Lifelong learning is to leadership what food is to our bodies. Unless we continue to learn every day, eventually our leadership becomes stale. Over time we lose our ability to lead effectively, and we certainly won’t be able to lead into the future. That’s because with the passage of time everything changes, and if we aren’t learning we won’t be changing, which means we won’t be able to lead.
I’m a Christian and the pastor of a local church that has been growing fairly rapidly for our area of the country for the past several years. We have grown from a church of less than 400 worshipers per weekend a few years ago, to one with nearly 800 today. Last fall I gathered our staff together and told them something I had heard John Maxwell say about leadership many years before: The people who got you where you are, aren’t likely going to get you where you’re going. I told everyone that if we were going to be able to continue to lead effectively into the foreseeable future in a church family that continues to grow we would need to be different leaders tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year than we were that day. In other words, we needed to keep learning so we would become different leaders ourselves.
Having served as a pastor for more than three decades now, I have learned a great deal about leadership in the church. One of the things I have learned is the best possible scenario when it comes to building a staff is to find the right people, invest your life into them, and encourage them to keep learning and growing all their lives. As they do that they will add value to your local church, and one of two things will happen for them: they will continue to grow as leaders and find fulfillment in your church, or they will continue to grow as leaders and be called to serve God’s Kingdom somewhere else. Either way it’s a win, because God’s Kingdom is served. My goal is for folks to stay at New Life for as long as they continue to be challenged in their ministries, to learn and grow, and to contribute to the equipping of God’s people for the work of ministry. Personally, I always hope that is a very long time. That’s because ministry is a more relational task than some occupations or callings. If staff come and go at a rapid rate they don’t have the opportunity to build relationships with other leaders, or with the folks of the church, and that negatively impacts the church’s health and growth.
If you’re a follower of Jesus and you’re thinking, “That doesn’t sound very spiritual,” I understand. I also believe that kind of thinking is what has often caused church leaders to rely on prayer–which we must–without expending the time necessary to learn and grow in leadership, and to do everything possible to cultivate effective leadership in our churches. While prayer is a spiritual activity that is crucial to our personal growth and development as well as to our growth and development as local churches, it is no less spiritual to develop our personal abilities and our spiritual gifts and to use them passionately in serving God’s Kingdom.
If you’re a business leader and you’re thinking this doesn’t having application to your business, I would challenge you to consider that your social awareness ability to build teams, both components of EI (emotional intelligence) are vital to the long-term health and growth of your business. It is always in a business owner’s or manager’s best interest to encourage and challenge lifelong learning in your workers. If they get so well equipped that they’re promoted or go elsewhere to pursue employment that will still be to your long-term benefit, because while they’re with you they will raise the effectiveness of your business, and the overall positivity of your business culture.
There is no down side to lifelong learning in leadership, particularly if everyone in the company, the church, or the organization is committed to it, because as President John F. Kennedy reminded us long ago: a rising tide raises all the ships. I challenge and encourage you, whatever your role in life right now, but particularly if you are the lead or senior pastor of a church, or the owner or manager of a company to make a commitment to learning every day. Incorporate it into your calendar and do it. Everyone will benefit from that commitment–everyone!
Here’s to leading better by learning something new–today!