The highest calling of leadership is development and growth of people. —John Maxwell
Truly great leaders invest significant time and effort in mentoring and coaching those entrusted to their care. These genuinely difference-making leaders recognize the high return from this most important leadership activity.
A Difference-Maker
You become a leader by helping others to the top. —William Cohen
Barnabas was a superlative leader who invested his life helping others to the top. He understood that developing and helping them grow is one of the key aspects of leadership. His most outstanding leadership skill was mentoring and coaching.
Although many shunned Paul (aka Saul), Barnabas saw great potential in him and took him under his wing. While we know that Paul was the human instrument through whom God wrote roughly two-thirds of the New Testament, we often fail to recognize that God used Barnabas to mentor and coach Paul to prominence and achievement of his higher purpose.
Three Keys to Effective Mentoring and Coaching
Mentoring and coaching activities that yield meaningful, lasting, leader and follower success rely on presence, connectedness and availability.
Presence and Connectedness
In natural love, absence often makes the heart grow fonder. However, in leadership, literal and figurative absence can have serious negative ramifications. In contrast, ongoing presence with followers can lead to significant positive results...especially in their personal and professional development and growth.
Because they always keep the progress of their followers in mind, superb leaders make the effort to build and maintain healthy and harmonious personal relationships. These become the doorway to the connectedness required for profitable coaching and mentoring of followers. Like Barnabas, excellent leaders realize that effective returns from the high calling of coaching and mentoring cannot be achieved via a cosmetic, distant approach but through intimacy with followers...intimacy gained through being connected with them. Close connection will afford a leader opportunities to serve, care for and empower followers to achieve their God-given potential and maximize results of the leader and their organization.
Read more on this topic in my leadership book: Follow The Leader
Availability
To achieve the maximum contribution from their followers, a leader must consciously and continuously choose to make themselves available. That requires the leader to have an open door and open mind policy and see themselves as a server, not someone being served. Availability will mean no hiding behind doors, titles or org charts and viewing people not as an imposition on a leader's time, but opportunities to grow and develop followers.
Looking for a mentor or coach for you or your organization? Click here: What We Do
Summary
A good coach can change a game. A great coach can change a life. —John Wooden
Extraordinary leaders like Barnabas possess the God-imparted ability to relate well to and work well with others. Their family, workplace and personal relationship priorities are presence, connectedness and availability to their followers with the goal of empowering them to live up to all their potential via coaching and mentoring.
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