If You’re Not Developing Other Leaders, You’re Not Leading

People are your organization’s most valuable asset. Humanly speaking, the success or failure of your organization will ride on the quality of the people that populate it. 

That means that developing other leaders is an essential component of any effective leader’s job. If you’re not helping raise up other leaders, chances are you are not leading

In general, we tend to give a lot of attention to how individual leaders can and should invest in developing other leaders. But too often, we overlook the ways in which organizations and institutions have a part to play. Of course, the individual and the organizational overlap. But if leaders never actually make progress in forging organizational cultures that identify, develop, and retain skilled leaders, then they really are missing the forest for the trees.

Institutions have a multiplying effect. That why “leadership gurus” are not the most effective catalysts for leadership development. That’s not to say that consultants or independent voices who publish or speak on these topics are not helpful. In fact, they often are tremendously helpful and ones from which I have personally benefited. It’s just to make clear that the most effective model I know to develop new leaders and to do so “at scale” is within an institutional context. You can do far more within an institution than you can apart.

Leaders Who Develop Leaders

Hire People Who Could Take Your Job. This is a terrifying thought for many leaders, probably because it touches on some of our deepest insecurities. But I can assure you that this has the potential to dramatically change your effectiveness in training other leaders. As much as you are able, hire direct reports who you think--with some investment and development--could actually one day do your job better than you. Of course, that assumes you are not an unmitigated narcissist and can acknowledge the possibility that there is indeed another human being out there who could do better than you. Don’t settle for mediocrity. Don’t let your own insecurities prohibit you from hiring and developing the best team you can. Candidly, I see this all the time, especially in churches. Unfortunately, pastors can be among the most susceptible to this sort of insecurity. 

Look for Intellectual Curiosity. It might be tempting to equate leadership with a certain type of personality, assuming that the most effective leaders are those who immediately command the attention of a room when they enter. We might think they are the biggest extroverts or little clones of George Patton, able to impose their will solely through the force of their personality.

But that really has nothing to do with leadership. You can be a jerk, but you’ll fail as a leader. 

There are a lot of qualities to look for in a leader, but my experience tells me that one we often overlook is the mark of intellectual curiosity. To put it another way, I have yet to meet an excellent leader who is apathetic, easily satisfied with obvious answers, or does not have some abiding need for new knowledge, and new information. Leaders tend to be the kind of people who look at something and ask, “Why does it work that way? Does it have to work that way?” They’re the kind of people who see problems, but can’t stop there, wanting to figure out solutions. And they are rarely satisfied. Once they get one answer or learn a new skill, they have an appetite for the next challenge, the next mountain to climb, the next book to read. Advanced degrees may be a result of that drive, but they are not necessarily so. So when you’re trying to identify potential leaders, look for the ones who want to know what they don’t know.

Assess, Encourage, Compensate. Okay, I cheated a bit here. That’s three. But these three components all speak to one unified reality. Developing other leaders is about far more than having someone shadow you. Leadership development does not happen by osmosis. It requires intentionality and discipline. And since it involves human beings, it requires actual communication, mentorship, and emotional intelligence. As a leader, what’s the rubric you are using to assess the leadership abilities of those on your team? Could you define them? True, leadership does not come in a “one size fits all” model. But there are some essential ingredients and abilities that simply have to be present, even if only in embryonic form. Your job as a leader is to have the capability to assess team members and to do so in writing. But that assessment means absolutely nothing if you do not communicate your assessment to those team members. By the way, this is what moves job evaluations away from rote meetings into real opportunities for growth. Similarly, leaders have to go out of their way to affirm and encourage those who have skills and potential. When you see a team member leading well, make a point of affirming them. It might be a text message, a handwritten note, or a quick meeting. They may do things differently than you, but a good leader should have the ability to recognize effective leadership when they see it, not be threatened by it, and encourage it. You will replicate that which you praise. So don’t miss the opportunity. Similarly, you simply have to make a priority of compensating the best leaders on your team. We’d all like to think that our organizational mission is strong enough to compel team members to stay forever, even if it means less pay. But the reality is that far too many organizations fail to retain good leaders because they refuse to provide appropriate compensation. It may not be as much as you think. But your organization cannot afford not to compensate your most promising leaders well.

Organizations Who Develop Leaders

Assess Leaders on Leadership Development. Until you expect your organization’s leaders to give focused attention to their responsibility to develop other leaders, you are likely spitting in the wind. To start with, your assessment models need to incorporate some quantifiable assessment of how effective your managers and leaders are in developing the leadership abilities under their direction. Effective leadership is by definition leadership that replicates. Healthy organizations are those willing to assess honestly and regularly how successful they are in the effort. For most, it will be part of an annual review process. But it can and should go further than that. For example, if you meet with your direct reports for weekly one-on-ones, how much of your time is spent asking questions about how they are managing their teams and who is emerging as a “next wave” leader? Meeting agendas demand discussion about strategy, projects, and tasks. But if you never talk about personnel development in general and leadership development in particular, you are missing out on a critical element. But if your organization is able to recalibrate, making leadership development a core value and essential expectation of management, you will eventually see results.

