Is What You're Doing Really Leadership Development?

Not everything we call leadership development is truly leadership development.One of your staff members has a vacancy on his team, he looks around to find a new leader to fill the empty spot.  As he scrolls his finger over the names on the church roster he thinks to himself, "He's not ready, she's not ready, he's not ready…oh, there's someone that's ready." So he recruits them, places them and the gap is filled.Unfortunately, that's how many people are doing "leadership development" today.  But that's not leadership development; that's leadership placement.  Big difference.

• Leadership development is looking for willingness not just readiness
• Leadership development is walking along side someone for an extended period of time helping them learn the skills of leading
• Leadership development is seeing potential in someone and developing that potential to its fullest capacity
• Leadership development is giving them tasks of leadership before giving them the title of leader.
• Leadership development is taking time to build their confidence and competence, not just handing them a job description and "empowering them".
• Leadership development means I’ve made the relational investment that goes way beyond recruiting and follows through the development process.

Let's make a commitment to doing more leadership development and a lot less leadership placement in 2015.