Leadership

How To Spot Potential Leaders In Your Church

By jgiroux ⋅ October 24, 2008 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

As society cries for more and better leaders, organizational spotlights scan the audience for could-bes who might be lost in the crowd. Identifying, recruiting, and elevating individuals with leadership skills and gifts must become a priority if we’re to cope with constant changes and maximize our churches effectiveness. Jesus did a good job of searching the throngs for a few people who had the potential to become world-class leaders. Committed, positive, active, and outspoken people may or may not be leaders. These traits aren’t necessarily those that inspire groups to pursue change. Another person who may look like a leader but may not be one is the supertalent, the person who performs brilliantly alone but is clueless when it comes to team play and social influencing. Here are some guidelines to help you identify leaders, regardless of their personality idiosyncrasies…

1) Who has a history of leading? Dig around just a bit, and you’ll find a basketball-team captain, the president of a school club, or even the recommendation of a teacher who says, “She was a class leader. For good or for bad, people followed her.” Leadership traits tend to pop up early in life.

2) Who’s listening? Leaders don’t always talk a lot, but when they do talk, people listen. Watch people as they interact. They’re not all heard equally. Heads turn, eyes follow, and questions are aimed at people who are perceived as leaders, whether or not they’re in formal positions of authority. Watch interaction in a group, and see who emerges as a leader.

3) Who’s missing? People come and go from social circles, but when leaders are missing, people notice. Sad to say, the absence of most people isn’t significantly noticed. But when a person with leadership gifts doesn’t show up, there’s a noticeable void.

4) Who’s in charge? Leaders get pretty frustrated when faced with a lack of leadership, an abandonment of service, and chaos in general. Quite often you’ll hear leaders mutter to themselves or ask others, “Who’s in charge?” The idea that someone should be leading is obvious to most leaders. They have an innate desire to help lead when confronted with a leadership void, whether or not they’ve been given an official mandate to lead.

5) Who’s leading now? Over time, most leaders tend to seek out or be elevated to leadership roles. People who lead in one organization often lead in other settings and situations.

How to Spot Potential Leaders in Your Church
If we’re going to increase leadership resources within our churches and develop people who have the ability to influence others, we must constantly be on the lookout for those who have the potential to lead.

Use the following discussion and activities with your staff to help sharpen everyone’s ability to identify hidden leaders.

Discussion
1) How did you come to your place of influence?
2) How do we go about recruiting leaders in our church?
3) What are our leader pools? In what areas can we detect those with leadership potential?
4) What are the challenges of finding new leaders?
5) How can we do a better job of developing those with leadership potential?

Activity 1
Ask participants to list 10 people within your church who they believe have leadership potential but who are not now in a leadership role. Discuss what your current leaders can do to intentionally develop these people.

Activity 2
Before this activity, write the following descriptions on slips of paper, one description on each slip. Prepare as many sets of instructions as you have groups of six to 12 participants.

1) You’re the leader. Your task is to get everyone to stand up, change seats, and sit down again.
2) You’re a resister. You work against the goal of the perceived leader.
3) You’re an underminer. Your goal is to get people to question the perceived leader.
4) You’re a questioner. You ask the perceived leader why you should participate.
5) You’re a helper. You help the perceived leader get the others to follow.
6) You’re a follower. Follow the person you believe to be the leader.
7) You’re a follower. Follow the person you believe to be the leader.
8) You’re a follower. Follow the person you believe to be the leader.
9) You’re a follower. Follow the person you believe to be the leader.
10) You’re a follower. Follow the person you believe to be the leader.
11) You’re a follower. Follow the person you believe to be the leader.
12) You’re a follower. Follow the person you believe to be the leader.

Ask participants to form groups of six to 12, and ask each group to move to a separate area of the room and sit down. Give each person a scrap of paper with a description on it. After everyone has a description, tell participants to begin. (Adjust the number of followers according to the size of your group.)

After one or two minutes, bring everyone together to discuss these questions:

1) What was your role?
2) How did you know who the leader was?
3) How well did your group accomplish the goal?
4) How does this activity parallel real life?

Alan Nelson is the executive editor of Rev! Magazine (www.rev.org), the author of a dozen books, and has been a pastor for 20 years. You can reach him at anelson@group.com. You can subscribe to the Rev! Weekly Leadership Update here.