optimum capacity. And when you make it about them and you're helping them and their career, the results are the company or the organization benefits as well. You're talking about developing leaders there. Think about your career a little bit. Go back to your early years. What is something that you wish Dave knew in the early years that you maybe learned the hard way or maybe made some mistakes and that maybe you see as a common trait in some of the people you're coaching? What are some things that sometimes new leaders or leaders taking on a different position maybe struggle with it? You run into. I'll even back up one step before that. I think a lot of my philosophy, if you wanna call it that, of leadership has really come about because I didn't always have good leaders. Maybe they were good at one thing, but they really weren't too good at other things. And I felt like it would've been really helpful to have someone who would've leaned in and mentored me and helped develop me because I felt like I had to scrap and work and, grind to develop all these different things.'cause I just didn't have the, I didn't have the support and help I needed. So that kinda shaped me saying, when I get to the point where I have an opportunity to be involved in leadership, I really want to invest in others. Even this morning, I was talking actually to a pastor. And he's had two men in his life that have greatly impacted his, he's probably 60 ish. But he's had two men in his life that have greatly impacted him. One was the guy he grew up with, who's now, I think he's still living, but in his nineties in. Me, I never thought about that, but just through the years, we kept having contact. He would call, ask questions, I would guide, I would give him some input, provide some insight. And so I think investing in people has just become part of, it's who I am and it's what I feel like a lot of people need, and if you have that, then what it does is it gives you a sense of confidence. You don't know everything. You feel like, hey, I've had someone really invest in me and that has helped me become a better leader and I want to pass it on. I wanna pass it forward. I wanna do the same thing with others. Yeah, that's great. When you run into these leaders that you're coaching, one, one of the things that I see as a common trait is a lot of times they're getting discouraged. Do you run into that? And then if so, how do you address that? What do you think the source of that discouragement is? It can vary I think for a lot of people. One of the things that I begin with is I really try to understand my clients, who they are and what they're good at doing. Now, sometimes I find they know what they're good at doing, but sometimes I find they really don't know what they're good at doing. Okay. I'll ask'em, what do you love doing? What are you really good at? They'll go I'm suppose if I thought about it, I'm thinking, you should know that. What are you really good at? What do you really love doing? So once, once we get that clarified and I do it through assessments as well as talking with them, then I ask them, okay, tell me a little bit about what you're currently doing within your organization. What I'm after is how well do they align? Quite often as a leader, we wind up doing things that we really don't like doing, and we're not really that good at doing. We get by, we're okay, but when you're doing things that you don't like doing and you're not necessarily good at doing it, it depletes you, it exhausts you. Okay. When you're doing things you like doing and you're good at doing it, exhilarates you. You can do it all day. It's just easy for you. You're good at it, and I find a lot of discouragement is people are overloaded, they're doing too many things, and often they're doing the wrong things. They're doing things they might be okay at, but they don't really love and it doesn't excite them and depletes them. And I think a lot of discouragement comes from those two things. Doing too much. And doing the wrong things instead of focusing on the things that you love doing and you're really good at doing. So I say you need to be about 80% of your time and energy and effort in what you love doing and what you're really good at doing. So tell us maybe a story about a transformation about that, where somebody was really out of alignment. And this could be in, in the business consulting or in the church world, wherever, and. When they were out of alignment, they were in this sense of discouragement, overwhelm, frustration. And maybe walk us through how you helped them get through that transformation and what, how they came out on the other side. I can think of a couple, I'll start with this one. I had a friend who owned a computer service company. Okay. Half dozen employees or so really smart guy, and I said, Hey, tell me a little bit about your business. He and I said, you have business development or sales, and you have more of the operations. Which one are you? He says, oh, I'm sales without any question. I'm sales. And I said tell me about that. He says, look, I'm not trying to brag, but when I get before people, I close, like 80% of everybody I talk to. I said, wow, 80% close ratio. That's impressive. I said, what about the operation side? He says, no, I'm horrible. I stink at it. I'm terrible. And I said, all right, be honest with me right now in your business, what amount of time, energy, and focus are you putting towards sales versus operations? To my surprise, he says, I'm 85% operations on 15% sales. And I said, wow, it didn't make sense to me. I said, you love selling, you're really good at selling and you hate operations, and you're doing 85% operations. So I just paused and I said how's that working for you? Literally his head drops. He says, it's not. He says, right now, I hate my life. I don't know how much longer I can continue doing this. It's just exhausting me every day. I