Leadership Development Requires Intentional Environments
Healthy church leaders are not formed by accident. This article explains why churches need intentional leadership development and identifies three key environments where leaders learn, grow, and mature.
- Churches rise and fall on the health and strength of their leaders.
- Most churches face a leadership development deficit among volunteers, staff, and elders.
- Formal, informal, and non-formal environments all shape healthy leadership growth.
By Don Sanders
One of the most helpful exercises for leaders to develop is reflecting on their own leadership journey. I frequently use this assignment in the leadership classes I teach, and recently, I worked through it again myself. As I traced the events, circumstances, classes, and, most importantly, the people who intentionally shaped me, I was humbled and thankful. Humbled by the sheer amount of time, effort, and resources others have invested in my development. Thankful for the individuals who purposefully gave of themselves to help me grow as a leader. Back to this in a minute.
Two Key Truths
In today’s church context, two truths inform our view of leaders and leadership development.
First, by every measure and metric, churches (and organizations in general) rise and fall on leadership. This does not discount the work of the Spirit, of course. Rather, it confirms that the Spirit works through a church’s leaders in powerful ways.
Healthy, thriving churches are led by healthy, thriving leaders. Conversely, struggling and stagnant churches typically have unhealthy, stagnant leaders. Research data and anecdotal observation confirm this truth.
Second, nearly every church experiences a leadership development deficit. Whether that be volunteer ministry leaders, staff, or elders, we are not developing enough healthy church leaders across the board.
Intentionality Is Essential
So how do we address this situation?
While one article can’t solve this puzzle on a macro level, let me suggest an approach to developing leaders that works in any church, regardless of size or context. In a word, developing healthy leaders requires intentionality. Healthy church leaders (individually and collectively) don’t happen accidentally—they are developed intentionally.
Three Environments for Leadership Growth
My own development journey confirms what educational theory teaches: people learn, grow, and develop in three types of environments.
The Formal Environment
This includes planned activities, learning, and experiences. It ranges from a book study to a college degree.
The Informal Environment
This is where we learn from watching and experiencing others—the organizational or church culture. We learn how things work, problems are solved, difficulties are overcome, etc., by watching others do these things. This is the most powerful developmental environment by far.
The Non-Formal Environment
This environment includes intentional activities, but they are typically short-term and less structured than the formal environment. Think conferences, seminars, training sessions, mentoring, etc.
As I reflect on my own development, all three environments have shaped and formed my leadership.
Three Ways to Intentionally Develop Leaders
With that framework in mind, here are three practical ways to develop leaders with intentionality.
Formal Orientation for New Leaders
When someone becomes a leader in your church (whether volunteer or paid), what do they need to know to succeed? This can include your mission, vision, values, leadership structure, upcoming events, policies, budgets, decision rights, etc. In a smaller context, you can do these in person. In larger contexts, the orientation might be done digitally or in groups. However you choose to do the orientation, the goal is to create a formal introduction to leadership and provide the needed information to thrive in the new role.
Informal Leadership Culture
Again, informal learning is easily the most powerful of these three environments. As this type of learning occurs, we usually don’t realize we are learning. Think about growing up in your family. You learned how to handle conflict, spend money, communicate with others, etc., by watching how the rest of your family did these things (and like most, we learned both good and not-so-good ways to do them!). Your church leaders are constantly shaped by your own leadership culture, for good and bad. How do you handle conflict and disagreement? How do you value people? How do you treat your staff? Everything creates culture, and your culture informally develops leaders. Pay attention and make adjustments in your leadership culture.
Non-Formal Environments for Recruiting and Training Leaders
Watch for opportunities to invite potential and current leaders to develop specific skills or knowledge through non-formal events. These might include webinars, conferences, or doing a Bible study together. This type of developmental environment provides more than knowledge. Traveling to a conference, for example, provides time for building community, sharing meals, and debriefing the experiences. Often, the conversations around the dinner table or during the drive home are just as formative as the event itself.
Building Intentional Environments
However you approach leadership development, the principle remains the same: healthy, thriving leaders are not developed accidentally. They are developed when we intentionally create environments for them to learn and grow.
Author: Don Sanders
Don Sanders has developed leaders in local churches and the academy for over 35 years. He serves as the Dean of Graduate and Digital Education and Associate Professor of Leadership at Central Bible University. He is an avid fan of St. Louis sports teams and a relentless advocate of fine writing utensils.
