I played a lot of basketball when I was young and my primary focus in every game was to score. Oh I loved to win too, but if our team lost and I scored double digets that was okay because “I won”. Sometimes leaders develop this same mentality: “It doesn’t matter if the organization is losing as long as I’m performing well individually”. But when we develop this self-absorbed addiction for personal performance it blinds us to the giftedness, potential and contribution of others.
Leaders we have to remember that we’re responsible for making each player on our team better so the organization can win. It’s interesting that the older I get the more rewarding it is to watch other people win. Watching someone I’ve coached speak well, teach well or lead well is extremely satisfying. It’s fun watching the organization win as more and more players are contributing their best. So what can you do to help others win?
Listen to their dreams. Ask someone on your team, “If you could do anything what would it be?” and watch them light up as they describe what’s deep within their heart. Listen intently and try to see their dream as clearly as they see it.
Resource their ideas. If you can help fund their ideas do it. If not find other ways to resource their ideas by helping them get the training, books, relationships or experiences they need to take their ideas to the next level. Sometimes you may feel you have nothing to offer but you can give encouragement or hope which can be a priceless resource for someone who has a dream.
Network them with others. A well networked leader will be a growing leader. When you connect people of similar passions and mission you open up doors of new opportunities, ideas, wisdom and experience that will change their lives.
Develop their strengths. Focusing on weaknesses can hold people back from becoming all that God created them to be. Help others not only discover their strengths but develop them to the fullest potential. Help them see the specifics of what they do well.
Being a multisite church has many benefits as well as many challenges. Multiple locations requires that you have many leaders, but getting all the leaders from all locations at the same time for leadership training is a challenge. In the past we’ve held “Leader Rallies” in our three regions on three consecutive days traveling to three different locations. This was great for getting the regions together but we wanted to bring ALL of our leaders together.
So this Friday we are trying something new. Through the power of technology we are doing our first All Leaders Conference for the leaders of all our ministries all at one time. Leaders from all of our campuses will be joining in all at the same time. Some gathering at their campus, some from their homes with their ministry teams and others simply joining us from the comfort of their computer.
The conference will focus on the leadership topic of VISION. Our desire is to help our leaders become better biblical leaders not just better church leaders so we will focus on how to cast vision in your home, workplace and ministry. Our Senior Pastor Greg Surratt will kickoff the evening talking about the importance of vision. He will then be followed by Reggie Joiner, from The Rethink Group who will be talking about Casting Vision in Your Home. Next, Business Professor Ray Snyder will talk to us about Casting Vision as a Marketplace Leader. And the evening will be closed out by Steven Furtick, lead pastor at Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC talking about How to Cast Vision as a Ministry Leader.
If you are interested in attending the conference non-Seacoasters can register at www.seacoast.org and register as a guest.
In a training session with the Seacoast Church staff a couple of years ago we arranged the training room to look like airplane seating. At the beginning of the session I told them we were going on a trip, but I had good news and bad news. The good news - we were going on a trip to Hawaii and on this pretend trip their families were going with us. The bad news – we wouldn’t be back for a couple of years. So with this scenario in mind, the question was who is going to take your place? And what do they need to know to take your place? (I figured taking them to a nice vacation location was better than telling them the plane was going to crash and we would all be killed)
This exercise was designed to get us thinking about reproducing ourselves and preparing our organization for the future. How future ready is your organization? Keep in mind that you and the others in your organization will not be in the position you are currently in forever. Here are 10 things you can do to start getting prepared.
Put some of your sharp young leaders at the decision making table.
Give young leaders the opportunity to expand their leadership competency by letting them lead a key project.
Give young leaders greater visibility in front of the organization.
As an executive leader give some of your young leaders some of your credibility by publically pointing our their potential and value they bring to the organization.
Give your young leaders opportunities to watch you make difficult decisions. Discuss the why’s and how’s of those decisions with them.
Make sure older and more experienced leaders are investing in your younger leaders. Make it an expectation in your corporate culture.
Put dollars toward the development of the young leaders in your organization exposing them to some of the best training and best experiences.
Challenge your young leaders to start reproducing themselves. They need to develop this discipline early.
Create an atmosphere where young leaders are allowed to fail. Sometimes we don’t see their potential because they’re afraid to take risks. It’s up to us to create a culture where leaders aren’t afraid of failure.
Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar coined the term “Automobile University” to describe how time spent in your car (or anywhere you listen to your Ipod) can be put to good use by listening to self-development or leadership development audio resources. A University of Southern California study that found 12,000 miles of metropolitan area driving a year for three years afforded enough time to learn the equivalent of two years of college education. Podcasts have become my one of my favorite sources for personal growth. Downloading them is easy and inexpensive. Here are a few podcasts that I listen to regularly.
Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast - Andy Stanley is the senior pastor of NorthPoint Community Church in Atlanta, Georgia. He is also one of the best leadership teachers I’ve heard in our day. If you are a leader, this podcast is a must listen. While they only release one new podcast each month the practical insights are worth the wait. CLICK HERE
Manager Tools - This weekly podcast focuss on helping you become a more effective manager and leader. Each week they talk about tools and techniques you can use to help achieve your management and career objectives. If you’re tired of a lot of management theory and would rather learn specific actions you can take TODAY to improve your management performance, you’ll enjoy the manager tools podcast. To download CLICK HERE
Business Week The Welch Way -This weekly podcast features Jack & Suzy Welch who answer questions from listeners about business, managing, and careers. Drawing on Jack’s experience as the legendary former CEO of General Electric Co. and Suzy’s experience as the former editor-in-chief of the Harvard Business Review they give practical advice on daily leadership issues. To download CLICK HERE.
The Dave Ramsey Show – While this is not a Leadership Development resource, it’s still a must listen for leaders to help them manage their personal finances in a way that they can have financial peace. Dave offers life-changing financial advice as he takes calls from listeners and reinforces the 7 Baby Steps of his financial program. The Dave Ramsey radio show is broadcast on more than 240 radio stations throughout the United States to over 2 million listeners each week . In a very personal and practical way Dave teaches you to manage and budget your money, get out of debt, build wealth, and live in financial peace. To download CLICK HERE.
What leadership development resources are on your Ipod?
For the remainder of the week I will be posting 4 favorite posts of 2009.
My Leadership Development Wake Up Call
I remember when I had my leadership development wake up call. I was fresh out of seminary working as an associate pastor at Pawleys Island Community Church. I was young, enthusiastic and thought I could do it all. But it wasn’t long before I was overwhelmed and overcommitted. I was responsible for weekend worship, midweek teaching, small groups, Sunday school, outreach, youth ministry and the summer children’s program (I had a slight case of Superman complex).
After a year and a half of this madness I told Cindy, “They’re going to fire me.” She told me I was crazy, the church loved me and there was no way they would get rid of me. So I explained, “Oh, they’re going to fire me, they just don’t know it yet!” I was juggling way too many responsibilities and was about to drop the ball with all of them. My enthusiasm and inability to lead through others had painted me into a corner and I was headed for trouble. That night I couldn’t sleep, so I wrote down the names of the volunteers who reported directly to me. I was shocked when I saw the list totaled 88 people.
God showed me two things in that moment: First, I needed to make leadership development a priority and second I needed a leadership development strategy. That night I decided to build a wall of protection around myself by choosing seven key leaders to oversee the various ministries. From that point on I started pouring into those leaders so they could pour into their teams. For the first time in my life I truly started doing leadership development and it saved my ministry.
I look back at those days and see 6 signs that I needed a wake up call.
I was a doer not a developer
Replacing myself wasn’t even on my radar
Others leadership success threatened my sense of leadership security
I gave people responsibility but not authority
I had no intentional plan for developing or equipping leaders
There was a severe shortage of leaders in our ministry
Do you see any of these signs in your ministry? Have you had your leadership development wake up call?
It always used to bother me when I would read in 1 Timothy 3, “Elders must be able to teach.” While I value the gift of teaching, requiring it as a quality for this level of church leadership seemed to be so restricting. But now after 20 + years in church leadership myself, I totally agree leaders must be teachers.
Leadership is the ability to influence the thoughts, attitudes and skills of others which requires an ability to teach.
Leadership means identifying and equipping future leaders which requires an ability to teach.
Leadership is building a team of people and focusing them on a common mission which requires an ability to teach.
Now before you disqualify yourself as a leader please understand I’m not talking about the traditional standing in front of a classroom and dispensing information. I’m talking about being alert to capitalize on teachable moments, avaiable to debrief successes and struggles of those you lead and being astute of those who are hungry students of leadership in your organization. Teaching leaders will have a multitude of growing leaders in their wake.
What adjustments do you need to make to become a teaching leader?
There seems to be a shortage today of leaders who reproduce leaders. Why? I’m sure there are many reasons but here is one for consideration.
When Cindy and I had our first child it was quite a celebration. Cindy wanted nothing more than to be a momma, but in the first five years of our marriage she miscarried two babies. So on June 21, 1990 when our first son Brandon was born phone lines across the country lit up like crazy. Within hours family and friends everywhere were celebrating with us. There were cards, balloons, presents, meals, and people coming to visit from miles away. All to celebrate the birth of our son.
Thinking back to that day makes me wonder…how do we respond when a current leader reproduces a new leader? Are we celebrating this enough or are we taking the development of new leaders for granted?
