The One Practice of Leadership Development That Transcends Words

Your team isn’t developing leaders and now the shortage of leaders is creating a mess for the whole organization. Your staff is stressed out and volunteers feel unappreciated and out of the loop. The lack of development is obvious and the same ole people are doing all the work.

Your team just isn’t getting it. You’ve preached it, set development goals, and even shown them training videos. But nothing. They’re still not getting it.

Maybe the problem isn’t in the telling them to do it; perhaps the problem is in the modeling of how to do it.  If you’re not modeling leadership development yourself, then your team will not see it as a value, no matter how much you talk about it.

I see it all the time – senior leaders placing expectations on their teams to do things that they themselves are not doing. Here’s what I’ve discovered in over 30 years of doing leadership development:  Modeling speaks louder than words.

Modeling gives people a vision of what could be. Modeling provides a template others can follow. When leaders see a picture of how it could be, then they believe it can be reality.

So maybe it’s time for you to take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask yourself, “have I been a strong model of leadership development for my team?” If the answer is no, make a promise to yourself to get started developing leaders yourself TODAY, then the mess beneath you might just begin to go away.

Additional Resources:
Video: 3 Questions to Diagnose Your Leadership Development Results

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mac Lake

Mac Lake

Mac is a pioneering influence in the church planting movement. In 1997, he planted Carolina Forest Community Church (Myrtle Beach, South Carolina). In 2004, he began serving as Leadership Development Pastor at Seacoast Church (Charleston, South Carolina) where he served for over six years. In July 2010, Mac Lake joined with West Ridge Church to become the Visionary Architect for the LAUNCH Network. In 2015 Mac begin working with Will Mancini and Auxano to develop the Leadership Pipeline process. He joined Auxano full time in 2018. Mac and his wife, Cindy, live in Charleston, South Carolina and have three children, Brandon, Jordan and Brianna.

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comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you Ed for sharing your insights into the Church Growth Movement. I have my reservations with Church Growth models because it has done more damage than good in the Body of Christ. Over the years, western churches are more focused on results, formulas and processes with little or no emphasis on membership and church discipline. Pastors and vocational leaders are burnt out because they're overworked. I do believe that the Church Growth model is a catalyst to two destructive groups: The New Apostolic Reformation and the Emerging Church. Both groups overlap and have a very loose definition. They're both focus on contemporary worship, expansion of church brand (franchising), and mobilizing volunteering members as 'leaders' to grow their ministry. Little focus on biblical study, apologetics and genuine missional work with no agenda besides preaching of the gospel.
 
— Dave
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for sharing such a good article. It is a great lesson I learned from this article. I am one of the leaders in Emmanuel united church of Ethiopia (A denomination with more-than 780 local churches through out the country). I am preparing a presentation on succession planning for local church leaders. It will help me for preparation If you send me more resources and recommend me books to read on the topic. I hope we may collaborate in advancing leadership capacity of our church. God Bless You and Your Ministry.
 
— Argaw Alemu
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Amen!!
 
— Scott Michael Whitley
 

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