Five Practices of Growing Leaders
James Kouzes and Barry Posner are The Man. Yes, it’s two guys, but they are still The Man.
By Lori Seed
Their newest book, Learning Leadership, is just the tool we need to teach the leaders in our churches to lead better.
Heck, it’s what we need to become better leaders.
Kouzes and Posner give five fundamentals and a grab bag full of principles and ideas that riff on the 5 Practices of Exemplary Leadership in their other books.
Let’s talk about how you can use their book to do easy, effective leadership development in your church.
o Learn the 5 practices of growing leaders.
o Get a look inside the book.
o Discover practical steps for using the book as a tool to equip your leaders.
Note: This is a leadership book, so it’s up to us to learn leadership in the context of a biblical worldview and Jesus’ leading.
Here are five practices of growing leaders:
1. Believe that you can be a better leader. Your leadership ability isn’t fixed. Everyone leads, we just don’t do it often enough, or intentionally enough, to become better leaders. Try this daily affirmation: “I can become a better leader than I am today.” Grab a dry erase marker and write it on your bathroom mirror to remind you each morning.
It’s circular reasoning of the best kind: if you don’t believe you can become a better leader, you won’t work hard enough to actually become a better leader. On the flip side, when you do believe you can become a better leader, you will keep trying, and you will learn how to lead better.
Wondering what they mean by working at it?
2. The best learners are the best leaders. “The Men” tell us that learning is the master skill. If you push yourself to learn something new about leadership every day, you will grow in your leadership ability.
Kouzes and Posner: “The most meaningful and important way you can take charge of your learning and become your best self is to make learning to be a better leader a daily habit.”
3. Leadership takes practice. Here’s where these guys differ from some other leadership experts. They believe that leadership is a set of behaviors and actions that everyone can learn. The more you practice these skills, the better you become.
So, what skills would you like to improve?
Do this: write down the leadership skill or behavior you’d like to improve. Then develop a simple plan for how to practice that skill or behavior. Take into account your talents, strengths, and weaknesses; and practice deliberately.
Learning to lead takes time and directed practice, the same as learning a musical instrument or a new sport.
4. Start a leadership journal. Spend 15 minutes at the end of every day reflecting on your day as a leader. Prayerfully, ask yourself questions about what you planned to do, what you actually did, what you said, what went well, what didn’t go well, and how you would do things differently.
Pray about these things, struggle before the Lord like Jacob, and ask Him how He wants you to lead tomorrow.
5. Find a leadership community. It’s common sense, and the studies prove, that organizations with a leadership culture raise up better leaders. And more leaders.
But how can you get a leadership culture going in your church?
Kouzes and Posner say there are four characteristics of organizations that are good at developing leaders. Those characteristics are:
o Trust
o Opportunities for learning
o Support for risk and failure
o Models of exemplary leadership.
Not to worry if your organization isn’t marked by these characteristics yet. You can begin to create a culture of leadership development by:
o Finding and connecting with a few people you trust, for leadership support and feedback
o Organizing opportunities for learning
o Taking small risks and connecting with others who value risk, failure and trying again.
o And finally, by going to the best leaders you know and asking them to share their learnings, their advice, and their journey to their leadership competencies
Don’t wait for someone else to lead. You. Lead.
Be the learning leader who catalyzes a culture of leadership development in your church.
Lori Seed, along with her husband, Hal, are the founders of New Song Community Church in Oceanside, California.
(Source: ministrytodaymag.com)
