Leadership: Creating a Leadership Pipeline
Discipleship is a long obedience in the same direction, and the Square teaches us that different stages require different kinds of leadership. Mike Breen
Gregg’s Reflection
As we began to grow our business after our father died, we realized we needed people who were learners, who would take risk and grow. My father’s management culture was one of micromanagement that caused people to wait for direction so as not to be upbraided rather than take initiative. As we made those expectations clear, we saw just about a 100% turnover in our management team.
We worked to create a leadership pipeline, creating a career path of increasing responsibility, delegating and empowering others. As I led our sales force, I realized some were more ready to be empowered, and I gave them more authority. Those new to sales and the team, I made come back to me for approval before making any decisions. Some of them would consistently bring me deals with the minimum margin I would accept. For them, I gave a short leash. More mature sales people would bring me some deals at low margin, and others at a higher margin. To them I gave a longer leash.
In that way, I grew into situational leadership. I had taken a Management and Marketing classes at night early in my time at the company. I was introduced to what was known as as the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Model, which advocated:
Leaders should adjust their style based on:
- The competence and commitment of the person they’re leading
- The specific task or situation
Four leadership styles emerge:
- Directing – High direction, low support
- Coaching – High direction, high support
- Supporting – Low direction, high support
- Delegating – Low direction, low support
This model emphasizes adaptive leadership, which aligns well with contemplative discernment and spiritual leadership that listens for the needs of the moment. I embodied this model as I worked to equip future leaders in our business.
The fruit of this work was a tremendous growth curve, as our head count went from 80 to 325 and we built out eleven locations serving three separate businesses across the state of Georgia.
This image depicts how effective churches equip people to live out their calling. We are changed by our experience of the Holy. We are then helped to discern our spiritual gifts. Our Calling is the intersection of our gifts and our passion. We are then Equipped to live into our calling. As we are Sent, we search for and discern the vehicle to live out our calling. It took me almost a decade after discerning my calling to find the vehicle to live it out.
When I left the business world, I discerned my calling: To bring the best of leadership from the secular world into equipping a next generation of leaders for the Kingdom.
I began to lean into learning about discipleship and church planting, and a key concept was multiplication. Mike Foss was the first Lutheran pastor to write about discipleship in the modern era with his book Power Surge: Six Marks of Discipleship for a Changing Church. As I worked with another Lutheran Leader, Al Sagar, we partnered with Mike Foss to do leadership and discipleship workshops across our Southeastern Synod.
Later, I waded into the work of 3DM Movements. There I encountered Mike Breen and his LifeShapes. When I saw the square, I recognized it as the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership model I had used for years (Although I saw no attribution in Breen’s writing about the source of the square).
The Square is a LifeShape developed by Mike Breen and 3DM to model the process of intentional discipleship. Other of their LifeShapes are embedded in the quadrant where they are useful. The Square visually represents the stages of leadership development, moving through four phases using the classic mentoring pattern:
- I do, you watch (R1, S1)
- I do, you help (R2, S2)
- You do, I help (R3, S3)
- You do, I watch (R4, S4)
In my career, and later in church, I encountered people who resisted delegating because it slows down the work. But, I was happy to teach others how to do what I did, because then I could move on to bigger tasks. Let me ask you: How do I handle letting others into my process—even when it slows things down?
I added elements like the LifeShapes and descriptions based on how you equip spiritual leaders. Many I encountered still held to the modern principle of first you learn, then you act. Mike Foss had helped me see that today, most people learn by doing, reversing that model. So, I created this image to help people understand that you don’t have to reach the mountaintop before you reach out to lend a hand to others, helping them see the next step in their own leadership.
Come along and see how situational leadership and the square offer tremendous potential in multiplying leadership in your church, nonprofit or business. Blessings
Journaling Prompts
Who is watching me right now, whether I realize it or not? Am I modeling the kind of life I want others to imitate? Am I willing to take a step back and support rather than control? What’s the fruit of the people I’ve invested in? What is God inviting me to celebrate, grieve, or release?
Scripture
The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning, he wakens-wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.
Isaiah 50:4. Teachers can never stop being the student with the beginner’s mind.
Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
Matthew 4:19. Jesus begins with modeling—inviting disciples to watch and walk with Him.
Go and make disciples of all nations… teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
Matthew 28:19–20. Commissioning at Stage 4—“You do, I watch.”
He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach.
Mark 3:14. Stage 1–2: Presence with Jesus precedes being sent—‘I do, you help’
The things you have heard me say… entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.
2 Timothy 2:2. Paul articulates the generational vision of the Square—disciples who make disciples.
In the same way you received from us how you ought to live… now do so more and more.
1 Thessalonians 4:1 Paul reflecting on the Square in action with the church in Thessalonica.
Ancient Writings
What the soul is in the body, that Christians are in the world… what they have learned, they pass on.”
Epistle to Diognetus, c. 130 AD. Emphasizes embodied witness and multiplication.
We must follow the way of the Lord with discernment, imitating the saints, and training others to do likewise.
St. Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians
No one becomes wise all at once. We learn by being taught, and we teach by being learned.
St. Augustine, De Magistro (On the Teacher)
Whoever instructs others should first live as he teaches.
St. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Rule, Book I, Chapter 10. The pattern of modeling before delegating, Stage 1 of the Square.
Modern Writings
We do not think ourselves into new ways of living; we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.
Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs, p. 21
Effective leadership is not about always using the same style, but using the style that the situation requires.
Paul Hersey, Management of Organizational Behavior: Utilizing Human Resources
There is no one best way to influence people. What works with one person today may not work with the same person tomorrow.
Paul Hersey, The Situational Leader
Leadership is the process of influencing people to get things done to a standard and quality above their norm.
Paul Hersey, The Situational Leader
The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.
Ken Blanchard, The One Minute Manager
In the past, a leader was a boss. Today’s leaders must be partners with their people… they no longer can lead solely based on positional power.
Ken Blanchard, Leadership and the One Minute Manager
People who feel good about themselves produce good results.
Ken Blanchard, The Heart of a Leader
The Square helps us understand how people learn. Jesus used this pattern to train the disciples—starting with modeling, moving through coaching and release.
Mike Breen, Building a Discipling Culture, p. 72
Discipleship is a long obedience in the same direction, and the Square teaches us that different stages require different kinds of leadership.
Mike Breen, Building a Discipling Culture, p. 74
You can’t treat everyone the same way in leadership. The Square reminds us that support and challenge must shift as people grow.
Mike Breen, Multiplying Missional Leaders
At Stage 2, we need to offer high support and high challenge. At Stage 3, we begin to give them room to fail and learn. This is how Jesus built leaders.”
Mike Breen, Building a Discipling Culture, p. 77
You don’t build leaders by giving them a book and a prayer. You walk with them. You model, mentor, and multiply.
Mike Breen, teaching material from 3DM Leader Huddles