Leadership Development Profile (Leadership, Part 4)
Series: Leadership (Part 4)
Author: Dr. Steven L. Childers
Title: Leadership Development Profile
Leadership Profile
In this session, we're going to take a look at the leader's profile or the leadership competency profile. This is one component of another leadership development model called the competency model or outcome based model. The idea of the leader profile is clearly defining what a mature, effective church leader looks like. Seeking to avoid the concept if you aim at nothing, you hit it every time, the concept here is that it's vitally important in leadership development to have a clear understanding of what that end goal or what we might say the end product of a mature leader actually looks like. If it is not defined and clearly understood, it inevitably will not be accomplished.
Now, this is just a general survey for you. There's the leadership competency profile, which is the starting point where the leader understands the goal that is being moved toward. Then, there is the leader assessment, which is a comparison and a contrast of the individual leader's competencies with those in the ideal leadership profile in terms of a holistic list of competencies that we will come back to. Then, based on that assessment, there is an acute realization always of particular areas that need to be focused on more than others. That then is the primary focus of the learning methods. Here, we will look at the concept of a learning covenant or a learning contract to give specificity and focus to the development of the leader under the oversight of a supervisor or a mentor.
Then, of course, if the learning methods have been effective, which usually they're not, but if they have been, then there will be outcomes. The concept here is that the goal is not just simply teaching, but the goal is learning. As you heard me say earlier, the goal of teaching is to make learning possible. Therefore, the concept of evaluating the measurable outcomes of the learning methods that have been employed is vital to the development process because once there has been an evaluation of learning outcomes, then there can be an ongoing called an iterative process, an ongoing process by which the leader profile is revised as well as the assessment and even the learning methodologies. This is the overarching concept, and we're going to be diving more deeply into this first session right here. We're going to be diving more deeply into this first area in this session called the leader profile.
Now, this leadership competency profile is made up of three categories of competencies. One would be character competencies, the concept of spiritual maturity. The other would be ministry competencies, the idea of ministry skills. Then, knowledge competencies, in particular for ministry development, we're looking here at knowledge competencies in the areas of Biblical studies, theological studies, and practical studies. As you are probably familiar by now, you can see how these different aspects of character and skills and knowledge are all, in many ways, overlapping and are meant to converge in the heart or the soul of the leader as the leader is being developed.
Now, let's dive more deeply now and take a look at each one of these in particular, starting with the character competencies. Those are clearly given to us in scripture, often overlooked. It's amazing how, I have said so many times already in this series, that God has condescended to inscripturate a literal job description of what a church leader is supposed to look like in the New Testament. It's just embarrassingly neglected in the development of leaders. I've listed here 20- some competencies that we'll put in the category of character competencies in 1 Timothy 3. As you go on in Titus 1 and then also other passages in 2 Timothy and Acts 2, Acts 20, Hebrews 13, you can see 20 or so other character competencies. Here, we see why one of the fundamental theses of this particular course is that character is primary in leadership development. Now, this is why.
That would be character competencies in terms of spiritual maturity. Now, let's look at ministry competencies in light of ministry skills. Now, before we do that, I want to try to help you understand that what we're looking at here would be more in the area of social science. Studies of effective leaders, be in profit or nonprofit organizations, churches, or businesses, the concepts still apply what is an effective leader. All truth is God's truth. General revelation just has to be interpreted properly as does special revelation. The model that I am showing you here is based on decades of research. One particular organization did over 30 years of study, the Association of Theological Schools, which is an accreditation agency for most seminaries and colleges, theological colleges in the West, in the United States. These general revelation insights are brought to us by these kinds of studies of effective leaders over decades of research. We have been able to see now over time statistical validation of this research. Let's just take a look at these.
Notice that there is an overlap. Just as we saw in Scripture the importance of integrity and spirituality and the family, we should expect that general revelation, studies of effective church leaders would see an overlap of exactly those things, but you can also see that you have a broader set of competencies drawn from special revelation or the social science studies of effective leaders here. This is the second category. Between 15 and 20, again, here. Now, there are 95 competencies in all in this leadership model. So far, you've seen the character competencies and the ministry competencies. Now, let's look at the knowledge competencies of Bible, theology, and practical.
In terms of the Biblical knowledge competencies, that would historically and traditionally a knowledge of Biblical content from Old Testament courses, New Testament courses on different books of the Bible. Theological would be traditionally systematic theology. A subset of that is often Biblical theology as well as the study of church history. Then, in practical, you see the application of the Biblical and theological to life in the context of ministry through, I've listed several here for you, prayer, evangelism, discipleship, missions, preaching, teaching, leadership, personal ethics, church development, counseling, and social ethics, just to name some of the more foundational concepts where a church leader needs to have these knowledge competencies.
To look at these more specifically under Bible content, just to give you an example. Bible content, the mature leader knows and demonstrates how to apply Old Testament, New Testament content to real life and ministry. In terms of Bible languages, knows and demonstrates how to use the original languages in preparation for effective teaching and preaching. Then, in Bible interpretation, knows and demonstrates how to apply sound principles and methods of Bible interpretation in preparation for effective teaching and preaching. Now, in the area of doctrine, Bible doctrine, knows and demonstrates how to apply systematic and Biblical theology to real life and ministry.
