Campus Crusade's Leadership Model, developed by Mark McCloskey, is a powerful tool. The problem lies in its multifaceted design which includes relationships, roles, responsibilities, and resluts.
Here's the Leadership Model in all its glory:
It's extremely difficult to see the most helpful categories for a new staff member--the Present/Future X-Axis and the INTERNAL/EXTERNAL Y-Axis. Ninety-nine percent of the Leadership Model presentations I have heard focus on the 4 roles--Spokesperson, Coach, Direction Setter, Change Agent. The rest have focused on the relationships of a leader (the center circle and its Lord, Self, and Others).
Neither the roles nor the center circle address the fundamental challenge facing new staff members--discovering the intersection between the mission, vision, and values and their individual strengths, giftings, and passions. Many staff that 'burnout' find themselves consistently working out of their weaknesses.
The X and Y axis of the Leadership Model on the other hand can dramatically increase a new staff member's motivation and effectiveness. Consider my experience: As a new staff, I believed that I needed to be externally focused (because we are a missions organization), and orientated toward the Present (because that was the dominant culture of our organization and local team). After a few years on staff I realized that my strengths, giftings, and passions were the opposite of how I was working--internally focused and orientated towards the future.
How did I feel those first couple years on staff? Frustrated, tired, overwhelmed, anxious, and discouraged. Did I mention tired? I believe the dominant factor was connected to orientating myself around my weaknesses.
I simplified the Leadership Model to help myself and other staff notice these distinctions. Here's what it looks like:
For a staff to simply mark a dot along the X-axis and Y-axis that represents whether they are externally or internally focused, and orientated towards either today or tomorrow, would be a significant developmental step. It can provide a solid understanding of how to invest their time and why some roles and responsibilities drain and frustrate, while others energize and excite.
I believe these basic distinctions could be applied to any job, ministry or otherwise. There are a variety ways to use just this to help develop and care for staff members. Hopefully I'll get some blogs out that share some of the ways that I have found the leadership model helpful.
