FIVE NEW RULES FOR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT FOR TODAY:
1. Embrace Boring
Can you slow, sit, and show up week after week? This is repetitive, and can be a grind.
2. Develop the Whole Person
You don’t need to know everything, but you must know yourself & your people.
3. Stay Curious
You don’t need to know everything, but you must know yourself & your people.
4. Value Time Differently
Your time is the new secret sauce. You want to develop people, BUT your calendar is full. You’re doing too much. You must choose.
5. Keep a Different Scorecard
A teaching church will measure this. The next you will get measured just like attendance and involvement.
Who on your team could do part of your job a year from now if you started handing pieces of it over today?
That question isn’t a threat to your position. It’s the difference between being someone people rely on and someone people can build on.
We once worked with a leader who used to tell her resident, “Come after my job!” We love that. That’s what this rule looks like in practice. Ask it early, ask it often. “Who’s the next you?” isn’t only a question for the senior leader at 63. The rookie at 23 needs to answer it too. In your church, it should be a normal part of every leadership role.
So make it a regular question in your one-on-ones. Don’t save it for an emergency, when someone has just resigned. Change what you measure. Churches that have fully embraced the teaching church model actually track this. If your ministry area grew 15% but you have no “next you,” that’s a problem, and it should show up on the scorecard
You’re getting squeezed from both directions, and that actually works in your favor. The generation above you has pattern recognition you don’t have yet. The generation coming up has energy and instincts you’re starting to lose. Because you’re in the middle, you can draw them toward each other instead of just passing a baton and stepping aside.
Don’t wait for someone older to mentor you formally. Ask them a direct question about something you’re facing right now. And don’t wait for the person coming up to prove themselves before you bring them in. Invite them into the room today. Think of it less like a relay race and more like a table everyone stays at.
Be honest about what you’re holding onto.
Why are you still doing the thing you could hand off? It’s rarely because they can’t do it. It’s because watching them fumble is uncomfortable, and doing it yourself is faster. That instinct feels like care. It’s actually control, and it quietly keeps someone underdeveloped. It’s draining your pipeline.
Think about how you learned: the hard way, under real pressure, when someone let you carry something before you felt ready. That’s still how it works. Readiness comes from responsibility, not before it. There’s a fine line between letting a young leader fail forward and letting them fail in a way that takes them out. Walking that line is the real skill here, and you learn it over time. These things are coached not taught.
So now it’s your move.
Find one real thing, like a budget line, a meeting or a decision, and hand it over completely. Don’t hover. Let them own the outcome, good or bad.
Then get together and talk about it.