just, I can't keep doing this. So I said what would happen if we could find you someone who could oversee your operations? All the scheduling and all the stuff that you don't like doing, you're not necessarily good at doing and he wouldn't be able to do it all, but he could probably do 80% of it. You might still have to do 20%, but you could handle 20%. I said, what would happen if we could find you that. He paused and literally he lit up like a Christmas tree. He said, if I did that, he says I could double my company in 18 months. Wow. So long story made short, he got an operational guy who really began to handle all the stuff that he wasn't good at, didn't like doing. He got back into sales, he got into some government contracts and his company just boom, took off. That's a great story. Yep. That's a great story. And I think that's out there for all the time. People are just, they're hardworking, they're doing a lot of things, but they're not necessarily doing the right things and they don't really know how to position themselves or align themselves in the proper role. And then to build what I call a complimentary dream team, and I usually word it this way, believe it or not, they're actually people that love doing what you hate doing, and they're really good at it. You need to find those people and get'em on your team. That's awesome. Yeah. That and that also, that sounds like that in that story. That guy was discouraged and Yeah. That was really the source of his discouragement. So for our listeners out there, just maybe do some self-evaluation. Tell me a little bit about the value of a coach in your life and I know you're doing coaching. That outside perspective that you're giving these clients. That guy right there, he was in the middle of the fight. He was working hard, he was doing a lot of things to try to make his business grow, but it took an outside perspective to give him a different outlook. Tell us a little bit about that process and how valuable you have found that. I find it su, the problem is with running your own company is you're too close to everything. You've probably heard this adage before, you know it's hard to read the label from inside the bottle. Yeah. You're just, everything's so close and everything's coming at you and you're just overwhelmed. It's hard to be objective, and by having someone who's not emotionally attached and not too close to it, it gives a perspective that you might not even see. I'll tell you another story I had. I had a client. Very smart guy. He owned an international font business, FONT. He sold fonts internationally. Really had a nice company. When I first started meeting with him, I said tell me a little bit about what you're doing. He says, I do this and this, and he says, I do all the financials. I said, really? I said, so you do payables, receivables, payroll, all that stuff. He said, yeah. So I just asked him, I said, you like doing that stuff? He said, not really. I said, are you good at doing that stuff? He said, no, not really. And I said how long does it take you? He says, oh, about eight to 10 hours every week. It's interesting. I said, so I asked him, I won't say his name, but let's say it was Joe. I said Joe I said, lemme ask you a question. I said, what are you worth? An hour? You kinda pause. He thought about it. He says, I'm about a two 50 an hour guy. I said, okay. I said look, I've got a deal for you. I wanna do your financials. I'll do payables, receivables, payroll. I'll handle all that. It's only gonna take me 10 hours a week and I'm only gonna charge you two 50 an hour. What do you think? He smiled and then he just start laughing. He says, I guess I'm really paying that, aren't I? He said, yeah. I said, yeah, I really are. I said, you realize you could get a bookkeeper 35,$40 an hour. Probably wouldn't take him 10 hours a week because he actually knows what he's doing. Okay, but here's the real kicker. What could you do in your business to advance it? If I could give you back 10 hours every week of your life, what difference would that make bank? And it was one of those aha moments where he realizes, you know what? I'm really allocating my time to something that's not that valuable. Particularly for my pay level. Yep. And I see a lot of owners doing that all the time. It sounds like we have a lot of owners, especially in a small business, and it can't even be in a large corporate world, you get your. Focus on things that are not really adding a good return on investment for your labor and for your skillset. I remember Andy Stanley talking about in a leadership podcast one day saying that you need to get in your organization to doing the things that only you can do. And it sounds like that's really where you try to move your clients is to do the things that they're the best at the, that the only they can do. Yeah or they produce the highest ROI. Okay. Either. That's good. Ideally you want it to be both. Stuff, you're really, it's not that you're maybe the only one that could do it, but you're really good at doing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And it produces the highest R-R-R-R-O-I. What happens a lot of times is we pull ourself outta the most important things. And put ourselves into less important things because someone needs to do it. I can do it, so I guess I just need to do it. No, you need to find someone who can do it and pay them appropriately. A much lower rate, typically than what you would be paid as an owner or as a founder. Yeah. And also I think sometimes we retreat to those areas. Because there, there's a certain comfort level there. Sometimes some of our biggest growth occurs outside of our comfort zone, and sometimes as a leader we shrink back to some things that maybe we're more comfortable with. There's a lot of reasons. Sometimes it's a control issue. Yep. I got burned once. I'm never gonna get burned again. Yep, okay. Sometimes