RAISING LEADERS by SkyQuin

     Leaders are raised by leaders; it’s true that only a man who has experienced what it means to lead has the ability to train others. I believe that as charity begins at home, the art of leadership ought to be taught in the home as well (Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old was he will not depart from it)

       There are essentially two types of people in the world, leaders and followers. These two are beautifully connected; good followers have the capacity to be good leaders. This is because, when a man follows his leader closely, he becomes more like him; he learns everything about him, his leadership style, abilities, and principles also the reasons behind his choices and his modus operandi. 

   A good follower becomes a unique recreation of his leader. That is the reason why leadership can easily be described as pouring oneself into another man. This can be seen in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ; he chose his disciples, men who were from lowly backgrounds, lacked the ability to read and write, fishermen, tax collectors and the likes. He won them over, gave them a reason to trust and look up to him and then set out to groom them.

   Going by Jesus's examples, He showed a typical example of what it meant to raise leaders. He handpicked them from diverse places and kept them with him. They went with him everywhere and he taught them like he taught the multitude, but he took their teaching one step further by giving them deep revelations beyond what the crowd had heard. He explained to them the how and the whys. He gave them opportunities to ask and he cleared any confusions and misconceptions by answering all their questions.

       They also got an opportunity to exercise their knowledge (learning by experience). Jesus sent them forth in twos to cities to teach people. This is something that cannot be over emphasized upon in raising leaders. Practice they say makes for perfection.  The disciples had to learn how to do things themselves; make their own decisions, make mistakes and learn from them as well. This builds maturity and the ability to develop self confidence in one’s own decision making abilities. It makes one responsible as well as self-reliant.

    As leaders, it’s also advisable to give followers responsibilities to handle, “as tests of their leadership abilities”. Help them access their performance and correct them where need be. Keep teaching, giving them “inspiration and constantly feeding them with information” that will keep them growing and edified. Create an avenue for constant review and also keep a door open for “consultation”, they can come back to you for help any time the need arises, which leaves an opportunity for “mentorship” an essential tool in leadership.

     I can relate this to myself in that I recently got to spend some time at my zonal office. In course of my stay there I got to learn how things were done in the ministry,  I learnt how to organise things to some extent,  I even got the rare privilege to organise not one but two important mini parties for pastors, something that I was totally clueless about before. I served as part of the organising committee for a program, my first ever, I also got to learn how to get people to perform tasks which I would have prior to this experience executed myself...I believe I have been made better by this experience, though there's still much to learn, I have begun the process.

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Continues on Sunday 15TH MAY 2015 only on Newton Paul’s Blog

  
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