The Four Major Leadership Competencies

I believe it was John Maxwell who first said, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” This can sound very secular and business-like but we see this pattern repeated over and over again in Scripture and throughout Church history. God used Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. He chose Joshua to lead them into the Promised Land. God chose David to unite the twelve tribes of Israel. It was the leadership of Nehemiah who rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. God chose the leadership of Paul to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles. He used St. Benedict to build the monastic system and St. Ignatius Loyola to build a missionary system that went out to the world. That’s just to name a few. 

Leadership can be defined in many ways. To me the best definition of leadership is “moving people from here to there.” Leaders know how to get a group of people to move together to where God is calling them to go, to build what God is calling them to build, and to have the impact God has called them to have. This doesn’t mean leaders are always pushing. They understand the rhythms of life and the need for times of rest; but ultimately, they understand the Church is a movement so it has got to move.  

As a young leader, I looked forward to the day when I arrived and had it all figured out. I’ve since learned there is no arrival. New situations stretch us in new ways and to quote the great theologian Don Henley, “All the things I thought I figured out, I have to learn again.” Leadership lessons I thought I understood, I have to figure out or learn in new ways. You can’t check the box of leadership and say, “I have learned that lesson, I have accomplished that.” Growing as a leader is an ongoing challenge. 

From my perspective, there are four major competencies of leadership we need to monitor and then grow as needed. In this blog, I will outline the four major areas and then in subsequent blogs dive deeper into them. 

The first major area of leadership is self-leadership. I use the word self-leadership loosely because on one hand I don’t know how else to describe it and on the other as Christians we should ultimately be led by the Lord. By self-leadership, I mean our ability to steward the gifts God has given us. Self-leadership is the ability to manage our time and priorities. Self-leadership means knowing how to rest and practice soul care so that we can last in ministry. Self-leadership understands that I am ridiculously in charge of my life and that I am ultimately responsible for it. To lead ourselves means we know our unique gifts and strengths as well as our weaknesses. Self-leadership looks to continually work on those strengths and minimize our weaknesses. It has been said that 50 percent of leadership is self-leadership. If you want to lead others well, first learn to lead and manage yourself under God’s authority, under the rule of the Good Shepherd. No one else can do this for you. This is why leadership of others begins with self-leadership. 

Change and transformation in an organization or department will always start with internal change and transformation in the leader. Growing, healthy parishes have growing, healthy pastors and senior leadership. Growing, healthy youth ministries have a growing, healthy leader of the department. Growing, healthy small groups have a growing, healthy small group leader. You get the idea. 

Executive function is the second major area of leadership, and constitutes the first thoughts that often come to mind when we think of leadership. This is the ability to cast and communicate a compelling vision for others and to continually pour vision into others because vision leaks. The executive function clearly communicates the mission and keeps the organization mission focused. While vision leaks, mission drifts. As leaders we must keep our organizations and teams from drifting off mission. 

The executive function means the ability to set and prioritize goals for our organizations and keep a team focused on them. In leadership we need to set a clear strategy for how we will achieve these goals. This area of leadership also means setting values for an organization and promoting the behaviors that support those values. 

The executive function knows how to bring alignment between vision, mission, values, strategy, and goals so that our team is working together. It is an intentionality that brings alignment. My friend Brian Rogers likes to say alignment is everything. Under this area of leadership, I would include running solid meetings that bring alignment and solutions to problems and opportunities. 

The third major area is interpersonal leadership. We cannot lead alone. No matter who you are, you have limits. Good leaders build good teams. Great leaders build great teams. This means we need to be on the lookout for talent and recruit players to our team. To use Jim Collins’s analogy, this kind of leadership looks to get the right people in the right seats on the bus. It learns to discern who will be good for our teams and who will be a detriment. Interpersonal leadership means recognizing and dealing with the people problems that inevitably occur instead of ignoring them. 

Interpersonal leadership means a willingness to delegate and promote others. This area of leadership recognizes that my weaknesses will be another person’s strengths.  It is looking to promote others by giving them not just tasks but responsibilities that will help them mature in character and grow their skills. 

Interpersonal leadership also is about relationships. We know we need to build connections and bonds with others if we are to truly lead them. Leading people is ultimately about leading people who have their own hopes, dreams, and goals. It is about wanting something for them and not just from them. We invite people to join us in our work and mission because we believe that they will grow and flourish as a result. 

The fourth major area is spiritual authority. This is one of the major differences between secular leadership and leadership in the Church. We are spiritual leaders and so our leadership must flow out of our relationship with the Lord. People listened to Jesus and followed him because he spoke as one having authority, not like the scribes and Pharisees who lacked authority because their walk didn’t match their talk. 

In Spiritual Authority: Partnering with God to Release the Kingdom, Rob Reimer notes that spiritual authority is rooted in our identity, expanded in intimacy, and activated by faith. Our spiritual authority comes as we continue to root our identity in Christ as beloved sons and daughters of God. It expands as we grow in intimacy with God in our own prayer life. And it is activated by faith. We grow in spiritual authority by taking bold risks for God. It is David taking on Goliath, Peter getting out of the boat, Paul launching out into his missionary journeys. 

We grow in leadership authority by our personal walk but then we need to bring that into our parishes and organizations. We need to lead by creating a culture in which we cultivate prayer and leading out of our spiritual authority. 

Over the next four blogs, we will dive deeper into each of these areas. Take a moment to give yourself a score between 1 and 5 in each of these areas. A “5” means you are excelling in it and a “1” means you have lots of work to do. This quick assessment will help you see how God is leading you to grow in the season ahead. 

Rooting for you,
Tom