6 Deal-Breakers of Leadership Development

How do you identify, recruit and develop new leaders in your organization?  There are lots of ideas on this one.  Some would say that leaders are born.  That they are what they are and you really can't develop an ordinary person into a leader.  Others would say that you can take someone with the raw DNA of a leader and then help them develop their capabilities...but first you've got to be able to identify them; pick them out of a crowd.

What's your take?  I really think that there are some who are natural leaders.  They're born that way.  I also believe that there are some who are born with an undeveloped leadership potential.  They've got the raw DNA for it, but really need someone to recognize it and then help them develop it.

 

In an earlier post on getting the right people in the right seats we talked about the understanding that all of our people have some capacity but there are some who have greater capacity.   Tony Morgan has a great post today about the 6 Dealbreakers of Leadership Development (Wow...that may be the very first time I've improved on one of Tony's blog titles!).  Take a look at the six:

• Leaders can't be recruited from the platform. We have to challenge them one-on-one.
• Leaders won't be fulfilled performing tasks. We need to give them responsibility.
• Leaders don't follow doers. We need to make sure they're connected to another strong leader.
• Leaders don't want to be micromanaged. We have to eliminate the tendency to control the process and, instead, hold people accountable for the outcomes.
• Leaders won't commit to ambiguity. We need to offer a clear vision. (And, it better be big.)
• Leaders don't just show up. We have to be intentional about leadership development.

What he's talking about is an important insight into how leadership development happens in a rapidly growing environment.  You can read his whole post right here.  While you're over there you should tell Tony that my title for his post is better ;)

By the way, Todd Rhodes wrote today about a survey that revealed the characteristics most associated with unsuccessful pastors and the number one characteristic was the inability to identify, recruit, train, and deploy workers and leaders (95%).  Interesting...

Comments

[deneenwhite]

Developing leaders is critical for any organization. Our world is starving for leadership. There are people all around who have the gift...it must merely be cultivated.

[Mark Howell]

And cultivating takes time and energy! But the payoff is SO big! Thanks for jumping into the conversation!

mark