This city is going to be packed with leaders!

That’s what I thought when we first began to plant Hoboken Grace. Almost every person I encountered was in some type of leadership position in their career.

This is going to be incredible. Our church is never going to lack leaders!

I could not have been more mistaken. To this day I continue to be amazed at the lack of leadership in leadership positions within corporate America. I meet people in high-level leadership positions who have absolutely no leadership ability. It’s astounding.

Beyond that, I almost never hear of leadership training within the workplace.

I hear of industry training. But I never hear of leadership training. I hear of skill training and systems training, but never leadership training.

How can this happen? How can you make sure it doesn’t happen within your workplace?

When I talk to people about this they get really overwhelmed. You don’t need to. It’s not really complicated, and the great news is that your people have probably never been trained in leadership, so you don’t have to be an expert trainer to blow them away. You just have to start.

Ask yourself:

1).When was the last time I trained my leaders in the responsibilities of a leader?

— Communicating vision

— Relationship management

— Managing morale

— Evaluation

— Innovation

— Training

— Recruitment

Are you actually training them to lead or are you just training them to do a job that you call a “leader”?

2). Where can I find one hour a month to sit them down and train them in one of those things?

You don’t need to do this every week. You don’t have time to do this every week. You do have time to do this monthly. Put this in place, and you’ll find that it will become one of their favorite meetings of the month.

3). Who needs to be there?

Invite your leaders, but also invite anyone you think might be a leader in the future. One of your jobs, as a leader, is recruitment. This is a benefit you can use to recruit people into leadership within your organization.

“I see you stepping up. I’m not sure if you know, but we have a leadership development meeting once a month. I’d love to have you join us.”

4). What will I cover?

Build your training around those eight responsibilities. If you feel you’ve developed in those areas, teach them what you’ve learned. If you feel you haven’t, pick up a leadership book and begin to teach them one chapter a month.

Here are some great ones to begin with:

— 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

— Good to Great

— 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

— Strengths-Based Leadership

These are all written in a format that allows you to teach individual chapters.

5). When should I start?

Now! Put a time on the calendar and let your team know that you’re going to try something this month and see how it goes. (Always tell your team you’re trying something instead of changing something. I’ll talk about this in another post.) Choose one topic and get started. You need leaders. They rarely drop into your lap. You have to develop them. Go.