One of the most important systems that any church can put in place is your Leadership Development System. A Leadership Development System helps churches:
- Grow in depth and bredth. There is a direct correlation between leadership and church growth.
- Handle difficult situations. Higher caliber leaders thrive on pressure.
- Reproduce itself. Leaders develop leaders.
- Find creative solutions to everyday problems. Leaders leave things better than they found.
- Increase its capacity. Leaders push forward.
The truth is, most pastors are desperately needing leadership training. Bible Colleges help mature Christians but few develop develop leaders of leaders. Disciples require discipleship. Churches require leadership.
Your leadership development system can be as simple or complex as you want to make it. Here are some ways to increase your staff’s leadership ceiling.
1. Set aside four leadership development days a year. Invite outside experts to help train your staff or attend local workshops / conferences. Some great ones to consider are ones by local management professionals, franklin covey, life languages, etc.
2. Develop a leadership credit system that requires staff to take a certain amount of courses, seminars, or coaching each year. In some industries these would be termed “continuing education” credits.
3. Develop a scorecard model that requires all staff to continually go through coaching with a ministry leader of higher capacity. If you need help with this there are several consultants who can help you build this into your organization.
4. Develop a budget line on personal development. Do not reserve that budget to the Sr. Leader. Enough said.
5. Go through leadership books with your staff during staff meeting. Create required reading with submitted assignments. Books by John Maxwell and Patrick Lencioni are always winners.