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Leadership Pipeline: In one? Should You Have One?

In your educational experience, it’s likely you’ve participated in a group project – specifically, the much debated and mainly loathed kind where you don’t get to choose who’s in your group. Most group participants seem to have one thing in mind: How can I get the best grade while contributing the least amount of effort?

Although I won’t admit that I might’ve been that guy in some of my educational experiences, I’ll admit that I’ve been that guy recently.

Despite my lackluster contribution, I recently participated in a group with LifeWay Leadership that created a new tool with you in mind: leadership pipeline. Leadership pipeline is a practical tool to implement in your church. You may or may not have even known you needed it, but you do.

For each role in your church, both paid and volunteer, do you know the competencies required to do that role well? If you thought someone needed to take on a more substantial leadership position, would you know which new skills they’d need to succeed? What training would be required? What are the non-negotiables for spiritual maturity to serve in any given role?

Along with some pretty fine leaders at LifeWay and some church practitioners, this group determined four roles of leadership within the church: volunteer, leader, ministry director, and senior leadership. They also established six core competencies essential for leadership development: discipleship, vision, strategy, collaboration, people development, and stewardship. The team then created specific learning objectives related to each competency, for each role.

I think the following leadership pipeline resources would be worth your investigation…

Developing Your Leadership Pipeline is a free, short e-booklet that covers the basics of leadership pipeline. Todd Adkins wrote this to-the-point, helpful overview. Download your free copy here.
LifeWay Leadership has launched a free app packed full of content from Christian leaders. Download the app here.
Video content for each learning objective is available on Ministry Grid, an online training tool. Get a free 30-day trial. Likely, you’ll be convinced that the people you serve alongside need to hear this practical training, and you’ll consider a church subscription. Ministry Grid also offers a digital pass version of leadership pipeline videos here. Digital pass is a one-time purchase. If you purchase more than one level, go ahead and get a Ministry Grid subscription.
Several free webinars also explore how to develop a leadership pipeline in your church to develop people. Webinars will be held May 17^th, July 21^st, and September 20^th. Find more details and register for webinars here.
Last, but not least, come visit me in Nashville. Or, come and visit me and a whole bunch of people whose books sit on your shelves (such as like Carey Nieuwhof, Will Mancini, Jenni Catron, Brad Lomenick, Paul Tripp, and more) at the first-ever Pipeline Conference. Day 1 will cover what developing leaders in the church looks like, and Day 2 will provide coaching and consulting to implement leadership pipeline at your church. Early-bird pricing is available through August 1^st. LifeWay Leadership secured a cool venue, and I can say from experience, Nashville in October is a good place to visit. See details and a short promo here. LifeWay is offering a 15% discount to speakers who bring their friends. Use the code “speaker16” when you register.

I write about self-development quite a bit, and the LifeWay Leadership team has provided accessible content to help you be a better leader in your church.

Why I’m Not Busy & You Shouldn’t be Either

I’m not busy.

Mainly because I all but refuse to use that word in description of my status. I may say, “It’s peak loading time right now,” or “It’s a little stressful, but I am managing through it.” That may seem like just semantics, but in my mind, it’s more than that.

Living in a continuous state of busyness reflects poor stewardship of time. It reflects an inability to prioritize. I get that sometimes no matter how well you steward and prioritize your time, you’re still busy. I’m in the same boat. But I’m talking about excessive busyness. I’m talking about feeling busy most days of the week. About the mentality that people like to wear on their sleeve as a status symbol. I don’t think that type of busyness is healthy, and therefore I try to avoid it (and I have so much free time, I’m writing to tell you I think you should avoid it too).

Here are some reasons I’m not busy:

I limit what I put on my calendar. This is a priority exercise. What’s the best use of my time? Some efforts of time are best, whereas others are just good. Determine value and calendar accordingly,
I block time on my calendar to work on specific projects (and I don’t spend it catching up on emails). Whenever I’m least pressed for time during the week (for me, Sunday afternoon), I view my week’s calendar and either do work or schedule time to do that work in the week. I head into Monday knowing I’m prepared for the week or have blocked time to prepare.
I leave margin in my calendar for the unexpected. Scheduling to 80% is a good rule of thumb. This allows for me to respond to the urgent and unexpected. (I’ve blogged before on “Surviving the Unexpected Time Consumers”.) It allows me time to help those I serve alongside. This 20% margin time allows me to “grab five minutes,” or to adequately respond to my boss, or even quickly read those emails with the little annoying red exclamation point ‘!’ on them.
I say “No.” I may not actually speak the word, but I’ve discovered ways to pass on opportunities and tasks that aren’t job critical.
I continuously look for better ways to be efficient. For things I can’t say “no” to, I examine whether I can lessen my time commitment. Sometimes that means changing my philosophical approach to workflow, as explained in the book Essentialism, and sometimes I just adopt a work-hack I’ve seen. (I’ve listed a few of them, in a later paragraph.) If I see someone who stewards their time well, I ask them how they do it. Here’s some resources I’ve read recently, and in part, put into practice:

I don’t compromise my time with God. I could spend a lot of words on this point, but suffice it to say, the time I spend with God in the mornings has a direct correlation to my effectiveness. I could use that time to complete more of my tasks, but I choose to wait to do them knowing I’ve brought them before God.

