2 Realities That Often Stifle Conviction for Developing Leaders
Until one holds a deep conviction to develop younger or emerging leaders, leadership development will not happen. Conviction is necessary. How do you know if you have a conviction? If you can imagine leading without developing leaders, then leadership development is not a conviction. Think about it: preachers who are convicted that the Word must […]
Overwhelming Leadership Muscles for Development
You cannot grow physical muscles without the muscles being overwhelmed. Your muscles need resistance and challenges to grow. The same is true for leadership muscles. In seasons of being overwhelmed, we become eager learners, seeking wisdom from others and vigorously applying knowledge we previously acquired. We often find a gear we did not know we […]
How to Wisely Help Your Team Learn
Wise leaders curate skillfully what they ask those they lead to read because “what develops us, changes us.” Many have said that “we will be the same people in five years except for the people we meet, the books we read, and the places where we travel.” While this may be an oversimplification of what […]
Feedback Attacks the Biggest Prohibitor to Development
“Better an open reprimand than concealed love. The wounds of a friend are trustworthy, but the kisses of an enemy are excessive.” (Proverbs 27:5-6) Many leaders, both in ministry and the marketplace, struggle with providing feedback to team members. Someone displays a deficiency in the execution of his or her role, and leaders fail to […]
The Work Does the Work of Developing
A basketball player can benefit from watching videos and going to clinics, but it is the experience in real games that forms the player. The same is true when it comes to developing young and emerging leaders, both in the marketplace and in ministry. In fact, leaders within the Human Resources discipline claim that 70% […]
Character Over Competence in Deciding on and Developing Leaders
Younger leaders have been passionately challenged with messages like: Don’t peak too soon. Your platform must not be bigger than the person you are becoming. Don’t let your gifting outpace your integrity. The messages are wise, good, and true. We must declare messages about the importance of character to younger leaders AND we must design […]
Succession Planning Is NOT Leadership Development (But It Is One Result)
Leaders sometimes equate succession planning with leadership development and even speak of them interchangeably. They are both important, but they are not the same. Don’t confuse succession with leadership development. Succession is not leadership development, but it is one result of leadership development. If leadership development is the root, wise succession planning is one of […]
How Do You Invest in Your Family AND Work Hard in Your Role?
I am leading the pastors at Mariners Church through the classic book Spiritual Leadership by Oswald Sanders. A few weeks ago, as we discussed his chapter entitled “The Leader and Time,” I shared some of the lessons I have learned about stewarding time and fielded some wise and insightful questions from our pastors. One of […]
Distinguishing Between Overwhelmed and Overworked and Why It Matters
2020 was, according to many and for many, a year of being completely overwhelmed. According to research by Gallup, 2020 marked a year of a twenty-year low in mental health for Americans. While people longed for the calendar to flip, the beginning of 2021 did not offer the relief people hoped for. We are still […]
Where Leadership Development Fails and 3 Ways to Overcome
In his book Leadership Pipeline, Ram Charan articulates the biggest reason leadership development efforts fail in organizations. It is a big claim to make, to say that there is one overarching reason leadership development, as a practice, fails. And here is what Charan claims is the culprit: Leaders are trained for their current roles and […]