“Developing leaders is what we do!”  It has to be stated that clearly for people to get it.  But stating it clearly is still not enough; you have to make decisions that give evidence that leadership development is a high value in your organization.

I remember a key volunteer walked into my office one day and informed me that he wanted to apply for one of our staff positions.  Treating this opportunity as an informal interview I began to ask what he would do if he were to get the position.  He described how he would care, serve and love the people in that area of ministry.  What he said was good.  But the one thing I didn’t hear was how he would work through leaders and develop leaders for the expansion of the ministry.  It was obvious he had the mentality (and skills) of a doer rather than a developer.  So being straightforward with him I told him that his gifts and strengths added great value to our ministry, however for staff positions in our church we only hire people who are leader developers.  Leadership development will not stand strong as a value in your organization unless you take a strong stand for it in your organization.   Take Ram Charan’s counsel and write leadership development into the job description of every leader on your staff and key volunteer positions.   This type of clear expectations will begin to shape a culture of leadership development.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been posting training sessions for ministry coaches.  Session 1 we looked at The Heart of a Coach.  Session 2 covered how to do a One on One coaching session.  Now in session three I talk about how to lead a coaches huddle.  Huddles are nothing new, however the biggest complaint you’ll hear is “nobody wants to come to my huddle”.  I totally agree, no one wants to come if it adds no value to the leader.  However I’ve watched coaches over the years who’ve created meaningful, highly interactive, huddles that added great value to their leaders.  Success and sustainability are all in the execution.   If you do huddles poorly leaders will not attend.  If you do them well they will love you for making the investment.

Group Huddles from Seacoast Church on Vimeo.

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?

At the LAUNCH Network we realized early on if we desire to have an exponential impact on church planting we can’t do it alone.  In fact, you may be surprised that we acknowledge we don’t actually plant churches.  Churches plant churches.  That’s why our primary focus is not the church planter but church planting churches.  We are a Leadership Development Network that helps churches in their efforts to build a local church planting network that inspires and equips church planters to lead strong.  Our strategy is to come along side churches bringing them processes, systems, models and curriculum that make’s their church planting efforts easier and more effective.  In addition, because we’re creating a national network of local LAUNCH Networks we can synergize their efforts, time, resources and best practices to make each other stronger and better.  We currently have LAUNCH Hubs in Atlanta, Las Vegas, Jackson, Birmingham and Winston-Salem.  Below is an update from Pinelake Church who heads up the LAUNCH Jackson Hub.

OUTLIVE Update: June 26, 2011 from Carl Barnhill on Vimeo.

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.

Building Relationships from Seacoast Church on Vimeo.

At the LAUNCH Network we’ve decided to take a unique approach to our national structure by using a Hub approach.  In this short video I interview Tim Wheat, Church Planting Pastor at Pinelake Church in Jackson, MS who explains this Hub Strategy.  Pinelake serves as the LAUNCH Jackson Hub.

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 love to hear a great sermon.  Yes, in part, because I’ve been trained in preaching so I appreciate it as an art.  But even more so because you hear the heart of God in a unique way. A great sermon is…

• God’s Truth flowing through a human vessel that’s been changed by that Truth.
• God’s Wisdom that has been unearthed through hours of digging into The Word.
• God’s Heart that flows, not from an outline, but from the passion of a man who’s heart has been moved.

Years ago one of my mentors, Pastor David Joiner, coaching me, pointed to his pulpit and said, “Mac, as a young man I walked into that pulpit unprepared one time in my life.  That day I didn’t steward God’s Word with integrity or responsibility.  God broke my heart as he revealed my laziness in preparation.  So from that day I committed to God that I would never stand behind that Holy Desk unprepared ever again.”

That commitment made him one of the greatest preachers I’ve ever heard.  And that phrase “holy desk” was forever branded in my mind giving me a holy fear of my responsibility to preach God’s Word with truth and passion.  Pastors never take the privilege and responsibility of preaching lightly.

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.