A while back I wrote a post We need better Leaders than came before that raised a lot of questions but didn’t resolve anything.
It’s something we’ve been wrestling with as a team and, I think, an important issue to think through as your movement grows.
So let’s jump back into it over the next couple of days.
Here’s the (abbreviated) problem stated in 2 contradicting statements:
- “In building a movement, the students currently involved have to be better leaders than the previous generation because the movement is larger and more complex”
- John Maxwell’s Law of the Lid says good leaders (10’s) won’t follow lesser leaders (5’s)
If these two statements are true (and in my experience they almost always are) how is it possible for students to raise up better leaders than themselves?
On the original post Andrew had some great comments (his full comments are worth the read). Springboarding off of his comments (noted in quotations below),
Here are some thoughts on how students can raise up better leaders than themselves:
Cast vision
“When students are talking to better leaders, focus on vision casting. If you are able to paint a compelling picture of the cause, then you may be able to attract higher leadership levels because they are compelled by the cause. In other words, make it about more than just following you. ”
To quote Russ Martin: “leaders are big picture people, use big pictures!”
Focus on student ownership
“When students are given opportunities to lead/manage, they are able to use those opportunities for leadership growth.”
Students can grow rapidly in leadership when given lots of leadership experience right from the beginning of their involvement with us. I think we ask too little from freshmen.
Age Disparity
For the most part, students enter college as kids and graduate as adults. What does that have to do with raising up better leaders than came before? Age disparity enables a Senior who is a 5 to raise up freshman (who looks up to him as a wise sage) who will be a 10.
Godly Passion Trumps Everything
A few years ago we had a student (John) involved in our ministry who’s was a 5 at most (to put it in cold, John Maxwell terms). He wouldn’t look you in the eye when you talked to him. He was difficult to have a conversation with. But John led a Bible study full of phenomenal leaders- a couple guys in his study were Fraternity pledge class presidents and every single one was a better leader than John.
What drew them to John?
John came to Christ in college and never got over the gospel. It gripped him and he couldn’t help but passionately pursue everyone around him and invite them to experience Jesus.
As Andrew commented, “Give me a 5 who prays and lives out what he preaches over a 10 who can get the most people to the Cru meeting any day.”
Tomorrow – we’ll look at barriers to raising up better leaders than came before (besides the Law of the Lid).
What else would you add? How can we better foster a movement where students are raising up better leaders than came before?
photo courtesy of wildphotons