it's, I've had, I've tried to find people and they flopped and I had to jump back in and boy, that was painful, so I'm not gonna let that happen again. There's a lot of things that you have to realize, learn how to do, getting clarity about what is the role, who's the right person, all those kind of things, those become important and you just have to grow as a leader. So that you then don't get stuck. A lot of leaders are what I call the ceiling or the bottleneck of their business. The organization can't grow anymore because the leader can't handle anymore. And by the way, since I've gotten into the valuation thing, one of the tipping points for selling your business is if the business is too dependent upon you as the owner, the valuation of that business, the value of it goes down. Because people don't wanna buy a business that's built upon an owner because when the owner disappears they're concerned that the business may disappear. You brought that up where you do the valuations on the business and help folks prepare either to sell their business or to maximize the value of the business to grow the business. Walk us through a little bit of that process, how you work with a leader to better understand how to increase the value of the business and then also. Be able to someday exit that business if they want.'cause so many businesses are, on a solopreneur or a small business situation, they're dependent on the cult of personality, so to speak. Sure. Can you just walk us through a little bit about how you coach a leader through that process? I begin with, trying to understand where they are on their timeline, and sometimes you know that because of their age or whatever, or their health, there's different reasons why people are at different stages. But I have an assessment. It's a really neat assessment. It takes about a half hour to go through it and it gives you, based upon industry standard, a pretty good idea of what your company is worth. And there are multiple reports, but the one I like best literally has it, it's tied to eight metrics and it literally has toggles that you can touch the toggle and improve the score. It gives you a score of zero to a hundred in these eight different metrics. And let's say you're at a 45 I can touch that toggle, move it up to a 70 or 80. And literally right before your eyes, the value of your company is increases. Based upon moving that one toggle. Okay. And there are eight of these. So a lot of it is just understanding where you are in business, what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, and what do you need to do, really do to improve the value of your business? And then from there we start just working on those areas. Usually pick one or two to start with, and if we can approve those, like the one I just mentioned about the role of the owner. It's called the hub and spoke metric. So the idea is the more the business is built on you, then the less value the business has. It is interesting when you get ready to sell, it's not uncommon for the new owner to want you to stick around for a year or two. The reason they want you to stick around for a year or two is you've built the business too much upon you and they're concerned that when you disappear. The relationships are gonna disappear. And so think about it here, I'm the owner, I'm the founder. I've spent 25, 30 years building this business, and now you want me to work for you for another two years at maybe even if the money's good. But the idea is, I don't wanna work for you. I want to get out of this, I wanna be done with this, but I didn't build it right so that I could step away and the new buyer would not be nervous about what might happen once I step away. Dave, those principles can translate over to the church world you're talking about with a pa succeeding, a pastor or at a school succeeding the headmaster or the leader of the school, or even in the public non profit se sector a lot of times. They don't do a good job of succession planning, and that's really a lot of what you're talking about there. It is succession planning and I think it's also leadership development because ideally you want to be constantly developing people that can step into your role. If you disappear, if something happened to you or you decide you wanna sell or you decided you wanted to retire or whatever it was, you ought to be constantly building people that can step into your role now. They're not gonna be you. But they will be enough like you to transition and probably, ideally, I see this in pastoral ministry a lot. I always say the guy that follows the pastor that's been there for a long time, you don't want him to be an integral copy of the previous guy. No. That's right. You're at a different stage in ministry. You want him to be similar enough that he gels well with the people, but you want him to have different gifting that can actually take the organization to a new level that the previous guy probably would've never taken that, that organization to. For our audience today, you've worked with a lot of different organizations in the profit and nonprofit, organ organizations, and there's a lot of'em that I've ran into in my career. That just do not even think about this aspect. What are you seeing the psychology behind it? Is it just trying to hang on to being the leader control or is it just a lack of understanding or a combination of a number of different things? It's a little bit soup to nuts, sadly. A lot of it I'll take the pastoral ministry. I think a reason why a lot of pastors don't retire is beha. They haven't financially prepared to retire. They're used to a steady income and benefits and all that. And when you leave that, you leave all of that. And so if you haven't prepared, you're not financially ready to prepare to retire. Sometimes it can be control, you have a lot of influence. You have a lot of resources. When you retire or you move on, all