Sunday, February 3, 2008

Next Generation Leader

“The Next Generation Leader” was my first taste of Andy Stanley and my my did it taste good.
This is a great examination of 5 qualities that Andy calls “Essentials” and I agree.
They are Competence, Courage, Clarity, Coaching, and Character.
When I worked in a sporting goods store and saw the other managers function,
I saw very clearly the truth behind what Andy is talking about. Each of these qualities is essential for good leadership.
One of the qualities I see most clearly missing from many of the people I worked with is courage.
Without this you are handicap to carryout the rest. Without character you have no compass to guide you in how to empower rather than use people. Without competency you don’t know how or even what to teach people to succeed.
And without clarity you get lost in the millions of details that attack the leader and demand their attention everyday,
then soon no-one around you knows what is going on because of the lack of clear goals and objectives.
As a follower of Jesus Christ there is much to learn in here. I also loaned it to one of the managers I work with who isn’t a Christian, he was one of my leadership coaches, to see what he thought of it.
He really liked the 5 qualities and agreed that those are what you need to be a great leader.
He did have a hard time with some of the illustrations since they were Bible illustrations.
Not that he disagreed with them, they were just foreign to him.
But that spurred countless discussions about how Jesus spent time with and trained his (future leaders) disciples.
This book is a great resource to learn, refine, and articulate leadership lessons, plus it is a great outreach tool.

2 comments:

Coach Smith said...

I really like "Visioneering" as well.

Unknown said...

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