LeadingIdeas by Alan Nelson: What’s Your LDP?
- Posted by: Todd
- Posted on: Sun, January 04, 2009
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- (2) comments so far
Not long ago, I talked to Henry Cloud, who runs a great leadership development intensive called Ultimate Leadership. Henry and John Townsend work with church and Christian business leaders who for the most part either want to get to the next level of leadership, feel stuck or are recovering from a crash and burn scenario. They said that one of the most overlooked issues, when an organization gets stuck, is what the leader needs to do to change. In other words, we’re very prone to look at the organization and others, instead of staring in the mirror and asking, “How am I holding back my church? What must I change in who I am, what I do, or how I’m thinking, to take this ministry to the next level?”
That’s what a LDP is designed to do, to keep leaders’ axes sharp. Most of us take a haphazard approach to leadership development, reading a book recommended by a friend, registering for a conference whose speaker line up catches our attention, or sneaking in a workshop here or there. These are good, but it’s akin to an Olympic athlete trying to train by exercising when he feels like it.
We get a hint of an LDP in Exodus 18, Acts 6, and Jesus’ approach to pastoring (investing heavily in the 12 vs. the masses), but unfortunately, little is actually written on the topic specifically. In spite of large staffing budgets, few mega-churches I’ve seen have any type of formal LDP. When you talk to staff members off the record, most yearn for leadership training from the senior pastor and others. But size of ministry makes little difference in terms of the importance of a LDP. Whether your staff and ministry leaders are paid professionals or gifted laity, one job of the senior pastor is to make sure a LDP exists.
Here are 3 things to consider in establishing a LDP:
1. Create a written annual plan and budget.
Plan to make space in the annual church calendar for leadership retreats, monthly training meetings, and weekly leader lessons, and put money behind it. We preach, your treasure is where your heart is. The same is true in ministry budgets. We fund what we value, bottom line. My friend, Jerry Culbreth, is a pastor in Cincinatti, OH. Jerry’s largest budget line item is training. He flew a dozen people to a week-long equipping training in Colorado, even though his church isn’t a mega-church (yet). If our LDP is written and published, the accountability means we’re far more likely to activate it.
2. Consider who should receive development.
Unpaid ministry leaders, elder board members, paid staff, and potential leaders should all be placed on a list of people who receive leadership training. Companies such as GE never need to hire leaders from the outside, because they’ve taken leadership development so seriously (read Leadership Engine). You may have different events and resources for these groups, but be sure you consider each of these to receive training on how to build teams, solve problems, establish vision, and handle conflict, all pertinent leadership themes.
3. Establish an array of development methods.
Don’t just resort to reading a book or attending a conference. Each person is different. Some may benefit from one of any number of assessments. Others may need executive coaching. Why not bring in an outside expert who can equip your entire team for the same price of sending one or two to a conference? My friend, Mark Dill, pastoring in Muncie, IN, took his personal conference budget and hired a ministry trainer to come to his church and train nearly 20 of his leaders, instead of sending 1 person (him) to a conference. One of the most wasted money items in the church is when you attend a conference by yourself. Don’t do it. Few things change in churches where individuals run off to conferences alone. Change requires synergy.
Hey, a new year is upon us. You can get sucked into the vortex of status quo, spinning ministry plates, or you can carve out some time to create an annual Leadership Development Plan (LDP). This proactive priority will result in huge dividends at the end of 2009, I guarantee.
Alan E. Nelson, Ed.D. is a leadership development specialist and author of a fourteen books for pastors and church leaders. To find out more about him go to www.alanenelson.com or his work in raising future leaders at www.kidlead.com. The Nelsons live near Monterey, CA.
Last time in LeadingIdeas (MMI), we talked about the importance of a PDP, People Development Plan. The goal of a PDP is to develop a clear, written plan of how your church seeks to develop people who come to it, with measurable results. You can be one of the few churches in the country to have one, since most of us wing it when it comes to growing people.
Even rarer than a PDP is an LDP, Leader Development Plan. My bet is that if you had a good LDP, the PDP would take care of itself. My new ministry impetus is to help congregations, large or small, create LDPs. When you’re able to focus on people with God-given gifts of influence, you will naturally take care of everything else...
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Pat on Tue, January 06, 2009
Good advice and something that I have been stressing to our leadership that we need to work on developing leaders in our church. Unfortunately, we’re in the midst of some serious budget cuts. I feel personally challenged to find a resource from which I could lead our leaders. Any ideas?
air yeezy shoes on Wed, July 08, 2009
HOHO..
He is really somebody
—My uncle has 1000 men under him.
—He is really somebody. What does he do?
—A maintenance man in a cemetery.
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