Chris Miller, President of Miller Management, is the guest host of this week’s episode. He is joined by his colleague, Randy Mayes, Owner at DRYVE Leadership Group.
The last two episodes dealt with Selecting & Developing leaders and then Empowering & Releasing them. Specifically in the church. Today we will focus on the church, but also touch on the business side of leadership development.
Quality Leadership
A pattern our guest saw was that a leadership deficient was producing small churches that were unhealthy.
Our guest’s favorite definition of leadership that he coined a while back is, “Taking people places they would not or could not go on their own.” So it’s not ultimately about the leader, but about the cause/ the mission/ the people you are bringing out the best in. When a leader does that, great things happen.
Leadership in the church is not just about preaching well. Leadership is about caring, leading, and nurturing people – it’s managing those people that creates the real success. There is no difference between running a non-profit and a for profit industry in our guests eyes. It’s always about training your people. Pastors rarely get fired for what they do on Sunday mornings, our host recollects, it’s the mid-week leading staff, running budget meetings, managing staff, etc. that is their downfall.
Leadership Development Process
Intentionality. Some leaders will happen accidentally, they will rise on their own, but that won’t be many. What happens overtime if we aren’t intentional, our host wants to know. Our guest has observed that frustration is the first thing. Second is a lack of organizational health.
But, when there is a shared direction group of people – they are unstoppable. Think of the tower of babel in Genesis 11; when they were all speaking the same language they were “unstoppable.” If we can truly connect around a shared purpose – advancing the gospel – we can be unstoppable.
Effective Ways to Grow Leaders
Intentionally looking to bring people forward and bring out the best of them. Romans 12 – if your gift is leading, lead! As a leader, we should be finding, developing those unique gifts, and bringing them along to do ministry together.
“There is no success in leadership without a successor.”
– “What’s in Your Hand: Leadership Lessons from the Life of Moses,” by Dr. Eddie Estep.
Need the people, yes, but we also need the structural car. But for so many non-profits, there is no structure or system in place for developing new leaders, and it’s frustrating, because they can’t develop new leaders. They can’t get to that destination.
Empower other leaders to grow
Good leaders come alongside their people. Jesus came right alongside his 12 disciples, walking among them. We as leaders need to train, model, impart knowledge, and then let them make it their own. Let them drive the car. But again, don’t release without continuous training, developing, and providing feedback.
Find the people
Find someone to walk along-side you, hang out with them. All organizations should be run for mission, cause, or purpose. Christian entities should be the model of how the business-world area should work. Unfortunately that’s not the case in every church, but let’s work on that.
Coaching Relationship
Training is more specific on how to do a certain task. Coaching is ongoing, but provides assistance, but not to their own agenda. People are smart and capable, they just might need some coaching, some clarity. A session might include finding an issue they are unclear in, and then help them address that topic, and follow up with how it is going.
Find Randy and his team at DLG.coach, where their goal is to walk alongside leaders and their people to develop a shared purpose to build a collaborative organization that gets results.
Shared purpose with your employees, constituents, etc. Not just we need an employee, and they need a job. But the reason the ministry started in the beginning – they are totally bought into the vision. And create a space for them to grow.
Once they lean in, they will weigh in, then they will buy in. And that causes people to stay in.
Closing Thoughts
To develop leaders, we have to be intentional. That includes who you are going to pass the baton onto next. Ultimately, the goal is advancing the Kingdom of God; so, the more leaders we have, the more ministry we can do. “All great leaders must eventually be replaced.” – “What’s in Your Hand: Leadership Lessons from the Life of Moses,” by Dr. Eddie Estep.
Coming Up
Next week we will conclude our series on Leadership Development.
Join the conversation, see behind the scenes, and learn more on our Instagram and Twitter.
Special thanks to our guest, Randy Mayes, and our masters of all things Podcasting, Chris and Lauren Miller, for this third episode in our Leadership Development series.