Leading from the In-Between. John McAuley
No matter how skilled, how gifted, how competent, no one person is entirely sufficient for all situations. That’s where team leadership comes into play.
The third is the sphere of organizational leadership. You know you are in this sphere when the purpose of your leadership serves someone else who is expecting value. When I try to get on a hockey team, it’s about personal leadership—my own skill, drive and discipline are what help me reach my goal. When I’m the captain of the team, it’s about team leadership—we train and play together with the goal of winning our games. But when I am the general manager of Team Canada, it’s about enterprise leadership—because our team’s purpose is much bigger than just winning a game. We also carry the hopes of the fans and the nation, alongside pleasing sponsors and meeting expectations.
If you struggle with leading self, you will struggle with leading others. And if you struggle with leading others, you will struggle with leading an enterprise. This book tackles the challenges of leadership in all three spheres.
This book is about emerging leaders.
Born in the late 1980s or early 1990s, emerging leaders live in a different world than the one I grew up in and face challenges I never had to address.
Today’s young people live in a world marked by more accelerated change than at any other moment in human history. Many of them will grow up to work in jobs that have not yet been invented, using technology we cannot yet imagine. The list of acceptable options for their lifestyle choices, family models, education, religious expressions and moral practices is more expansive than it has ever been before. Their social, cultural and belief landscape is shifting sand.
We often speak as if young people have created the world in which they live. But the truth is, they have inherited it. Pluralism, relativism, consumerism, technological innovation, postmodernism—this is the only world they have ever known. As one of my mentors, Don Posterski, says, they have inherited in the micro what the older generation of adults have put in place in the macro.
These emerging leaders are the group of people I work with in my role as president and CEO of Muskoka Woods. The decade between age 16 and 26 can be a period of incredible leadership formation. Over the years, I have crossed paths with thousands of young people in this stage, and I have had the privilege of giving mentoring, coaching and spiritual direction to many. Along the way, I have seen that the nature of the world they live in creates particular strengths and challenges for them as leaders. In such a time as this, how do we develop emerging leaders?
This book aims to deepen understanding about where emerging leaders are at and what kind of world they live in. It aims to inspire and equip young people—and the coaches, mentors and sages that accompany them—to look at the world and say “It doesn’t have to be this way” and do something about it.
Finally, this book is about leadership development.
Venture capital investors step out on the edge and throw their weight behind ideas that are unproven and risky—but also carry the potential for being highly profitable. The art is seeking out these ideas in their early stages, before they are clearly valuable to the rest of the world. Venture capital investors invest not only in what things are but also in what they can become.
Leadership development is also a venture. It has both risk and reward. If we are convinced that leaders are strong, visionary and successful, that is who we will seek, and that is what we will equip people to become. Often it seems that people only want to invest in those who have “arrived.”
When it comes to young people and to leadership development, I’m more interested in the people who are rough around the edges. All of us—you, me, any young person we ever encounter—are unfinished. Each of us are both being and becoming. Many emerging leaders are easily missed. Nurturing leaders is not automatic. Leadership development with emerging leaders takes a vision of who young people are and who they can become. It takes intention, and it takes great tools.
The heart of this book is a simple but powerful way to pursue leadership development with young people:
•SEE…emerging leaders for who they are and who they can become.
•STRETCH…emerging leaders to do and be more than they thought possible.
•SUPPORT…emerging leaders as they both succeed and fail.2
To develop leaders that say “It doesn’t have to be this way” and do something about it, you need a framework for change, a philosophy of understanding how people are transformed and how they develop. “See–stretch–support” is that overarching philosophy of leadership development. Whether you are talking about corporate leadership or spiritual formation, a framework to guide your strategy of leadership development is tremendously helpful. The see-stretch-support framework is echoed in other writing and thinking on leadership development. It builds on the wisdom of others and fits with our lived experience with emerging leaders.
BUILDING THE RIGHT SUBSTRUCTURE
I am not an engineer, but I have learned that there are two major components to bridge building. The first is the substructure. It includes all of the things that provide support to the bridge—the abutments, the footings, the pilings and so on. The second is the superstructure, which includes all of the things that span the river—the bridge deck, the parapets, the sidewalk and so on. The substructure is dug into the earth or bedrock below and is usually unseen. The superstructure is visible, even from afar.
When bridges do not have the right substructure in place in the early stages of construction, they eventually give way and fall down. The same is true of leadership development for emerging leaders. If a solid substructure is not in place, there is great risk of collapse.
There are three critical components to the substructure of leadership development for young people:
•CHARACTER—being honest and true
•COMPETENCE—doing the right things the right way
•CADENCE—sustaining leadership by keeping in step with yourself, others and God
I have seen far too many leaders who showed great promise and potential in their teens and 20s crumble, lose heart or burn out by their 30s and 40s. If you don’t sort out the substructure at the beginning, you will deal with it later, sometimes at tremendous cost. It may be a collapse of character. It may be a failure of competence. Or it may be a crash of cadence. Either way, the substructure of leadership development, the footings, can and should be built in the early life of an emerging leader. This book aims to lay out why and how. The next chapters deepen each of these areas with key leadership development concepts, research and stories from real experience.
THE END GOAL OF LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT FOR EMERGING LEADERS
Leadership guru Stephen Covey famously wrote that leaders “begin with the end in mind.” Leadership is always about ends, goals and results.
What is the end goal for leadership development with young people? That young people would look at their world and say “It doesn’t have to be this way” and do something about it. They would be the bridge. Leadership is inextricably connected to change. Leadership begins with change, and leaders navigate change—by bridging the in-between, from the dissatisfied now to the preferred future.
What are the means to inspire and equip emerging leaders to shape their world? By building the substructure—cadence, character and competence.
This book is written for the mentors, coaches and sages who are pouring themselves into the next generation. You may be working with emerging leaders in the Christian context—in a church, youth organization or community program. Or you may be working with young people in other contexts—a school, community centre, club or team. Regardless of the in-between spaces in which you encounter young people, I believe you will find plenty of value here to carry into your work.
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