Self-Development in Your Ministry Plan By Reggie McNeal

Focusing on Self-Development Lets Leaders Up for Success

A leader inside leadership requires self-development to achieve greater effectiveness. Great leaders never stop developing. Three key practices—lifelong learning, building on strengths, and developing failure tolerance – show up commonly in great leaders who adopt the discipline of self-development as a life habit.

Lifelong Learning

Lifelong learning takes many forms. Some leaders pursue academic studies; others attend seminars and conferences. Some leaders take up new hobbies or sports.  Many take on new leadership challenges or assignments as paths for learning.

The leader’s cognitive style typically impacts their preferred learning processes. Some leaders go inside themselves when they process information, preferring reading, writing, and reflecting as ways to figure out what they think or to take in new material they need to move forward. Others come to their conclusions externally, some not knowing what they believe until they hear themselves or others say it. Their learning experiences almost always involve others through discussion and dialog, even debate.

Leaders who engage in lifelong learning have two characteristics. First, they are intentional about it. Their self-development is not haphazard or random. Their path is not necessarily designed with a detailed destination in mind (like a terminal degree), but they know what they want to explore and have a strategy to get there. Second, their learning journeys are crafted to expose them to new ideas. These leaders are curious. They want to have new conversations, make new acquaintances, and face new challenges.

Lifelong UnLearning

Lifelong learning often means lifelong unlearning. The learning curve usually proves steeper than the learning curve. The fields of unlearning range across a broad spectrum of issues. They can include psychological insights that leaders have about themselves. (ex: what emotional problems threaten to derail the leader?). Leadership competencies and practices can also be reviewed (e.g., the move from hierarchical command-and-control leadership to collaborative leadership).

Lifelong learning is not an option for leaders who want to remain relevant. Those who refuse to engage in lifelong unlearning set themselves up to be relics of a previous world. They die in place, even if they don’t get “buried” for several more years.

Building on Strengths

Great leaders differ from good leaders partly because of the degree to which they have developed and built on their strengths. These leaders have figured out that their best shot at making their greatest contribution to the world is for them to get better at what they are already good at. So they have decided to focus on identifying and developing their talent.

Talent matters. The sooner we figure this out, the sooner we can cooperate with God in figuring out our best contribution.

Leaders have access to many surveys and instruments that can help them identify their talents. Even without the help of a research instrument, leaders can gain strength awareness if they pay attention to a few key indicators: what gives them a sense of accomplishment, where do they see glimpses of excellence in their performance, what areas of learning come quickly and easily for them, where is there evidence of sustained growth, and—so importantly—what complimentary feedback have they received from those in their leadership constellation?

Developing Through Failure

Although no one wants to get good at failure, leaders must learn to deal with the inevitable. Some failures seek you out; others are self-manufactured. All failures give the leader a choice: seeing failure as a derailment or an opportunity for self-development.

All of us are tempted to take the low road when we fail. Blaming, hiding, recriminating, excusing, and diverting are just a few practices if this is the leader’s chosen path. But it doesn’t work. The negative impact of these approaches needs little amplification.

Leaders who choose to grow through failure admit their mistakes, accept responsibility, clean up the mess as much as possible, mourn the losses, accept trusted others’ direction, reassess personal values (if violated), and establish new behaviors and accountabilities.

Don’t let your leadership die prematurely!

Stay vibrant as a leader! Adopt some key self-development practices: keep learning, focus on building on your strengths, and be determined to grow through failure.

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Reggie McNeal is a Christian thought leader. For over thirty years, he has dedicated himself to helping everyday people and other leaders pursue more intentional lives. His professional experience is wide-ranging, including serving as a denominational executive, congregational leader, leadership coach, and founding pastor of a new church. He has also lectured and taught as adjunct faculty for multiple seminaries, served as a church ministry consultant, and advised in the business sector.

Enjoy the entire Seven-Week Series – Practicing Greatness

1. Self-Awareness and Why It’s Critical
2. Self-Management is Critical to Success
3. Self-Development in Your Ministry Plan
4. What Mission Are You On?
5. Make Better Decisions
6. Who Do You Belong To?
7. The Discipline of Aloneness

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