that goes away. And so there's insecurity and in fact it's interesting. Not only do I have an assessment that will help you understand the value of your company, but I also have an assessment that will help you understand how ready are you to move on. To either a new business or retire because what happened is a lot of times people get ready to sell their business, but then they back out at the last minute because they haven't really started thinking about, oh wow, this is, my life's gonna change and I'm not gonna be able to do this, and my friends are gonna go away and this and that. And so you have to prepare yourself. As a founder, owner, leader, pastor, whatever your role is to move on. Now, maybe it's transition to something new or maybe it's retire, whatever it is, but there's preparation for you as a person in addition to preparation for the organization to be able to retire. Yeah. It sounds like it's just a lack of being intentional and proactive in a lot of situations, thinking that through. Tell me this you work with leaders in a good cross section of different types of organizations. What are some of the key characteristics? If you were gonna draw an avatar of some key characteristics of what a great leader is what would those be from your perspective? There's probably a lot of things. I think one of them is clarity. It regards the vision. Where's the organization going? What are you trying to do? Okay. And connected to that is the ability to communicate that vision. Okay. A lot of people, if you think about it, whether it's nonprofit or for-profit, they buy in not just to the role or the responsibility, but to the mission of the organization. And that's often not really emphasized adequately. So I think just I would call it clarity of vision and communicating that effectively. I've mentioned this one already. Secondly, I would say understanding yourself. What am I good at doing? What am I not so good at doing? Okay. Giving up the stuff I'm not so good at doing and focusing on what I'm really good at doing. Yeah. When you work in the role that you're good and you're successful and you're productive, it's really enjoyable because you're successful. You can be successful'cause you know what to do, you know how to do it. It's just kinda how you're wired. Then thirdly, I think building a complimentary, I call it complimentary dream team. When you get the right team around you, people that have gifting that compliment your gifting. They're good at what you're not so good at. Okay? What happens is just raises the bar to a whole new level and then. I connected to that is leaning in and developing those key people. I view my role as a leader of leaders to actually help develop the people that are underneath me so that they even do what they do better. Now, sometimes that means me training them. Sometimes that means finding someone else who can help train them. It may be a course, it could be a wide range of things, but the idea is I'm really invested in developing my people. Yeah. It's funny because sometimes people are nervous, leaders are nervous about developing their people because they think if I develop that person, he's gonna leave me. And I always say, no, not necessarily. Most of the time people leave because I'll say good people leave because they're not valued. They're not appreciated. There's no opportunity for growth for them and development for them. They don't usually leave. Business people think they leave because they don't, they're not getting paid enough. That's usually not the reason. Yeah, that's right. Okay. And in non-profits the same thing? I used to say this, look, if you have someone who can do the job and you don't let him do the job, he's gonna go somewhere else because he can do the job. But if you have someone who can't do the job and you micromanage him, he's happy to stay forever because he knows he can't do the job anyway. And you wind up getting a weak staff that can't do much, and that means you've gotta do more. So developing people, I think is a part of really being a good leader. You don't make it about you or your accolades, you really make it about others and the team and the vision and all of that. And when you put all that together in a package, it's pretty rare. To have a leader who genuinely cares for you and wants to see you succeed and wants to see you develop, and as you lean into that, it creates a bonding where people don't wanna leave you, they wanna stay with you. There may come a day when they finally do need to move on. And they will say something like this, I knew this day would probably come one day. I hated that it's here. I've just enjoyed being here. You have poured into my life and you have developed. I would never be able to do what I'm doing today without your help. And I just want you to know, I deeply appreciate all that you've invested in my life. And then when they go wherever else they go, they'll send you two or three people to replace them. Because they value and appreciate so much what you've done for them. Yeah. It's like Jack Welsh I think said he said. The only thing worse than not developing your people is not developing them. And they stay, if you develop them and some of them leave that, but if you don't develop'em and they stay then you're in a lot worse shape. But to me, that's one of my proudest moments is if I develop somebody. And they have outgrown the positions they're in and they can go and, become a manager at a higher level. It usually comes back. Yes. Usually the, somewhere down the road it comes back to you because you've deeply invested in them and they appreciate it and they want to help you in any way they can. I've actually had leaders that I've trained and developed. They went to work for other organizations for different reasons, and then they've come back and worked for me two or three different times over the years, and they're even more equipped and