Today, I want to talk to you about how to evaluate a person’s development posture in your church’s leadership pipeline. Sure, I’ve created a 9-box to determine a person’s leadership potential in your church’s pipeline, but this quadrant is different. And it’s a quadrant not a 9-box, so it’s a little bit simpler. It helps you determine a person’s readiness and posture to assume a new leadership role at your church. Let’s take a look.
First, you want to rate that person’s enthusiasm or commitment level – their energy for the role. Next, you want to assess their competence in the role. A person might be really enthusiastic, but not necessarily competent, so we want to make sure those two things are good to go. Now, once you assess the person’s enthusiasm level and the person’s competence level, you want to put them on the chart.
If someone is not very committed and lacks competence, this person may be a disillusioned learner. Maybe the task is just harder than they initially thought. Maybe they didn’t have success at first and they just feel like it’s not working and they can’t get it together. We need to move them into a different quadrant as soon as possible.
If someone’s committed, but they lack competence, then that person is probably an enthusiastic beginner, simply because they haven’t done it before. But if we give them time to develop their core competencies and their role specific competencies, then they are very likely excited to do that. That’s where we want to engage them and get them to a place of success early.
Now, if someone is competent in a role, but they are not necessarily committed or enthusiastic, then they are capable but cautious. Maybe they were once enthusiastic, but once they got into the warp and woof of the ministry they lost their passion. Maybe they are serving in a ministry out of guilt or that’s not a good fit. We want to move them to a different spot.
If a person is enthusiastic and competent, they are a peak performer. These people are likely multipliers within your organization or ministry and they are ready for your church’s next level in the leadership pipeline.
So now that you know this framework, and you know how to assess a person’s development posture in your church, what are you going to do about it?