Equipping Leaders To Multiply

Customized Leadership Development Tool

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the changes taking place with leadership development.  One of those changes is Customized Learning plans.  Well, last week I was meeting with a sharp young worship leader who wants to develop his leadership skills.  During our meeting time we went through the following steps to develop a customized development tool he can use for himself and his team. 

  1. Identify a Key Job Responsibility
  2. Create a list of no more than seven competencies (skills) that are necessary to do that responsibility well
  3. Have the learner rank themselves 1-5 on each competency
  4. Choose one area to work on and create a 30 day growth plan
  5. Follow-up and share your progress

This young man chose the responsiblity of Leading a Worship Band.  Here is the customized tool we developed for that particular responsiblity. 

1  Read each sentence below and rank yourself on each of the competencies.

SCALE:  1 = I don’t have a clue  2 = I know a little bit  3 = I have some experience  4 = I’m fairly confident  5 = I do this really well

Leading a Band requires the following competencies… rank yourself 1-5 on each.

  • Dynamic of Worship  – The leader understands the rhythm, focus and dynamics of each song in order to maximize that particular songs message
  • Confrontation  – The leader brings correction or adjustment to each team members attitude and performance
  • Connect with team – The leader connects with team members by communicating and relating to them outside of church services
  • Spiritual leadership – The leader brings spiritual insights and encouragement to the team and serves as a model for spiritual leadership.
  • Encouragement – The leader helps each team member understand and maximize the strengths they bring to the team.
  • Communication – The leader communicates clearly before rehearsal by informing members of service details in advance and during rehearsal by addressing each team member in a way that brings clarity and understanding.
  • Servant Leadership – The leader models servant leadership by serving each member of the team with humility and kindness.
  • Time management – The leader will effectively manage rehearsal time by starting and ending on time as well as sufficiently covering all songs according to the need of the band members.

2  Next work with your mentor or learning group to choose one area you will focus on over the next 30 days. 

3 Write down 3-4 next steps you can take to help you develop that particular competency. 

Use the following to help prompt your thinking about your next steps:

  • I will read…
  • I will meet with…
  • I will Google search…
  • I will do…
  • I will listen to…
  • I will observe…
  • I will go…

4 Meet again within 30 days with your partner or mentor and share your progress as well as what you have learned.  I would recommend discussing the following questions:

  • What next steps did you take?
  • How well did you do?
  • What would you do differently?
  • What did you learn?

Who are you personally developing?  Create your a customized growth tool by following the steps listed above. Give it a try over the next 30 days and see what happens.


Reader Comments

  1. Awesome! Thanks for sharing this as a follow-up to the new movements series. The idea of customized learning development seems very powerful, but how to do this wasn’t all that clear. The approach you take here isn’t actually all that different from what students at Rockbridge do in their first class. We look at 35 ministry competencies, spend time reflecting on our calling and identifying which competencies are needed to effectively carry out that calling, then put together a personalized learning plan, which we execute over the next two years with a series of mentors. The time frame is longer, but the goal is the same – to get from where you are to where you want to be.

    I have a couple of meetings today that might give me some ideas for this and/or some people to try it with. It does sound like something I should try over the next 30 days. Thanks!

  2. Hey Mac! As always, your posts are awesome, and timely I might add. I’d like to add to your post some mentoring material I found in a google search by Joel French. Mr French constructed a focus group on worship mentoring, and posted his results in his project narrative. I like his interview questions as well as Skill/Area Competency Rating section. In that section, participants were asked to rank each core competency in order of importance to them. Here is the site. I’d love to get your feedback.

    http://www.ccws.ca/contemp_pmod/
    Simply scroll down to “Worship Leader Mentorships: How to Guide, Empower, and Equip Worship Leaders of the Future”

    Thanks, Mac. I always enjoy reading your posts. God bless you.

    Melanie

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