Apologetics and philosophy, knows and demonstrates how to defend the Christian faith against false religions and philosophies. Then, in church history, knows and demonstrates how to apply practical insights to today's issues drawn from the development of Bible doctrine and church mission in history.
What I want you to notice here with all of these, even the knowledge competencies, I want you to notice the critical importance of how every category, even in the knowledge competencies, is actually defined in terms of not just the knowledge itself but the application of that knowledge to life and ministry. This is the first component of five, the leadership competency profile. After this session, we will then take a deeper look at the concept of leadership assessment to compare and contrast one's own competencies with the model to determine those particular areas where learning methods need to be developed and then learning outcomes measured and the process continuing from there.
Leadership Assessment
In this session, we will be looking at the Leaders Assessment. This is the second component of the five components in this leadership development model that we are doing a survey of called a competency, or an outcome based model. Last time we looked at the leader profile. That is what does a mature leader look like, the concept of starting with the end in mind, clearly defined. Then we come to this component called leader assessment, which will be the focus of this session, and then after the assessment is made, learning methods are implemented. This includes a learning contract that we will look at more deeply in the next lesson, and it also includes the application and implementation of what’s called andragogy adult learning methods or adult learning principles.
And, then the outcomes are actually evaluated, and the discrepancies that are found, the areas that were not successfully developed. Then go back into the process, not only often to impact the learning methods, but also the leadership profile and the assessment process itself. So with that overview, let’s drill more deeply now into this second component called leadership assessment. Now, in the assessment process, what we are doing again by review is assessing three categories of competencies, character, ministry and knowledge of Biblical theological and practical competencies. This assessment is called a 360 assessment, which means that you are seeking feedback or assessment responses from people that actually encircle you. Examples would be you want a supervisor, someone who is over you or who has been over you in the past, such as an employer, some leader that you have been under.
Laterally, it would be feedback and assessment from your spouse if you’re married or an associate, someone who has worked alongside you, and then a subordinate. This would be if you were an employer, someone who was an employee as you were or are as a subordinate of a supervisor. Now, to understand what the process actually looked like online, I want you to notice here that you will be sent a link that will bring you to a webpage that looks like this, and here you’ll see some introductory comments telling you that this has been designed to take less than 30 minutes. Although you may take as long as you’d like, it consists of 95 questions in the three categories that we have surveyed, character, skill, and knowledge. And, the assessment can only be taken once and all of your answers will be kept confidential and your assessors, your references will also be honored by their responses being kept confidential as well.
Although you will see a collective average of all of them together in the bar graphs that I’ll show you in just a second, but before we go to that notice in the lower left, when you come to this page, you will choose the menu at the bottom left part of the page and as you noticed the arrow there, you would actually click on person being assessed. And when you send this link to these people, they too will get this same page, but as you can see in the fall down or drop down menu that they would choose spouse, associate, supervisor, or subordinate, and I think there’s also an other category on there as well. And so, what you are doing as well as these other people is actually going through, you are actually going through these 95 questions and they are too, and you were doing a self-assessment while they are doing their own assessment and then you will be able to compare the results.
Now, before we look at what the comparison will look like, what the analysis sheets will look like, let me just give you an example of the three categories of what the actual online assessment looks like. Character competencies assessment. This one, as you can see here, if you’ll look where the arrow is, these are the questions from first Timothy three. Every particular competency has the Greek term there with it, and a one sentence definition. The same with ministry competencies in terms of a one sentence definition, and you can see the scale of one to five from strongly disagree to strongly agree. And then there are the knowledge competencies as well that we reviewed. And you can see the same continuum in the same categories. Now, after you have filled this out and all of your references have also filled it out, you will receive a profile report, a pdf file via email, and the cover page will look something like this, and then you will have an analysis of all of the responses of those who have assessed you.
Here’s an example in terms of a character competency assessment. This character competency, as you can look at the bottom left part of the page is hospitality. And if you will notice the bar graphs, notice that the scale of the Y axis over on the left side of the page zero, one, two, three, shows that there were four respondents. You were one of them, so that means you gave yourself either an agree or strongly agree, and the other three people who took this assessment, also one of them agreed with you, and then two of them went into the other category of either agree or strongly agree. In terms of ministry competencies here’s another example of the ministry competency of prayer knows, demonstrates and can affectively equip others to be devoted to personal family group and corporate prayer.
Notice here a different division of those who have evaluated and assessed you. One disagreed, two neutral, and one agreed, and you were one of those four responses and knowledge competencies the same. This is the knowledge competency of Bible interpretation in terms of knowing and demonstrating how to apply sound principles and methods of Bible interpretation, and preparation for effective teaching and preaching. Notice that two responses were neutral. One was agreed, one was strongly agree and again, you were one of those four. And so, what we have seen so far is we have looked at the leadership competency profile and then we have just reviewed the process by which you are able to assess your own competencies and see similarity, and dissimilarity, with that profile by looking at your own responses as well as those who know you the best, above you laterally, besides you, and those who work for you or under you.
Then in the sessions to come, we will look at learning methods that, how to take the results of this assessment and turn them into a learning contract that can be executed using adult learning principles. And then we’ll learn a bit more detail about how to evaluate the outcomes to see whether the objectives were actually accomplished and measurable means of determining that. And then entering into this as an ongoing process of evaluation and implementation, that becomes more of a way of life.