By necessity, the development of leaders should be an ongoing non-stop process. A church will grow only to the level for which it has effective leaders. Without them the church won’t grow, and if the church wants to keep growing more of them will be needed. While some prospects are naturally gifted with high level quick deployment capacity, most will have potential and raw ability that will need to be honed and developed over time. Therefore, a church must commit intentionally to develop leaders at all levels and in all ministry areas, hence this guide sheet’s title:  “Leadership Pipelines.”  Here are some simple guidelines.

DISCOVER PROSPECTS AND POSSIBILITIES.

• Be on the constant lookout for anyone with potential no matter how young and raw they appear to be. Consider Jesus’ own disciples. Enough said.

• Look for a heart to serve rather than a heart for the stage. Humility is central to sustained success.

• See how well they follow orders. People cannot become great leaders unless they first become great followers.

• See how well they follow others not just top level leaders. Humble mutual submission at every level is essential to teamwork, and leaders build teams.

• See how well others follow them. Those with leadership potential exude an influence that people respond to and want to be around.

• See if they are willing to work through others without feeling bad or guilty. More than being doers leaders activate others and are not afraid to take the risk and make the ask.

• They may not have all or most of the above traits of course, but putting them into the pipeline will trigger the development of those qualities. As the saying goes: Leaders are made, not born.

DEVELOP THEM USING A PROCESS.

Made popular by leadership champion and author Dr. John Maxwell, the apprentice model can work well. It mirrors the rabbinical approach modeled by Jesus in his training of the 12. The following is an adaptation of it:

• I do you watch. 

• We do together. 

• You do and I Coach. 

• You do with someone else.

• You do through teams of others. 

The important component here is real time debriefing and on time coaching. In the gospels we see Jesus constantly doing this with his disciples. We can envision the Apostle Paul doing the very same in the Epistles. Experience is maximized only when time is taken to evaluate it.

DEPLOY THEM INTO THE FIELD OF ACTION.

• Provide genuine challenge and opportunity.

• First, assign some responsibility with shared authority.

• Eventually, empower them with full responsibility and full authority.

• Have them carry real responsibility with real weight. Don't limit the load to the level of just getting tasks done.

DEBRIEF CONSISTENTLY.

• Process experiences to glean the lessons.

• Do more asking than telling, and do more framing than lecturing. People own best what they verbalize and people best actualize what they verbalize. As a trainer, be a summarizer, clarifer, and perspective giver.

• Follow up with coaching and mentoring conversations to ensure application of the lessons learned. Leaders gladly receive the oversight of loving accountability.

• Use both one to one and small group settings to vary and broaden the inputs. Developing leaders need both personal time to go deeper, and group time to go wider.

• Invite the voices of trusted others to add a fresh voice to the coaching conversations.