A men’s ministry in New York City recently released a series of courses that it calls “Challenge-based Discipleship.” That might sound like a new approach but it’s really just a fresh take on an age-old method for personal growth. And it’s something we’d be wise to get back to when it comes to our growth as leaders, regardless of our gender.
Here’s the premise behind the courses: “Most men in the church are not being formed; they’re being informed. Events create moments, and content creates knowledge, but neither consistently creates transformation.”
The problem this ministry identified in its effort to help men grow spiritually is also a common problem in all training and development, but especially when it comes to leadership. We emphasize information and content knowledge, but that’s only part of what we need to truly develop as leaders.
What turns knowledge into something transformational?
Challenge. A defined problem with a clear finish line that we can take on, preferably with others, to build habits and sustainable leadership muscle.
There are at least two ways leaders can pursue this type of transformative growth, not only for themselves but for their teams.
One, make sure it’s baked into your formal training.
The best training and development includes more than a sage on a stage at a conference or a required learning module with a quiz at the end. It also has practical “go do it” aspects.
If you’re training people to run a machine, they need to actually practice running the machine. They need to prove their proficiency. And if you’re teaching people to think and behave as better leaders, they need challenges that force them to think and behave with the leadership qualities you want them to have.
Whoever develops your training, whether they are internal or external, needs to set the bar high when it comes to creative challenges that take you and your team out of your comfort zone and force you to put theory into practice until it becomes habit.
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Two, embrace real-life challenges as learning opportunities.
When we’re in the middle of a crisis, it’s easy to hyper focus on creating the solutions that get us back to normal. Then when the crisis passes, we can find ourselves complaining about what went wrong or how hard it was to overcome the obstacles or how unfair life was during the process.
In doing so, we miss the benefits of the struggle.
But what if the journey really is the reward?
What if we debrief what happened and how we handled it in ways that reinforce the best leadership skills so that we can build them into lasting habits, not just to use during a crisis but in everyday situations?
It’s been said that we either step forward into growth or backward into safety. That implies that stepping forward into growth isn’t safe – it is, while not necessarily dangerous, challenging. It stretches us. And it transforms us into a better version of ourselves.
The butterfly, while struggling to break free of its chrysalis, pushes fluid into its wings and thereby develops the strength to fly as a fully transformed creature. Likewise, leaders who don’t embrace and learn from their struggles will never learn to fly. They will be grounded and wither away, missing the opportunity to soar.
So what challenges are you embracing? And how will they transform your leadership?
