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Leadership
Selection
“There is a treasure, if you can
only find it, in the heart of
every man.” ~ Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill was a master
change-agent. Wherever he served
in government (in very diverse
roles) he quickly assessed the
situation and developed an
ambitious agenda for change. As
Home Secretary he led major
reform with regard to police and
prisoners. This included
recreation, entertainment, and
education for the prison
population. He wanted them to
have every opportunity to better
themselves while paying for
their crimes. His motives were
buried in this statement: “There
is a treasure, if you can only
find it, in the heart of every
man.” Churchill believed that
prisoners should not be written
off and that efforts must be
made to go beyond punitive to
redemptive measures in dealing
with them.
Of course as Christians, we
believe the treasure in the
heart of every man is the image
of God in which we were created.
It flows from that to a life
that has intrinsic value simply
because a person exists – not
because of what they do. But I
believe there is an important
lesson related to leadership
selection in this statement.
Mining for Leadership
Treasure
As leaders pursue the
development of future leaders
they must begin by selecting
those worthy of investment. When
you are dealing with young
leaders, finding the leadership
treasure (which of course is not
in every man) can be
challenging. One of the most
common criticisms of
contemporary leadership models
is that leadership selection has
been reduced to some sort of
popularity contest. You skim the
cream off the top of the milk by
taking the young leaders who are
likeable, outgoing, and
popular-ignoring everyone else,
and in doing so, missing some
buried leadership treasure
worthy of being mined.
I’m not just speaking
hypothetically here. Several of
us at Top Flight Leadership have
been approached by leaders of
other ministries accusing us of
this style of leadership
selection. In some cases it was
a gentle exhortation, in others
it was a bit more
confrontational.
“The quiet kid in the corner may
well be the best future leader
in the group.”
This is where Churchill’s
statement helps me. I really do
believe there is a treasure in
the heart of every man and
woman. In some cases that
treasure chest of God’s imprint
includes leadership; in some
cases it doesn’t. And it is easy
to fall into the trap of
superficial mining practices and
missing some valuable nuggets.
So what’s the key to this
process? I’d like to give you a
few simple cautions when it
comes to mining for leadership
treasure – especially with young
leaders.
*Be careful not to mislabel
personality as leadership
giftedness. We all know that
leaders come in all personality
types. So don’t let the people
who aren’t so easily noticed
slip through your mining pan.
The quiet kid in the corner may
well be the best future leader
in the group.
*Be careful not to mislabel
persistence as stubbornness. The
young leader who keeps doing the
same stupid thing over and over
again my just be demonstrating a
misguided persistence that will
serve him or her well later on.
It’s easy to brand someone as
foolhardy or stubborn when
really the treasure inside is a
persistence that won’t give in
so easily when the going gets
tough. (Take Peter, for example)
*Be careful not to mislabel
problem solving as rebellion.
The person who always challenges
the idea, always asks why,
always wants to push for another
option, may not be in need of a
smack on the side of the head.
(Of course some of them need
two.) it may be what you are
seeing is the very beginning
trace of a deep vein of
problem-solving leadership
treasure that is hiding
underneath a pile of immature
dirt and rock. If so, be willing
to out your pickax and shovel.
Then dig.
*Be careful not to mislabel
adventure or risk taking as a
fringe behavior. There is a
difference between a serious
“notice me, acknowledge me”
syndrome and a natural bent to
be a different, try new things,
and take risks. Sometimes real
leadership potential is
overlooked because people are
branded as freaks on the fringe
and never really given a change
to blaze the right kind of
trail.
*Be careful not to mislead
honest filtering as erratic
behavior. One of the common
threads for young leaders is an
instinctive desire to test the
motives of those who show an
interest in developing them.
They often have suspicion of
organizational leadership and
can stereotype you as someone
with a hidden agenda. The
problem is the way they go about
filtering your motives may well
include using an expletive in
conversation or sharing a sin
pattern that you may have
struggled with but won’t even
confess out loud to God. Give
them your best Mount Rushmore
imitation and move on. You’ll
have time to work on the issues
later.
Clearly this is not an
exhaustive list but I think you
can begin to see how important
it is to dig beneath the surface
when developing young leaders.
Become a miner of leadership
treasure.
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enterprise-wide, you can count of Frontline Learning to deliver.
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