How To Create Leadership Depth

Courtesy of  jared/Creative Commons License

The longer I am in youth ministry the more I realize how much I cannot do on my own.  It’s a realization that in order for the youth ministry’s capacity to grow it needs to reach beyond my hands.  It’s an easy concept to come across; however, difficult to execute.  If you’ve ever had to delegate chances are you have failed at it at least once.  Maybe you:

• Did Not Give Clear Instruction
• Released Control Then Took It Away
• Had Incredibly High Expectations

It’s not that you intentionally let your team fail, it just happened.  When it comes to delegating and creating leadership depth in your ministry it takes practice and a willingness to let go your part.

But, it’s not just about you.  To delegate you not only have to be willing to let go; but, they need to be ready for the responsibility.  Therefore, they should be ready to:

• Be Lead Communicator – So many people on your ministry are used to going to you for answers and direction. If you are building leadership depth you need to make sure the layers are clear.  To do that you need to publicly affirm their position, redirect others to their leadership and encourage your point person to verbalize their decisions.  While it’s up to you to make their position clear, they need to be ready to give the orders and make the decisions themselves.

• Learn From Other Leaders – You’ll want someone who is ready to learn and not necessarily from you.  A good leader is a learner because they recognize that they need to grow.  That means setting them up with resources and opportunities to craft their skills and grow in knowledge.  If someone is only willing to grow on experience you might want to consider giving them the responsibility to take charge. (Read: What are you learning?)

• Fail And Get Back Up – As you know being the leader means dealing with disappointment and failure.  You also know to lead you need to be able to embrace failure to continue to move forward.  As you assign leaders to different areas of ministry you need to not only let them stumble; but, assure them it’s okay (Read why you need to fail).  It’s in failure they will learn and grow to be stronger leaders.

As THE POINT PERSON releasing control can be difficult and a challenge; but, so can taking it on for the first time.  As leaders we need to remember that when we delegate we are not only taking on a new challenge but so are the people we are putting in control.  As you deepen your leadership depth make sure that you are giving it to people who recognize the responsibilities to lead.  The deeper you can go in this area, the stronger your foundation.

What other actions should a potential leader be able to perform?