more talented than they were when they were working for me before. So it always comes back. You're talking about being a leader of leaders and developing. Tell me a little bit about how you sharpen your saw. What are the key things, books, podcasts, training, or practices? What are the things that keep you ahead of the game so that you can invest and in, in develop others? You're probably familiar with Strength finders. I'm two of my top five and strength finders are strategic. I'm very strategic in the way I go about things. And then one of them is learner. So I'm an avid reader. It's not uncommon for me to be reading two or three books at the same time. Yep. But I'm also I like to not only read the books, but I like to take action on what I learn from the books so that, I'm not just. Getting, gaining information, but I actually am utilizing that information. In fact, sometimes when I speak out, if I'm speaking at a, like a seminar or webinar or whatever, I will say, look, I'm gonna share a lot of information with you today, and I don't expect you to absorb all of this or even to really take it all in. But here's what I would encourage you to do. Find one thing that I share with you today. One insight. One principle that really would help you. And then when you leave here, go home and take action on that and implement it in your life, because I think it's the actual implementation of the knowledge that brings the results. And so I'm constantly looking for that. And one of my problems is because I'm a learner, sometimes I have to filter out because I can try to learn too many things. And I just spread myself too thin. So as I've aged a little bit, I've limited my scope and saying, I could do that. I think I would enjoy doing that but it's not within my purview right now. I need to focus on this. And so I'm a very avid reader, attend a lot of webinars. I'm always trying to learn from people and and I'm also learning what I want to do and what I don't want to do. Good. And sometimes what I don't wanna do is more important than what I want to do. Yeah. Because I'm always reminded about jobs when, Steve Jobs when he, got booted out of Apple and then they brought him back because the company was struggling and they had all these products. They had created and jobs cut it back to the bone. I think he left three or four products when it was all said and done. They had 12 or more that they were selling and he cut it back to the bone and he was being interviewed years later, he says, look, I am as proud of what Apple has chosen not to do as what we've chosen to do. Yes. Because by focusing less, we were able to do it better. And that caused the company to, to take off again. Is there a book or a podcast or anything that you would, that comes top of mind that you say, Hey, this is something that's really impacted me here recently? I'm a constant reader, so I'm always reading, I thought about, what maybe might be a book I assume you might be familiar with this book. Yes. Rocket Fuel. It's a Wickman book, Gino Wickman, if you're familiar with it. It's basically a study of companies and it, they look at the visionary, the leader who's a visionary and what he calls the integrator, who is more the operations person. He describes both the role of each one of those and the skillset of each one of those. What they discovered was companies that really did well. Had both a visionary and an integrator. And when they, he calls it, when they played nicely together in the sandbox the company becomes quote unquote like rocket fuel. And I think knowing through my life I've had to be both. I've probably more natural the integrator, naturally the integrator, but I've had to be the visionary. But honestly, what has probably been more exhausting for me at times when I is, when I've had to do both. Yes. Okay. Because there are different skills. One's more creative and innovative and ideation and that kind of thing. And the other one's more imp implementation and execution. It's hard to really be good at both. Yes, and probably the roles that I've enjoyed most, believe it or not, is not when I've been the main leader, but when I've been the. Integrator for a visionary leader who just had the visions off the wazoo. You just couldn't almost control how much. And I could come in and actually strategize and then execute on the vision and make it happen. And for the people in our audience who're not familiar with that term integrator, it's really the person that's executing the vision. Yep. That's the way I sum it up. And one of the things I thought about two people that I know that are in the church world where one of them is the lead pastor is the visionary. And then the other one is the right hand man, which is the integrator or the execution person. And what I have seen over the course of their, they've worked together for close to 28 years now, that their frustrations come from maybe not understanding each other's roles. And I want to recommend this book to'em because I think. They would better understand each other and how they fit together.'cause it's a very book. The nice thing about this book is they actually, he even gets into what when you disagree, who gets to call the shot. Yep. And he gives scenarios about when you disagree, who should be the decision maker. Because a lot of times the lead guy is the visionary. I always find with visionaries is in their mind once they think it, it's done. Yes. I'm thinking, no, it's not done. You have a great idea there, but you have no idea what's involved in, actually, a while back I worked for a guy I've had a few fractional clients, people that became fractional employers, and I worked for a guy who was a real visionary guy, he was all over the place, probably a DHD guy. I used to tell him I'll use the name Joe again. His name's not Joe, but I used to tell him, I said, Joe, you know what you need to do is just tell us what you want