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Underneath the Surface of Leadership Development

3) Heart

Heart to heart is always more powerful than head to head.

Therefore, giving your heart has a greater impact than withholding your heart.

For some leaders this kind of connection is easy, and for others it’s challenging.

When developing leaders, you can’t overestimate the value of making a personal connection, and that always starts at a heart level.

Making a heart-level connection begins with being yourself and requires both personal security and maturity.

And when it’s more about you (what you need and want is the dominating agenda), you can’t connect.

Developing leaders at a heart level means you care about them.

You are not pouring into them so your church will grow, you are investing in them so they will grow. The difference between these two is galaxies apart. One you want more from them, the other you want more for them.

If your leaders grow spiritually, they will be self-motivated to help grow God’s church.

Putting your heart into the process is risky. You can get hurt. But I don’t think you can truly develop others without taking that risk, and I’m certain it’s worth it. If you get hurt, take time to forgive and heal, but after you catch your breath, keep going.

Key question: Are you leading from the heart?

4) Eternity

Therefore, the motivation behind spiritual leadership is the eternal destiny of human souls.

Your philosophical worldview, along with your personal life and faith perspective, completely shapes your leadership agenda.

It’s all about God’s agenda for His Kingdom. It means that eternity is at stake at all times.

That influences what you teach, the principles you emphasize, the values you lean into and your overall mission or purpose.

One phrase in the Lord’s prayer helps bring clarity (Matthew 6:10):

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come,
your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6:9-10

Thinking with an eternal perspective helps you develop leaders with a Kingdom mindset. That changes how you do ministry.

Key question: Are you building something for here on earth or for eternity in heaven?


These four key questions and your answers, radically impact how you lead and develop other leaders.

This article originally appeared here.