My basic premise of leadership development is leaders raise up other leaders. Leaders who do not reproduce other leaders are short sited and ultimately damage the long-term health of their organization or department. If leaders do not produce leaders where will the future leaders come from? I’ve heard John Maxwell say on several occasions, “It takes one to know one, it takes one to show one and it takes one to grow one.” Leaders produce leaders.
Every organization has a natural hierarchical structure that people advance through as they gain greater leadership responsibility. This has become known as the leadership pipeline. If there is a shortage of leaders at various levels, if the same old people are doing the same old jobs year after year, if growth is hampered because of a shortage of leadership, then this is a clear indication that your leadership pipeline is clogged. So what can you do? Here are a few suggestions.
Make leadership development an expectation of all the leaders in your organization. You can do this by talking about it frequently and by making it one of the factors that you measure in your organizational scorecard. (Ex: How many new leaders are being developed in each department?)
Inspect your leadership pipeline regularly. I would recommend a regular inspection of the condition of your leadership pipeline. Take at least an hour a quarter and look at the leaders at every level of your organization. Your organizations database should be able to print a report that would show the names of those at each level. (CLICK HERE for Pipeline SAMPLE) Discuss these level by level by level, name by name. Ask the following questions: Where do we have leadership gaps? Who are the potential leaders to fill those gaps? Who has the potential to move up to the next level? What is their next step and how can we help them take it? Who is in process of being developed for the next level?
Build on what’s working. Find those in your organization that are already mentoring new leaders. Recognize them, reward them and challenge them to reproduce more mentoring leaders in your organization. If you only have 20% of your current leaders mentoring new leaders it will have an exponential impact on the multiplication of leaders in your organization.
What are other action steps you can take to unclog your pipeline?
I talk with pastors from across the country all the time who tell me their leadership pipelines are dry. Without the development of new leaders any organization will soon be in trouble. But instead of acknowledging the problem many stick their heads in the sand and hope for a better tomorrow. Serious action toward building new leaders will not take place until there is a serious look at the current condition of your pipeline of leaders. Here are a few signs that your leadership pipeline may be dry,
The same old people doing the same old things
Desperation tactics to recruit new leaders
A leader moves out of his position and the ministry declines or dies
Leaders are doing all the work themselves and not intentionally developing others
Recruiting for today’s need not recruiting for tomorrows growth.
Leader not making training a priority
Growth is limited because there are not enough leaders to support
Mark Effron one of Hewitt Packers Senior executives says, “There’s an underwhelming level of investment in developing great leaders, more leaders are concerned with building a legacy based on their own actions versus a pipeline of leaders.”
What are the other signs you see of a dry leadership pipeline?
Leadership development is at it’s best when it’s relational. Coaches who understand this will win the hearts and trust of those they lead. In this session I share a practical solution that’s worked well for me for years. If you missed session 1 you can CLICK HERE.
Senior leaders frequently complain about the shortage of leaders and lack of leadership development in their organization. When I hear this my first thought is, “What’s your strategy?” And on those occasions when I do ask the question, there’s rarely a concrete systematic answer.
If there’s no intentional strategy for the development of leaders then your people won’t know what steps to take and therefore will fall short in their leadership development efforts. And that’s the senior leadership’s fault not the follower’s fault. You don’t have to have an answer tomorrow or even next month, but begin the process of deciding on a strategy that works for your organization. One of the bad habits organizations develop is allowing each department to do leadership development their own way. Suddenly you end up with a hodgepodge of methods strung across the organization with no alignment or best practices that make the organization stronger in this discipline. So, get your team together, talk about what’s working, what’s not working and then make every effort to align your organizational strategy for developing leaders. You’ll be doing yourself and your leaders a huge favor.
I believe the role of coach is the most underrated position in the local church today. I know many small group ministries use coaches, but I think it’s important for every ministry to identify key people who can serve as coaches to the leaders in their area.
About a year ago we shot some videos for ministry coaches at Seacoast Church. Since summer is a time to recruit new coaches for the upcoming ministry season, I thought it’d be a good opportunity to put these videos out so others can use them to train coaches in their ministry. I will post all five sessions over the next five Wednesdays.
Jesus said “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (Luke 10:2). If this is true, that the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few, then it should be the job of the church to raise up the saints within the body. Seacoast Church takes this responsibility seriously and in response has created a 9 month internship to help develop and prepare laborers to send into the field.
Seacoast’s All-Access internship was created three years ago by Pastor Mac Lake in an effort to better equip and train future pastors and ministry leaders. Over the last three years, All-Access has continually grown and developed into an internship that specifically focuses on 8 core competencies of ministry, allowing each intern to not only gain wisdom on how to conduct ministry, but the experiences needed to implement the truths being learned.
As a part of the program, interns will participate in the following:
weekly theological reading and discussions with other interns and pastors
monthly mentoring
weekly ministry experience within a specific ministry of choice
weekly interviews with Seacoast pastors and other ministry leaders around the United States
participation in special events and conferences
opportunity to plan and execute a large community outreach as a team
many other opportunities to learn and grow in a large, cutting-edge, multi-site church
If you believe that God may be calling you into full-time vocational ministry or have a desire to grow deeper in your leadership with the church, then we would encourage you to check out Seacoast’s All-Access internship. For more information, CLICK HERE or contact Pastor Ernest Smith at ernestsmith@seacoast.org or twitter: @Ernest_Smith
All applications are due by August 12th for the 2011-2012 program.