Typically we need new leaders, we develop new leaders, we place new leaders…THE END. What about celebrating the reproduction of new leaders? Maybe this is a missing ingredient in our leadership development process. Someone has said, “What gets celebrated gets replicated.” My guess is more people would start to reproduce themselves if we simply took the time to celebrate the development of new leaders.
How would it impact your organization’s culture if you began to celebrate the reproduction of leaders?
I had the chance to sit down recently with Pastor Jeff Leake from Allison Park Church near the Pittsburg area. Jeff has a huge heart for leadership development and church planting. In this video he shares some great insights about helping transfer values in the leadership development process. Scroll down below the video to see my takeaways.
My Takeaways
Values are more caught than taught
Leadership development is the key to transfering values
Leaders have to be a part of a culture for a signficant time in order to really catch the values of an organization
We must have intentional conversations with those we are developing about our DNA and values
It’s not until a potential leader gets out on his own that his values are really tested
We have to allow people to learn through failure
It is essential that we keep an ongoing relationship of influence with those we have developed, coaching, encouraging and resourcing them.
One of the most important things a leader can do for his or her organization is build a leadership development culture. How well has your church or organization done with making leadership development a part of your culture? Take the following assessment, then discuss your next steps for making necessary changes.
Rank each statement 1-5
1- Not true of us at all
2- Rarely true of us
3 – True of us
4 – Very true of us
5 – We are models in this area
1. _____ The senior leaders are supportive and involved in the leadership development of our church.
2. _____ Leaders at every level are expected to be involved in developing new leaders.
3. _____ We have a specific leadership development strategy we are promoting consistently in our culture.
4. _____ We cast vision for leadership development on a regular basis.
5. _____ We have developed a language around our leadership development efforts that has found its way into our culture.
6. _____ We are using simple and specific systems in our leadership development efforts.
7. _____ We are providing accountability by measuring the results of our leadership development efforts.
8. _____ We celebrate the successes of our leadership development efforts on a consistent basis.
9. _____ We have one central person championing the cause of leadership development at our church.
10. _____ We have a mentality that “we are in this for the long haul”.
TOTAL SCORE: ___________
SCORE 45-50 STRONG LEADERSHIP DEVELOMENT CULTURE
You already have a very strong leadership development culture. You need to focus on fine tuning the details and consider doing some outside the box thinking for the future of leadership development at your church. You also need to consider how you can help other churches improve their leadership development processes.
39-44 HIGH POTENTIAL FOR a LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT CULTURE
Your church is close to having a leadership development culture. You’re doing a good job in some areas of leadership development but are likely to have some weak spots that are keeping it from truly being engrained in your culture. It is likely that some people in your organization have bought in, while others still do not see “leadership development” as a part of their job. You need to choose the one or two areas that are lagging and find ways to maximize your efforts there.
33-38 GOOD POTENTIAL FOR A LEADERSHIP DEVLEOPMENT CULTURE
Don’t be discouraged, you have some strengths you can build on. While it may be important to you, others in the organization dont’t see leadership development as a priority. Make sure everyone in the organization understands what is going well in the area of leadership development and then cast a vision for taking it to a new level. The fact that you are doing some things well will help your current leaders easily get excited about improving leadership development in your culture. Choose one or two areas you feel are most important to begin improving, gather a team of people who can help you make the necessary changes.
27-32 NEED MUCH IMPROVEMENT TO REACH A LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT CULTURE
While your church or organization may be growing and doing good things, it may be in danger of losing effectiveness in the future unless you raise your leadership development efforts. It will be important that senior leadership begin to emphasize leadership development as a priority. Leadership development has not been a part of your culture and it is going to take some hard work and patience to begin to build it into your culture.
0-26 SERIOUS NEED TO CHANGE YOUR CULTURE
This is a strong indication that your church may be in decline or is built upon a dynamic-charismatic leader. You are facing an uncertain future and the senior leadership team needs to begin to have some serious talks about the future of the church. You may need to bring someone in from the outside to coach you in the initial steps of building a leadership development foundation in your church. Top leadership need to begin to study the importance of leadership development and begin to make it a priority in their own day to day practices.
Mac Lake is the Development Pastor at Seacoast Church, a multi-site church with 13 campuses. He lives in Mount Pleasant, SC with his wife Cindy and three children Brandon, Jordan and Brianna. [read more...]
ing a multisite church has many benefits as well as many challenges. Multiple locations requires that you have many leaders, but getting all the leaders from all locations at the same time for leadership training is a challenge. In the past we’ve held “Leader Rallies” in our three regions on three consecutive days traveling to three different locations. This was great for getting the regions together but we wanted to bring ALL of our leaders together.
