Portland Church Planting: Tips for Creating a Leadership Culture

Friday, January 25, 2013

Tips for Creating a Leadership Culture

One of the important lessons I learned early on in ministry was leadership development. In a ministry where you are trying to mobilize and send leaders away (to start other ministries, plant other churches, pastor, serve as missionaries, etc.), you ALWAYS have to be about creating a leadership pipeline. Here is how one company created a Leadership University:

1. Assign a point person. Burkhart attributes success to assigning someone as a “head of talent.”
2. Think of your talent like a baseball team. In baseball each team has dozens of players working to improve in the minor leagues. Make sure you always have a “class” of people in line to be leaders, and give them the tools to get there.
3. Adopt a lengthy “trial period” where leadership candidates perform some functions of the job so you can assure it’s a good fit.
4. Have the employee perform all of the jobs they will be overseeing. H.Bloom will put candidates in the design studio, in the sales office, and in other departments to assure they grasp the full operation.
5. Everyone may not be able to commit an in-house university, but every one at your company has knowledge to share. Burkhart suggested scheduling occasional brownbag lunches where stand-out team members share knowledge and hone their leadership skills.
6. Combine operational and classroom training. H.Bloom’s in-house program has classes on topics like “how to hire” and “how to give feedback” complete with teachers and tests.