There is a bullish, uncompromising law that you cannot ignore as you consider building a leadership development culture: the values of the leader become the values of the organization. Now, I’m not necessarily talking about the values that are posted in the hallway by the water cooler, but the values the leader lives out on a day in day out basis. (Unfortunately too often there is a big difference between the two). A leader may order the execution of a new leadership development program, set an organization wide goal for the development of leaders or even assign a task force to develop solutions to the leadership development problem. But if he himself is not involved in developing leaders then that organization will never cultivate a leadership development culture.
Don’t worry senior leaders, this does not mean that you have to suddenly put aside significant portions of your role to take on this new added responsibility. No, it simply means you begin to invest in replicating yourself in at least one other person in the organization. If you don’t model it yourself you can’t expect it from others. But realize, It’s not the volume of leaders you reproduce that matters; it’s your voice and actions championing the cause that will lead others to follow your example and ultimately be the greatest contributing factor in building a culture of leadership development in your organization.
One of the most important responsibilities of a leader is the development of other leaders. Too often we’re guilty of expecting our team members to grow, but we do little to help them in the developmental process. If those on my team aren’t developing their leadership capacity then I have to ask myself, “What do I need to do differently?” I must assume the proper stewardship of my team and do my part to contribute to their growth. But unfortunately many team leaders neglect getting involved in their team members development.
Here are 5 Non-Negotiable actions I would require as a team leader that will help build a culture of leadership development among your team.
Require written goals - Have the individuals on your team turn in a one page written summary of their goals for the next 4 months. This lays the ground work for shared expectations and gives you a basis from which to coach their performance.
Require regular 1-1′s. Meet with each person on your team at least once a month if not twice a month. During those meetings review their goals, ask what problems they are encountering and use it as a time for individual coaching.
Require reading – A team that reads together learns together. Reading a leadership book and discussing it during team meetings creates an atmosphere of shared learning and development.
Require reproduction – Leaders should be producing leaders. Ram Charan in his book Leaders at All Levels recommends that everyone in your organization have “raising up new leaders” as a part of their job description. When someone is teaching others to lead it reinforces those principles in their own life.
Require evaluation – Have times of regular evaluation as a team. Ask them: What have we been doing well? What can we learn from that? Where do we need to improve? What can we learn from that?
Remember leadership development is a discipline that we must exercise everyday.
As a leader you are responsible for the development of those under your care. But sometimes due to the nature of your schedule or physical proximity you find it impossible to actually observe the person you’re responsible for overseeing. So how can you “critique them” or “coach them” if you never have the chance to observe them. Admittedly this is not the ideal situation but it’s many leaders reality. So what do you do?
I’ve found that while all of us have our blind-spots, most people do a fairly good job at self-evaluation. (There are exceptions) So if you find yourself in this less than ideal situation ask them to self-assess. Here are a few questions you can use as you coach them.
What do you feel you’re doing best in your current position?
What strengths are you currently using to help you achieve your results?
What strength could you focus on developing that would make you 20% more effective?
What are 2-3 things you would like to do better?
What do you think others on your team would say you do best?
What do you think others on your team would say you need to improve?
If you could change one aspect of your leadership what would it be and why?
What are the three skills you feel you need in order to be most successful in your role? How would you rate yourself on each of those using an A, B, C, D or F grading scale.
As the individual answers these types of questions it then gives you the opportunity to share your opinion based on what you perceive. While you may not see them in action on a regular basis, you certainly see or feel the results of what they’re doing.
Again I want to emphasize the ideal situation is for you as the leader to observe and give positive and constructive feedback based on what you witnessed. But when that’s impossible, your best option is to trust that people are actually pretty good as self-assessment.
It drives me crazy when I think I’ve learned something only to find myself in a situation where my mind goes blank.
Before going on my first trip to Honduras I worked hard to learn some key Spanish words and phrases. When we arrived I had my opportunity to use what I had been learning. But as I encountered my first native Honduran I opened my mouth and nothing came out. My mind went totally blank and I couldn’t remember a word. There’s a huge difference between being familiar with something and really learning it.
The same thing happened to me the other day but it wasn’t a foreign language I stumbled over, instead it was the language of leadership. Through my reading over the past couple of weeks i had became familiar with a great leadership concept. Suddenly I found myself in a meeting where this concept would add value, but my mind went blank and I couldn’t find the words to explain what I had been reading. I was familiar with the principle but hadn’t truly learned it yet.
You know you’ve learned something when you can share it, explain it and teach it to others. Too often we read or hear great leadership principles but then we rush right past it failing to find ways to apply and integrate it into our personal leadership habits. If you really want to learn the language of leadership it requires 5 behaviors:
Repetition – I must hear the principle again and again.
Meditation – I must process what I’m learning and think through how the principle applies to my current leadership situation.
Application – I must find ways to put the principle into practice regularly so that it can begin to become a habit and eventually a skill.
Evaluation – I must ask myself and others how I’m doing in the execution of the new competency so I can get better over time.
Multiplication – I must teach others the new skill I’ve developed.
Remember just because you read it, heard it or saw it doesn’t mean that you learned it.
Mac Lake is the Chief Launch Officer of The Launch Network, a Church Planting Network based out of Atlanta, Georgia. He and his wife Cindy have three children Brandon, Jordan and Brianna. [read more...]
