Leadership Development

Leadership Development

We are all leaders, if only in our own homes. Leadership comes natural to some people but great leadership comes from applied knowledge, understanding and wisdom. There is no magic formula to becoming a great leader, it is hard work and requires the application of a variety of disciplines. I have attempted to provide some foundational principles here which I have gleaned from the Bible, I trust these principles and concepts will be of value in development of your leadership style.

A knowledgeable leader learns his or her trade through training, reading and watching other leaders. Gaining knowledge about becoming a leader is simple. Take a course in leadership, read a few books, (John Maxwell has some great books on leadership), and find a leader who would be willing to mentor you.

A leader of understanding learns leadership by practicing it, through mentoring and application of concepts and principles learned through study. Practice what you learn, take the knowledge you are receiving and apply it, let it be manifested in your life, only then you will begin to see what you have learned start to pay off. Be patient, persistence and diligence are two keys in growing in your understanding of what a leader is and how to become one. If you are not leading other than in your home, find opportunities to get involved in leadership in your Church, community, in your child's school or take on a project leader role at work.

A wise leader learns to focus passion on opportunity; personality on promotion; talents and skills on their trade; and utilizes their behavioral traits to manage their weaknesses. Wisdom in leadership is elusive in our culture. Great leadership is measured by the wisdom of the leader. Wisdom is about knowing how to apply both your own skills and the skills of those you are leading, however it is always in the context of serving the good of others. Leadership is not self serving but self sacrificing.

Leadership is about making everyone on your team your personal development project, finding ways to make them be everything God made them to be. It is about teaching people how to focus their passions on opportunity where the real payoff is. If left to chance most of the passion in leaders will be focused on the problem areas of an enterprise instead of where it belongs, focused on opportunities. Great leaders position the right personalities to promote the organizational agenda, they put the right people together with the task they are best suited to be successful at.

Wise leaders learn how to apply their skills and talents on tasks only they can do, they find ways of getting other important things done by people who have the right skill sets to accomplish the organizations goals. We all have different behavioral traits that govern our leadership style. You can learn these by taking the DISC test. A wise leader will utilize these traits to manage their weaknesses. All of us have blind spots in our lives, it takes wisdom to know what they are and to manage them through delegation of tasks we are not equipped to handle.