Maintain Mission Focus. The organizations that seem to do best at leadership development are those that have absolute clarity of mission and leverage their resources accordingly. That’s no coincidence. Skilled leaders have the ability to continually lay out the organization’s mission in front of personnel and thereby help clarify what has to get done and why. Ineffective leadership and mission creep go hand-in-hand. 

So there should be no surprise that organizations that consistently operate with a defined and focused mission seem to attract the most gifted leaders, regardless of their stage of development. If your organization has a hollowed-out leadership pipeline, maybe it’s time to ask if you’ve drifted from your mission. 

Focus on Organizational Culture. Leadership development flourishes in healthy soil. To put it another way, if your organizational culture is marked by unbridled personal ambition, cynicism, and resentments, backstabbing and scheming, or deceit and rage, don’t be surprised when you start producing so-called leaders marked by the same characteristics.

This likely sounds obvious to you. But reality tells us that large organizations, even Christian ones, struggle with this far more than we would like to admit. In too many places, we have somehow believed the lie that leadership demands overlooking the most boorish behavior, or even indulging and excusing outright abuse.

However, the fruit of the Spirit is not optional. Christian organizations, if indeed populated by individuals who have experienced the regenerating grace of God in Christ Jesus, should expect to see their cultures shaped by the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23). Leaders don’t get a pass. And Christian organizations should indeed look different. 

Maintain Balance Between Freedom and Accountability. One of the paradoxical realities of the Christian life is that there is freedom in accountability. That notion runs contrary to so much of the world’s obsession with unbridled individualism and autonomy. But walking in the way of Jesus is a regular reminder that we are indeed liberated from sin and death, but also absolutely subject to His righteous rule. 

There is something of a parallel for organizations. If you want to drive gifted and developing leaders away from your organization, just micromanage them and remove any decision-making from their jobs. But just as dangerous as failing to make sure that personnel is all—from the top of the organizational chart down—expected to abide by basic standards of accountability and integrity.

The best “leadership replicators” I have seen are not only good models for others to emulate. They also have the instinct to bring others along with them in the decision process, helping team members understand how and why they arrived at that strategic decision. When they are debriefing with a junior leader, they ask questions like, “Explain to me your process for arriving at that decision.” Then they genuinely listen and give honest feedback, pointing out what was sound judgment and where things broke down.

At the same time, organizations must demand accountability of their leaders. Beware of any leader who refuses to be held accountable—whether to a supervisor or to a governing board—when it comes to the most basic categories of financial controls and personal integrity. Wise leaders run toward this kind of accountability, not away from it. Building this into the culture of your organization will pay huge dividends in the long-run, especially when it comes to forming the next generation of leaders.

Define an Organizational Strategy. There is some element of leadership development that can happen rather organically, prompted by leaders who take it upon themselves to identify and invest in others. But be warned. Your organization risks a confused self-assessment if it mistakes that for a coherent organizational strategy. Until you define an institutional plan for leadership development, you risk losing all momentum as soon as your “leadership replicators” move on to new ventures.

Admittedly, any effective organizational plan for leadership development will reflect the context of your industry and mission. There are transferable dynamics, to be sure. But don’t assume that what works for a Fortune500 company will be casually imported into your college, church, or non-profit. Furthermore, you will likely need to identify where the gaps are in your leadership development pipeline. Is your urgent need to develop leaders who are in the very beginning stages of their careers? Or is your organization struggling to find leaders ready to make the jump from mid-level management to senior executive leadership? Until you identify those sequences in the leadership pipeline, you won’t know what you’re targeting as an organization.

But the point remains. Until you have a defined strategy, you don’t have a plan for leadership development. Michael Lindsay has documented well the effectiveness of one model, the White House Fellows Program. The plan your organization adopts will likely look very different. However, I suspect there are transferable elements that can indeed fit within your context.

Until you make leadership development an organizational priority, not merely an individual one, you still have not fully maximized your organization’s potential. For example, one sign of an organization that has developed this kind of model is that they have a strong ability to hire and promote from within when leadership posts open up. That’s not to say that healthy organizations are tribalistic or closed off to outsiders, rather it is a reflection of how well they have done in recruiting and retaining growing leaders. Similarly, this kind of organization will find itself to be something of an aircraft carrier for other organizations, as their leaders are deployed to go lead in other contexts. In my experience, I have served alongside some extraordinarily gifted leaders. Our institution has fulfilled this role, seeing many of those on our senior leadership team launch from here to go serve as presidents and senior officers of a wide range of organizations.

If you are leading within any organization, my guess is that you are already doing some of these things. But we can all do more and every leader has room to grow. Investing in the development of other leaders is one of the most energizing and wise things any leader can do. Projects and strategic plans are important. But ultimately, leaders are all about resourcing and mobilizing people for success.