Recently, I have been given the opportunity to begin working one-on-one with two young men who have recently been tasked with taking over the youth ministries at our church.  One is starting up a junior high youth ministry and the other is taking over a senior high youth ministry.  I am so excited to have the opportunity to work with them on a weekly basis in a leadership development capacity rather than hands on week-to-week youth pastor.

My background is seven years in weekly youth ministry with both junior high and most recently senior high.  So I have had the opportunity to make many mistakes over the years that I can hopefully help them avoid.  However, developing leaders is no easy task.  I had the opportunity to chat with a great friend and mentor of mine last night about this very topic.  He is a passionate leadership development advocate and practices what he preaches by mentoring scores of men year and year.  Our discussion really gave me the kick-start that I needed to realize how important my job is.  Even though I am no longer “technically” responsible for the weekly operations of our youth ministry I am even more responsible for the success of two ministries but more importantly the success and development of two young men.  Wow!

My friend David, who by the way is a base guitar player in the band The Last Epic, suggested I use curriculum from Dr. Tim Elmore called Habitudes – images that form leadership habits & attitudes.  So far I have been very impressed by it.  This has really given me a beginning point for the type of material and information we as leaders need to be taking in all the time.  This is not a short-term commitment; leadership development is a continually process in all of us.
Some discussion points to consider about developing leaders are:

COMMUNICATORS
Leaders aren’t really leaders per se but really communicators.  The best leaders are those who can communicate with everyone they are leading.  If you aren’t communicating you really aren’t leading.  Leaders must be the one casting the vision, setting the standard, developing their own followers who can use their strengths to make the goals more realistic.

DEVELOPING THEIR TEAM
Leaders must also be sure they have strong team of co-leaders around them.  No one can do everything well all the time.  As leaders we need a strong group of people around us who can do bits and pieces of what needs to be done so the end goal is reached.  The leader casts the vision to his or her followers so they catch the dream and march toward the end goal.  Where there is no vision the people parish, they parish because they have nothing to work toward.  Cast the vision leaders and watch the people follow.

90/10 RULE
What I call the 90/10 rule others might call the Iceberg theory.  Dr. Tim Elmore’s first lesson in his leadership development series Habitudes uses the example of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic.  It wasn’t the 10% of the iceberg that the Titanic could see that sunk her, it was the 90% below the water that did her in.
90% of the time your team and your followers will never see what you do.  That time is the most important time in your development of a leader.  How you spend you time, what you watch, what you listen too, who you hang around with will determine how the 10% of your public time unfolds.  It will determine if you are effective or ineffective.
In my case I am mentoring youth pastors.  If they spend very little time of their non-public, preparation time in study and prayer for their upcoming message, most likely it will be a weak and non-effective message.  However if they spend their time wisely during the 90% of the time when no one is around watching them they can be extremely effective and make an impact with the young people they are leading!  Their minds will be focused on the tasks at hand rather than distracted because of other matters.

The great public speaker Zig Ziglar use to say about salesman (and I am paraphrasing);
“When a salesman is outselling he really is wishing he was at home and when he is at home he really wishes he is out selling.  If that is the case you ain’t ever nowhere.”

It doesn’t matter who you are leading.  As a leader you need to be a consistent communicator, a developer of people to assist in your goals, and ruthless believer in the 90/10 RULE.  Don’t let your guard down, press toward the mark of effective leadership!