Developing leaders within your church and organization is essential to growth. This means being secure enough to let go of control and delegate responsibilities to others. You can’t do everything, and you can’t expect people in your church to have all the necessary skills, experiences, and education to do a great job. This is why it’s incredibly important to intentionally develop leaders.
Very rarely do leaders show up fully developed and polished. They may have some raw talent or untapped potential, but they most certainly need help to grow into that potential. Developing leaders does not happen accidentally. This has to be done intentionally. Here are 6 Ways to Develop Leaders Within Your Ministry.
1. Be Inclusive
If you want to develop leaders, you need to bring them in close enough so that they can see leadership modeled for them. Spend time with your leaders. Let them get around you and see you in action. This might mean inviting them to an important meeting to be a fly on the wall and see how you make decisions or handle challenging scenarios.
You can also include them on certain strategies and decisions. Let them know ahead of time that you may not go with their ideas but that you value what they have to say. Giving your potential leaders a voice into important things helps them to think at a higher level and in new ways. Sometimes leaders need to be pulled out of their everyday responsibilities and have their thinking elevated in order to see the big picture.
Another way to develop leaders is to include them in your day-to-day life. Invite them into your home to have dinner with your family. Invite them to workout with you in the gym. Bring them to a sporting event. Let them see you in multiple different contexts so that they can see that you’re a normal person and that who you are as a leader goes beyond your title.
Leadership is about being the same leader in every area of life, and your mentees need to see that modeled. If they don’t, they may miss out on an opportunity to grow and develop. Include them in your life and on important matters so that they can develop into better leaders.
2. Look for the Untapped Potential
This may be the most challenging part of leadership development and will require you to pay extra attention to your team members. Everyone has untapped potential. Your team members may have underdeveloped skills or had a lack of opportunities. As a leader, you need to look beyond how your staff appears in front of you to see who they can develop into.
Pay attention to what they are interested in, the books they read, the shows they watch, their background and experiences, and the people they surround themselves with. Ask them a lot of questions of what they’ve accomplished and different experiences they’ve had.
In the midst of all those moments there may be special skills, experiences, or ways of thinking that could benefit you and your ministry. Seeing the potential doesn’t mean anything unless you call it out of them. If you see something, you need to say something and then provide action steps to fulfill that potential. This allows that team member to grow and develop into a better leader.
3. Give Them Vision
As mentioned above, you can’t just see potential and do nothing about it. You have to speak the potential into existence. This can only happen by giving your team members vision for their life.
You probably see something in them that they don’t. You may see a future for them that they’ve
never considered before. Tell them what you see. Talk about higher level leadership positions you can see them fulfill down the road or the type of influence you can see them grow into.
By giving your team vision for their life, you are giving your team members something to aim for. Having a target will keep them motivated to continue to learn, grow, and improve. They’ll start to think in terms of where they can be instead of where they are and they will begin to take the necessary steps to develop into that type of leader.
Vision inspires people towards action. Tell them that you believe in them and what they can accomplish.
4. Make Room For Opportunities
If you are going to call out untapped potential in your team, then you better make sure to also create opportunities to develop that potential. Give them real responsibilities that will challenge them to grow.
You can start small by giving them projects that have little impact on the big picture. If they do well with that, then give them a bigger project that will have greater impact. One of the worst thing you can do in developing leaders is to give them too much responsibility and influence too fast. If they fail and fall with a big project or role, this may hurt their confidence in a way that will cause them to shut down.
On the other hand, if they are successful with a big project, this may create a sense of pride and arrogance and when that happens they won’t want to listen to you or anyone. It’s important to pace yourself when giving opportunities to leaders you’re developing. There’s a balancing act between giving more responsibilities that will challenge and stretch them to grow, and giving them too much that may cause them to break. This will require wisdom and security on your part.
Be ok with cleaning up messes. The payoff is worth the risk.
5. Invest in Their Strengths and Weaknesses
Every leader has a set of strengths and weaknesses. In order to help your leaders develop, you first need to know what those strengths and weaknesses are. You can find this out by asking them yourself and by asking their family and friends (spouses are a great resource for this). You can also have them take certain personality tests like Myers Briggs, Strengthsfinder, or Enneagram, to name a few.
Once you discover their competencies and incompetencies, give them the coaching and resources needed to develop them. If they struggle with organizational skills, you could sign them up for a one day course on how to be organized. If they’re good with systems development, send them to a church or ministry that has great systems to get ideas and to learn from.
Whatever the strength or weakness may be, make sure you’re aware of those things and give them the tools to grow and thrive in those areas. This will be costly, both from a financial and time standpoint, but this lets your leaders know that you really do believe in them.
6. Create a Feedback Loop
When developing leaders, your protégés need to know often what they are getting right and where they can improve. Create a clear and consistent feedback loop with your leaders. Write down what they are getting right, where they can improve, and action steps on how to get better.
Be consistent with your feedback. Your team should know where they stand with you, what you
expect of them, what they are getting right, and what they can do better. In everything you share, do so with a lot of care and grace.
You also need to give them room to share their thoughts and ideas on what they feel like is going well and what they think they could do better. Self-awareness is key to becoming a good leader. Help them to develop this skill by letting them share out loud what they can do better.
In order to develop leaders, you need to make yourself available to them. Be present in their work, ministry, and life. By being present in their life, you can get close enough to really see what they become and where they can go.
One of the most rewarding parts of leadership is helping others fulfill your potential. You are probably where you are because someone saw your potential and spent time developing your leadership abilities. Return the favor and watch others grow and thrive under your leadership.
