People tend to be down on what they aren’t up on. Informed members are effective members, whereas uninformed members, regardless of talent, can’t do much.
Archives For Leadership
The vision of any church always fades with time unless it is reinforced.
Coaching is an essential element to groom potential leaders. Even if potential leaders do new projects and actively pursue professional growth, they still need a little bit of coaching every month from their direct supervisor. What is coaching? According to Clinton and Stanley, “The Coach’s central thrust is to provide motivation and impart skills and application to meet a task or challenge.” 1 Let’s look at how to do that.
Photo Credit: Robert Sullivan
THIRTY MINUTES A MONTH
Notes:
- Paul Stanley and J. Robert Clinton, Connecting: The Mentoring Relationships You Need to Succeed in Life
(Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1992), 73. ↩
Professional growth is a requirement for potential leaders. While people might have potential for leadership, active professional growth removes the gap between potential leaders’ current skills and the skills they need to lead.
Photo Credit: Robert Sullivan
Professional growth must be customized to the learning of the individual and it must occur regularly. Individuals learn in many ways; therefore, a one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate for professional growth plans. An organization should require professional growth of potential leaders
THE DIFFERENT TRAINING TYPES
The Four Training Types
In his book, Developing the Leaders Around You
Providing potential leaders
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If you are a leader that needs to develop potential leaders, here’s how you can develop those potential leaders.
LEADERS DELEGATE PROJECTS AND TASKS
Leaders must be intentional about what they delegate. Three criteria are important to follow when leaders look for projects to delegate to potential leaders. Continue Reading…
You know you must train your potential leaders but you have no money to make it happen. What do you do? My advice: practice the 70-20-10 strategy to train your potential leaders.
Photo Credit: Robert Sullivan
The 70-20-10 strategy was created by the Center for Creative Leadership based on thirty years of Lessons of Experience research. 1
The 70-20-10 rule for leader development follows this breakdown:
- 70 percent challenging assignments,
- 20 percent developmental relationships, and
- 10 percent coursework and training. 2
In nonprofit organizations, these three components reinforce each other and add up to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. 3 Before examining the 70-20-10 strategy closer, it is important to describe what it is not.
Robin Hoyle mentions he has seen the 70-20-10 approach misrepresented in these statements: 90 percent of learning is done on the job, it is how people naturally learn, the numbers do not matter, the 20 percent is done most effectively through Twitter and LinkedIn, and since most learning is done on the job there is no need for training courses. 4 However, let’s look at the correct understanding of the 70-20-10 principle.
THE 70-20-10 STRATEGY FOR LEADER DEVELOPMENT
70 Percent Challenging Assignments
Notes:
- Ron Rabin, Blended Learning for Leadership: The CCL Approach (Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership, 2014). The 70-20-10 principle is also described by Kramer and Nayak, Nonprofit Leadership Development, 82-101; Kramer, “Solving the Time and Money Puzzle”; and Hoyle, Informal Learning in Organizations, 168-177. ↩
- Rabin, Blended Learning for Leadership, 2. ↩
- Kramer and Nayak, Nonprofit Leadership Development, 83. ↩
- Hoyle, Informal Learning in Organizations, 169. ↩
In organizations, people will always come and go. Therefore, to remain viable, an organization must develop a pipeline of potential leaders.
John Maxwell describes the importance of looking for potential leaders in his book, Developing the Leaders Around You
Photo Credit: Robert Sullivan
To develop this pipeline, one must identify potential leaders with both prerequisite qualities and prerequisite skills.
PREREQUISITE QUALITIES
Some people are happy with their current job responsibilities and do not want to stretch into new roles. This means that some people will not want to be developed into leaders. Maxwell’s summary is relevant:
“Nurture all of your people, equip many. But develop only a few—the few who are ready and willing.” 2
Below are descriptions of the prerequisite qualities for potential leaders that should not just be nurtured or equipped, but also developed.
Good Character
To develop leaders, there must be buy-in from all levels of the organization. From the board of directors or elders down to the administrative support staff, everyone needs to believe in the importance of developing leaders. Besides support from people, there needs to be support from the systems and culture of the organization.
Photo Credit: Robert Sullivan
GET SUPPORT FROM PEOPLE
Board of Directors and Elders
To develop leaders in nonprofit organizations, Tom Adams says, “Top leadership commitment is the place to start.” 1 Within nonprofit organizations, top leadership is the board of directors. The board of a nonprofit holds more authority than any staff position in a nonprofit organization because the board is the governing arm that makes decisions about the CEO, key staff, budgets, and mission. Continue Reading…
Notes:
- Tom Adams, The Nonprofit Leadership Transition and Development Guide
(San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2010), 230. ↩
Nonprofit organizations and churches are often understaffed and underfunded, resulting in over-worked mid-level managers. Most nonprofit managers and church pastors face the challenge of running a program, managing staff, providing monthly board reports, helping with various fundraising responsibilities, and last but not least, developing leaders within their staff. Sadly, all of the challenges nonprofit leaders face often prevent leadership development
Photo Credit: Robert Sullivan
While developing leaders can yield the highest outcomes for employee productivity and improvement in the community, this area often gets put aside amongst other pressures because it does not provide immediate results. Investing in leadership development, whether financially or timely, “can feel like a luxury compared with investing in needs at the heart of a nonprofit charitable purpose, but failure to invest in leadership, as well as services, puts the entire mission at risk.” 1 Investments in leadership development for nonprofit and church staff must be made.
MY STORY
Notes:
- Kirk Kramer and Preeta Nayak, “A 5-Point Plan for Grooming Future Leaders,” Chronicle of Philanthropy 24, no. 14, June 28, 2012. Accessed May 14, 2015. ↩
In all my years of counseling, I can tell you something I’ve never heard. I’ve never talked to an adult who reported that while he was growing up his father worked all the time, but God filled in the gaps, and there was no residual relational or emotional damage. I’ve never talked to a mom who reported that her husband neglected his family for the sake of his career, but fortunately, God filled the void, and everything was fine.