Three Marks Of Leadership Maturity

One of my favorite people I’ve ever had the privilege to work for is a man named Gary Runn. Gary led the Campus Crusade region I’m a part of for about 20 years. Many influential leaders appear great from afar, but when you get close to them you begin to see through the veneer a little, and respect for them can fade.

Not so with Gary. After working directly under him for a number of years, I actually got to spend the last year I worked full-time (before I had kids) as his administrative assistant. But my respect for Gary only grew during that year.

Gary has since gone on to greater things—specifically to Florence, Italy—where he focuses on building into the next generation of spiritual leaders in Western Europe. Fortunately for me, and many others, we can still glean from his wisdom via his blog.

With his permission, I’m reprinting the meat of his latest post, “Three Marks of Leadership Maturity”, here:

“What does mature leadership look like? How is it experienced? What are its marks? There are three aspects that stand out to me that mark a corner being turned from immature to mature leadership:

1. Being able to share power
Leadership is about power and influence-but young leaders quickly become confused about the center of power and its purposes. There are really only two alternatives—power centers around the leader or the leader learns to give power away. Young leaders often want to control and be served. These are marks of the leader being at the center of power. But servant leadership is about making others the focus—therefore empowering others for success. Power sharing also reveals itself when you have shared leadership. In our organization we usually employ twoteam leaders for every team—a man and a woman. A leader's ability to come to the table as equals and truly honor the other leader demonstrates maturity. Immaturity requires the other leader to be subservient to them.

2. Leading towards your team's needs—not simply your own
This is similar to 1. except it goes beyond where power is located and begins to steward that power toward someone else. An immature leader can be overly concerned with their own needs or their own organization. A mature leader begins to look at the true make up those entrusted to them and they become students of their strengths, gifts and abilities. They begin to provide what each member needs to see them succeed. They provide structure, resources, counsel, developmental opportunities—all in the name of making them better.

3. Being able to appropriately lead up
Leading up is about response to authority. Immature leaders complain about the leaders over them rather than respectfully engaging them. Immature leaders diminish their leaders to others rather than communicating respectfully about them. Mature leaders are not "salute and obey" leaders—but they are also not rebellious. They know how to rightfully and respectfully dialogue with those in authority over them—and trust God fully who positioned those leaders in the first place.”

To read the article in its entirety, click here.