to get done, and then you need to go away. Because what happened was he'd tell us this week, this is what I want to get done, and next week he'd tell us something else he wants to get done, and next week he'd tell us something else. And I said you're keeping us from executing on what you told us last week, and you keep changing the plan and you're confusing the staff and we don't know what to work on because every week you have a new idea and a new something else. I said, so if this is really what you want us to do, tell us that. And then go away and let's execute it. When we get it done, then we can say, okay, we're ready for something else. Yeah. That's the one thing that I think about with visionaries. They have an idea a minute and, but it takes many times, many years to yes. Implement some of those visions. Yeah. So that's good. So as we wrap up today, can you just tell us a little bit about how people can connect with you and we'll put that in the show notes as well. And then how you do help Business leaders, churches, schools. And maybe just give us a little synopsis of what you do and how to get in contact with you. Sure. Probably, the easiest way to connect with me is just. Email me DAVE at Penn coaching PENN coaching.com. My website's, penn coaching.com. I have a number of eBooks you can download eBooks to kinda learn a little bit about some of the things I've done or doing. There's a lot of description. I'm in the process of revamping. My website should be done here fairly soon. So it'll be updated. I have a number of assessments that I use that I can make available, but usually I start with a conversation. And what I wanna do is just get to know you. Understand, okay, what are you really trying to do? What are you, where are you and where are you trying to go? And what are you trying to do? And I can't help everybody. I don't even try to help everybody. But if I, after talking to you, I feel like, we would be a good fit for each other. Then we can just discuss, what you're trying to do, what amount of time that it would take to accomplish it cost and that kind of thing. But I really do customize what I do with each client, and I like to think of it. I have a lot of tools in my toolbox, both from experience as well as training and certifications and that kind of thing. But I don't use every tool for every client. Because they don't need, every client doesn't need the same tools. So I like to customize what I do so that I can really help you accomplish what you're trying to accomplish. And I call that like a discovery call or strategic call. And I don't charge for that. But it gives me a chance to get to know you. And it has to be, I call it a win-win. It has to work for you, but it also has to work for me. Yep. Because, I've had, I'll say good clients, bad clients through the years. Yeah. And and nobody wants to have bad clients, but some of it is a chemistry thing. Yes. And if you wanna reach out to me, that's probably a good way to do that, Dave, at penn coaching.com. And just to clarify for people, you really specialize in working with the small business owner and then also in the. Private, basically academic world, I would imagine is the key areas. Yeah. I kinda market for the small to midsize business owners who want to scale their business and sell it one day, but I've had a lot of clients both in for-profit and non-profit. Yep. Pastoral clients. I've had educational clients. I've had, accountants, medical doctors. Just about anything you can imagine. I probably work with real estate. One of the things I did with the real estate world was had a, I had an owner, he was a commercial real estate guy. Guy could sell anything. He was great at sales, but he was not good at procedures, processes, systems, that kind of thing. He wanted to build a company. When I started with him. He was the only broker he had. When I left him, he had 14 brokers. Wow. Okay. But he didn't have the processes and systems to find the right people onboard them and get them up and running, and that, that was where I was able to help him. And I like helping people. I'm really all about helping people, helping leaders personally develop their organizations, develop their people. So for me, that's a big win for me. And the impact that you can make, I call it the pebble in the pond concept. When you throw a pebble in a pond, there's a ripple effect. Yes, I know. If I can help that leader, I can help everyone in that organization. I can improve their lives and that's really, you know what I enjoy doing. Man, this was some great content today and there's a lot of practical insights that you've given us. We really appreciate your time today, Dave. Thanks Mark. I've enjoyed being with you and of course, enjoy your friendship and trust. We'll have many times together in the future. Have a great day. Thanks. Alright, thank you.

I know you got some great content out of our conversation with Dave Pennington today. Make sure you go and download the leader notes. It will give you a summary of all the different aspects that we discussed today, and we'll give you an outline and some key takeaways to help you process this and implement it in your leadership journey. Make sure you go to your favorite. Podcast directory and subscribe to our podcast. Then we'd also ask if you've got some value out of today's show, please go give us a rating of five in your favorite directory. Thank you for joining today's show. Please share this with your friends, coworkers, and colleagues. Let them know about the Learning to Lead Show and also make sure that you download the leader notes. That will be a link in the show notes. Make sure that you check out our free ebook. The Trust Gap gives you some insights, how to build trust into your organization. All of those are available in the show notes. Learn, grow and lead. And as Craig Rochelle says, when the leader gets better, everyone gets better.