I've spent a lot of time the past month or so thinking about the core leadership functions of a Kids' City Campus Director here at CCC. If you haven't read previous posts describing the difference between our Campus and Catalyst staff roles, you may want to read this before continuing...
I think I've settled on 5 core functions that I'd like to tell you about in a series of posts. After I've explained all 5 I'd like to share some thoughts on how understanding these 5 functions might be helpful in staffing decisions, team building, and development plans. I'm calling them "Leadership Buckets" because I think we need to think about these core functions as leadership skills or qualities that people possess in differing measures. Rarely will a person have a "full bucket" in all 5 areas. The amount in some buckets can increase through development and experience. Others might remain fixed.
So the first bucket? I think it is Vision and Strategy. I think of Vision as the ability to see what God is desiring us to become. In The One Thing You Need to Know, Marcus Buckingham says that a leader is preoccupied with the future. "In his head he carries a vivid image of what the future could be and this image drives him on." Leaders are fascinated by the future, restless for change, impatient for progress. They can't help but see beyond where we are today to what we could become. They are always dreaming, always scheming, always looking beyond the "what is" to the "what could be."
A leader knows where the ministry is going...or at least is constantly thinking about it in search of the future God desires.
But coupled with vision is the ability to develop a Strategy leading to that future. This strategy includes many things but starts with casting the vision to others. Leaders paint a picture of the future that others embrace. But vision casting is just the starting point of strategic thinking. Once a Campus Director sees the vision, her mind begins to flood with thoughts of how to get from point A to point B. She begins to think in steps. These steps provide focus and a way to measure progress towards the future. The strategy is the roadmap to the future. It will need to be tweaked along the way, but a leader doesn't mind these revisions. Thinking, talking, executing, and evaluating strategy is the leader's hobby.
So the first leadership bucket for a Campus Director is Vision and Strategy. The second bucket is essential to the first. Without the second, the strategy won't be executed and the vision won't be realized. Stay tuned...
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