Does leadership development seem like a mystery? You want more leaders, in fact you want to be a better leader yourself! You’ve done the book reading and podcast listening thing. You’ve watched a few YouTube videos too. But you feel like you are walking in circles. Nothing really changes. For others they have even paid for training programs and other high priced help and you’ve not gotten very far either. This whole thing is a mystery. Maybe it really is true that people are in fact born leaders and either you have it or you don’t.
But before you abandon the whole idea of leadership development let’s trace a little history on how people grow and change in the first place.
70-20-10 Rule
Back in the 1980’s McCall, Lombardo and Eichinger with the Center for Creative Leadership were researching the key developmental experiences of successful managers. They concluded that 70% of learning and development were through hands on experiences. This enabled people to discover job-related skills, make decisions and address challenges. They learned from their mistakes along the way and through immediate performance feedback. The 20% was through a variety of activities such as social learning, coaching, mentoring and collaborative learning where they also experienced encouragement and more feedback. Then the final 10% came from traditional instruction and educational pursuits. Read that again. Only 10%.
What has changed?
Things have certainly changed since the 1980’s with the internet and virtual interaction and learning. So while the original 70-20-10 ratio of on the job, social and formal approaches was developed for managers, newer studies acknowledge that it really depends. The industry, organization and learner including the quality of training all play a part in the outcomes.
So what is the take away?
The bottom line is that each element is important and should be incorporated intentionally with on the job training and immediate feedback and debriefing taking a key place in the process. We do some of that in the church with pastoral ministry and Christian education. There’s field work and vicarage for pastors during their seminary years. Specific Ministry Pastors are assigned a local “mentor” as well. Teachers experience student teaching and often a mentor teacher for first year when they get their first call. But what about after that? It’s kind of left to the individual, especially for pastors as teachers at least are often required to have CEU’s for their state certifications.
So what happens is pastors fall into their patterns and routines. They do things a certain way and for the most part it gets them through the critical pieces of Sunday sermons, Bible classes and visitation. It tends to work okay for the conscientious pastor.
But what about working with staff and key volunteers? What about the relationship and coordination with elected lay leaders in the congregation? How do you manage those relationships and offices of authority? As J. E. Herrmann said way back in 1951, the pastor is the “Chief Steward” not only of the Gospel but also of the people and program of the church. Pastoral leadership is far more than just preaching and teaching and pastoral care.
So what to do? A pastor as leader is different from other for profit and not-for-profit organizations. YouTube, books, podcasts, blogs like this one and circuit meetings where we are to learn from one another can be lacking. Even coaches and church leadership training programs can come up short if they are separated from the “on-the-job, social and formal” elements to provide immediate or real-time feedback and debriefing to take advantage of the 70% or the majority of the learning. It might still feel like a mystery.
So look for a leadership training approach that provides a framework to do just that. If you’re still with me at the bottom of this blog, we’re offering a combination learning approach recognizing the necessity of each of these elements and we’d love to talk to you about it. We’re calling it the Christian Leadership Discovery Process which can be done either in person or virtually depending on the logistics of the cohort that has been formed. Reach out to me and let’s talk about how we can form a group to walk this path together.
Rev. Scott Gress is believes in Growing People for Ministry by focussing on leadership, discipleship and teamwork. Contact Scott if you are interested in him working with you or your church. A free 30 minutes sample session is available to explore how you might work best together. The Coaching Leader Podcast is also available on iTunes and his YouTube page. You can contact Scott through email scottgress@me.com or his blog page scottgress.com or at 561-542-4472
Growing People for Ministry" Leadership + Discipleship + Teamwork
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