Here are possible areas of leadership development for your church, para-church or mission that could be covered in a series of Leadership Development Events (LDE) spread over 12-18 months. These (and other subjects you could request) could be designed into a series of Leadership Development Events, each consisting of a couple of days total. These could be held every 2-3 months; giving time between allows people to assimilate and implement the learning. Practical assignments in between the Learning Events ensure the learning is implemented and practised. We train key staff to coach the rest of the staff and lay people to implement learning. This could be the beginning of a culture of supportive coaching in your church, para-church or mission organization.
We suggest beginning with the first one, Leading From your Strengths, with both paid staff, board and lay leaders. This sets a positive tone and language for the entire leadership in the organization.
The remainder of the LDEs could be selected from this list in order or need, and ensuring that each builds on previous presentations. We would design this with you to ensure maximum fit and benefit to your organization.
| Subject | Description and Outcomes | Length of Workshop |
| Leading From Your Strengths | This module helps students understand their God-given personality, appreciate their strengths and weaknesses, and understand others better. Students take an online assessment that is surprisingly accurate in describing who they are. Self understanding is a critical component of effective leadership; understanding others and knowing how to work with them is fundamental to leadership success. Appreciation of personality gifting and common language around types. How you lead from your personality strength, and how to relate to different personality types. | One day |
| Boards | Global understanding of board and staff around governance and role clarification. Productive organizations have an appreciative and cooperative synchronization of roles and responsibilities between governing board and staff. Without a clear understanding, this relationship is often strained. This workshop results in a clear understanding of how the whole organization functions, and the appropriate lines of authority and communication. Practical tips sprinkled through the presentation make this more than theory; you can immediately lift the effectiveness of your board with this module. | Half day |
| How to have coaching conversations | This is a very different kind of conversation! It is not counseling or mentoring. Most people have never felt the benefit of a genuine coaching conversation. Students are introduced to ways to have coaching conversations with people. Students are given opportunity in the modules to actually practice this new way of conversation. When learned and practiced well, this kind of conversation deeply impacts the trajectory of people’s lives, and moves them into action. | One day |
| How to Supervise Staff and volunteers | Most people quit their job because of the relationship with their immediate supervisor. This workshop details how to supervise staff so that they love working in your organization.Supervising Volunteers:A major responsibility of church staff is working with volunteers. You must get this right, or people simply will not work with you. | One day |
| I hate meetings! | Teams have to meet; and yet meetings are often deplored. That’s because meetings too often are difficult, boring, don’t result in discernible action, or go too long. Knowing that there are four kinds of meetings and being clear what kind of meeting you are having goes a long way to making these necessary encounters something to actually look forward to. | Half day |
| Managing yourself | The most difficult person to lead is yourself! Managing yourself is one of the signs of emotional maturity. No one else can do this for you. This workshop will give you an understanding of what healthy relationships look like, and how to move toward resilience. Having resilience means you can bounce back from adversity. Understand the inner and outer factors that contribute to resilience. | One day |
| Building Trust | Without trust very little happens in an organization; everything slows down and people leave. This workshop takes this nebulous and slippery subject and puts actionable handles on it. There are things you can do to increase trust! | Half day |
| How to Change things without blowing everything up | Any organization with vision has ‘a preferred future,’ a picture of where they want to go. It always means changing something – and this will bring tension into the picture. This workshop will explain why change is resisted, even when we know it is good. Find out practical ways and tools to introduce change without blowing everything up. | One day |
| Understanding the inner workings of change | Change is what’s happening on the outside; but inside there is a whole other emotional complexity going on that we often don’t understand or talk about. In this workshop you will gain insight into yourself, your co-workers, and your clients. | |
| Self-awareness | This module helps leaders become aware of their blind spots, and how to minimize them. It also delves into the inner fears and restraints that hinder a leader from being all that God meant them to be. This module enables the leader to become more aware of their inner life, and gives them practical steps to get past the hindrances that hobble their leadership effectiveness. | Half day |
| Personal Organization | Personal organization is essential for leaders to get things done. Unless one has a system to handle the stream of information, decisions and tasks that come to your desk, you will be overwhelmed and rendered ineffective. Leaders who do not carry through on their commitments are not intentionally doing so, but simply are “too busy.” Leaders must discipline themselves to manage the details of life. This module helps leaders get a grip on this frustrating side of life. | Half day |
| Conflict Management | Working with people can be your greatest strength, or your greatest pain. Conflict inevitably occurs in any group – the way it is handled will determine whether your leadership will go up or down. This full day training on conflict will open your eyes to the complexity of this painful subject, and what you can do about it. You must deal with this or accumulated unfinished relationships will dog you the rest of your life. | One day |
| Robust Conversation | This training will show you how to have conversations that get below the surface of things. Those who master this skill will find their influence rise significantly. Leadership is all about relationship, and relationship is formed in conversation. You must get better at communication and conversation to move your leadership up. | One day |
| Strategic Planning | Organizations must have a way to move forward together. This module will explain ways to make a plan that is more than a piece of paper in a binder on the shelf. Doing this well, and following through on it, makes a massive difference in the effectiveness of your organization. |
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