Best hacks I’m currently using, keeping me from being busy:

I add buffer to most meetings. If I think a meeting will take 45 minutes, I book an hour. The buffer isn’t in case the meeting runs late, it’s actually for me to deal with output from the meeting. If I can do any follow-up in that fifteen minutes, ( send an email based on meeting conversation, I do it then. If nothing else, I can file my notes from the meeting.

So that a new day’s emails and unplanned tasks don’t overwhelm my most productive time (for me, early mornings), I strive to end each day by leaving a project on my desk for the next morning – ideally, an hour’s worth of work that doesn’t require a computer, or at least not email. This allows me to focus quality attention to an important task, when busyness rarely interferes.

It goes without saying, I sometimes violate everything I’ve written (including the last bullet). But typically I follow these, and despite a lot of people and things vying for my time, I’m able to say and believe, “I’m not too busy.”

But what does all this mean for you?

If you’re not doing one of the things numbered above, should you be? Would doing one of these not only relieve you of the semantics of being busy, but actually slow your life to a pace in which you can accomplish the most important work you have?

If you’re a person that likes to say, “I’m busy,” I encourage you to rethink this and evaluate why you’re attributing your value to living a frenetic life.

If you’re one who thrives on living in the “tyranny of the urgent,” I propose to you that it’s not sustainable, and warn that something is going to get missed. That’s the nature of urgency… urgent is rarely done beautifully… it’s messy.

And if you’re like a lot of people (including me) who can sometimes feel overwhelmed by their tasks, I suggest trying one or more from the list above. I hope they can make a difference.

Who Should Own Your Self-Development?

“No one cares more about your personal development than you do.” —Jenni Catron

It is your responsibility to develop yourself. God created you a pretty spectacular person, but in all areas of life, we need to grow. Some of this growth will occur organically. But it’s the other part that I’m talking about—the part that requires a purposeful effort.

Some of you (though not this writer) were born with helpful leadership genetics (tall, attractive, intelligent). However, no matter what was passed along to you genetically, or what your nurturing environment was like growing up, all high functioning leaders must focus on developing throughout their time of leadership.

Ah…self-development. Some loathe the phrase and its requirements, while others thrive on the concept.

Self-development is a significant part of the staff culture where I serve. There’s a high expectation to do it, and in order to help people grow, we provide resources of time and money to help them get it done.

I’ve written previously on our goal templates, our required leadership course, and the cost of “arriving in ministry” (thus, not pursuing improvement). But a recent chapter in Jenni Catron’s latest book, The 4 Dimensions of Extraordinary Leadership, spurred me to think more about who needs to own the responsibility of self-development (or self-leadership).

In my role as executive pastor, many of the things related to self-development are things I pass along to staff. Some are suggested, while others are required. I can offer lunch and learns, seminary courses, trainings, books, and more, but ultimately, it’s the person’s decision to take advantage of them or not. If they don’t purposefully take advantage of them, then there will be nominal self-development.

There’s a responsibility on leaders to offer compelling self-development opportunities and at some level, the supportive margin and resources. But there’s also a responsibility on the learner.

Do you desire to develop who you are?

Catron’s words reminded me, “Your [our] leadership development is your [our] responsibility. Seize it.” She goes on to say, “Leadership development is not a right. It’s an opportunity and a privilege.”

A privilege? What?

Do you see self-development as a privilege? Do you talk about it that way? Or do you see it as another task someone is giving to you? How do those you lead interpret your view of self-development? Do they think you’re checking boxes and completing an obligation, or do they see you wholeheartedly behind it?

Let’s say you’re pro-development. Does your calendar show that you value self-development?

Many of us assume our development will happen organically—that through pure experience, we’ll develop. And that’s a fair assumption, but it’s not complete. A lack of purposeful self-development will equate to a lackluster leader.

We put a lid on our leadership capacity when we choose not to pursue development opportunities. Further, those we lead who are intentionally developing will close the leadership gap. And it won’t be long until we no longer have the leadership IQ to lead them to next level.

How will you get 3% better in leadership this year?

Do you have at least one predetermined goal? Or better yet, a fully fleshed out self-development plan? (If so, I’d love to see it. Email me.)

Take small, but purposeful steps to self-development.

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