How do you identify & recruit leaders? (pt 1)

One of the questions that I get asked all the time is, “How do you raise up volunteer leaders?” It’s a great question… if we’re all talking about the same thing.

If you just want a warm body in a room of kids to keep them from running off or killing each other, that’s one thing (personally, I’d suggest raising the bar a bit).

A different tactic is needed if you want highly qualified and motivated leaders who will take ownership and really invest in developing relationships with families that will lead them toward a growing relationship with Jesus. This is who we want leading at Access Church. This is who we will focus the next few posts on.

First, leaders are already leading, but maybe not in a formal role in your organization. Look for who is already gathering people together socially, managing projects or people at work, starting a new company or venture, or has unique talents like creativity or detail-orientedness (is that a word?). This requires spending time with and knowing people in your organization.

Second, leaders don’t always volunteer themselves. You may need to build a relationship and then ask them to join the team. Remember that a leader wants to lead and usually leads out of a strong sense of purpose. This means you need to be prepared to articulate a clear mission, purpose, vision, and win so that the leader will be a partner going with you in the same direction. You’ll also need to have a specific role prepared for them.

Don’t forget it means that you’ll need take a risk to trust them to actually lead. It means risking they may fail or they may do things differently than you.

You may also end up surrounded by people who are better than you… how awesome would that be!

Come back for the follow up posts on actual, practical strategies to identify and recruit leaders (we’ll save training them for another discussion).