Stop Wasting Your Time Trying to Develop Leaders

Character development is more important than leadership development.

We live in a world full of leaders who are empty of character. We’ve got more leaders, more leadership positions, more leadership titles and more frustration because we actually have less leadership. Virtue is dead. Character is on oxygen. Ethics have been removed.

If you want to make a difference in your organization, in your community, in your home and among your followers, then focus on developing character in those around you. But, your the character you are seeking to build better first be evident in you. Integrity is on life-support in our world today.

Work harder to build great people than you do great leaders.

There’s all this pressure in our world and nearly every organization (including the Church) today to build great leaders. It’s not healthy. Don’t be a leadership development organization. This is silly. How many leaders can you actually have? Everyone. No, everyone is not a leader and can’t be a leader. The sooner you make this clear in your organization, the more focused your organization can be. It’s too easy for organizations, teams and groups to have “leader fever.” Leader fever is an ailment that plagues organizations that try to create and turn everyone into a leader.

Let me speak directly to Christians for a moment:

Did Jesus ever say to make leaders?

No (emphatically). He said that the Church is “to make disciples.” A disciple is a learner, a student and a follower. We are not to make leaders. So when we try to make leaders, we are making a mistake. You can no more make a leader than a leopard can change its spots. You can no more make a leader than dirt can turn into water. Church leaders, your job is to make followers of Jesus Christ, not leaders for your organization, ministry teams and committees. Stop thinking about the Body of Christ like a Fortune 500 company. It’s not. True leadership is organic (more on that later)–organic being natural, innate or born.

Don’t do death by leadership development. I see more wasted money, more wasted time and more wasted energy trying to develop people who aren’t leaders into great leaders. I’ve seen more frustration, more pressure and fewer leaders developed. I’ve seen leader after leader kill themselves, blow up their organization because of some new book they’ve read, some podcast they heard, or some seminar they paid out the whazoo to get a golden nugget. So they go back and change everything and all they create is more frustration, more pressure, not more leaders.

Wake up and eat this nugget: leaders are born not made.  We used to believe that until we turned into a world where everyone is supposed to be a winner. Go back to your childhood. Leaders were always born–born in a moment and born for a moment. You can’t teach charisma. You can’t coach drive. You can’t make some be self-disciplined. Transcendent leaders have one foot in this world and one foot somewhere else. They are driven by a force no one around them can see and have an energy that no one around them can manufacture. But, they have a character that can be emulated. A natural born leader has a spark, or fire that no one put there and that no can put out. Everyone else who is not born a leader is trying to find that spark, trying to find that fire. Leaders have it. It’s in their eyes. It’s in their soul. Everyone else is trying to find “their passion.”

If you can’t develop leaders that’s your fault. So, stop trying and just work on building really great people. Somewhere this vision of the “super” leadership developer organization sprang into our world as someone who we must become. We’ve been sold to invest more resources to get better leaders. I tell you, invest in more relationships and you’ll get better people. Then, the leaders will come. Great leaders don’t like working with bad people. Stop trying to find great leaders and just work on building great people into a great team.

You need leaders. Every organization needs leaders. But before you need leaders you need great people. Stop hiring for leadership and start hiring those who will let you speak into their lives while they work really hard for you and demonstrate loyalty. Better a lot loyal with a little quirk then a not loyal with no quirks!

Leaders Have Vision

I find that many “leaders” today lack real vision that inspires those in their organization to stay. People stay for vision. Why? Because people have always and will always follow a leader with a compelling vision. People stay when they are energized and inspired. If you can’t sit down and speak to someone’s heart and paint a picture of where you are going, then you lack the ability to inspire others. You don’t have to be the most gregarious, but you better be the most grounded.

Grounded People: Foundations & Facelifts

Grounded people have great character. Grounded people build foundations, not give facelifts. I find that modern leadership development is focused on giving facelifts, not giving foundations. Foundations get ignored. Facelifts get attention. Work harder to build foundations in your life and the lives of those around you. Don’t give them a facelift. A facelift is a temporary stretching to cover a wrinkle a blemish or a defect. Character development is foundation building. Leadership development has become like a facelift.

The greatest leader ever, Jesus, spent no time in leadership development, and all his time in character development of those following. He picked twelve. Of the twelve, he had three: Peter, James and John.  And of the three, there was one. Peter.  In fact, the one time we read about when his followers jockeyed for a leadership position, he smacked them down for focusing on the wrong path. There was never anyone more grounded than Jesus. He spent three and a half years developing the character of those who would carry his message far beyond his feet.

To the Aspiring Leader

Let’s say that you’ve read this far and are an aspiring leader. Here’s my word for you: Stop trying so hard to be a great leader and work even harder to have great character. Be the most “beyond reproach” individual that you know. Be the most humble. Be the most energetic. Be the most encouraging. Take the most initiative. Be the most responsible person you know. Stay longer, work harder and give more than anyone else you know. Stop worrying about being recognized. Great leaders know where their great followers are and are not. God knows where you are. Rest in the fact that the Almighty knows exactly where you are and learn to be content, yet hungry. Learn to be humble, yet confident. And learn to have character not be a character.

(c) Alex Vann, 2018