The Key to Knowing Who's Ready to Lead | Ep 42

If you want a clear, low-risk process for developing and promoting the right leaders on your team, learn more about the Ready Set Grow Mastermind: https://www.readysetgrowchurch.com/mastermind

You've got someone on your team who's killing it in their role... and you're wondering if they're actually ready to lead.

The hard part isn't spotting talent. It's knowing whether that talent translates into leadership — before you make it official and can't easily undo it.

Being a great doer and being a great leader require different skills. There's a real, low-risk way to test which one you're looking at before you ever say a word to them or the team.

This conversation breaks down the exact process for knowing if someone's ready to lead — before you announce a title change.

In this episode:

• The key signals that show someone's actually ready to lead, not just good at their job
• The real difference between a great doer and a great leader
• How to run a low-risk behavioral experiment before making it official
• The two qualities every leader needs: respect and relationship
• Why character, competency, time, and trust decide who's ready
• What to do when someone says they feel called to lead

Just because someone's killing it in their current role doesn't mean they're ready to lead at the next one.

Transcript

The promotion question every pastor faces

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Ready Seg Grow Podcast. I'm Mark Brewer, your host. I've got Hunter Wilson with me and Scott Wilson with me. We recently had a question come in from a pastor, and it really essentially was this I have someone on the team that I want to move up to a higher role or I think needs to move up, but I don't want to mess it up. What do I need to do about that?

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a couple of things. Um, I I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. The first one that I think of is I think where people get a spotlight on them is when they are a really good doer in their role. That's what I think of first. So it's like, okay, that person has like a Midas

Why doers get noticed first

SPEAKER_02 0:41

touch. Like everything they touch in their department turns into gold. So what I want to do is I want to elevate them to lead multiple people so all of their things turn into gold. Like that's the first step.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

So they're closing things out on a regular basis. This person is being productive. So therefore, if they're producing, man, I'd like to get some of that other round.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Let's get them touching some other things. Yeah, exactly. But but their hands on a bunch of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

But here's the conundrum here is what you are doing right there is a difference between a doer and a leader. And what you need to understand is those aren't the same skill sets. So, for example, hey, I have a great youth

The hidden difference between doers and leaders

SPEAKER_02 1:20

pastor on my team. I think they should be my executive pastor that you're one of the executives. It's like, okay, cool. So why are they a good youth pastor? Dude, you should come on a Wednesday night. They're preaching so good. Uh, they are so good at vision casting, all that kind of stuff. Like, I think they would lead a lot of people really well. It's like, okay, what does that have to do with leading teams or building systems or anything that has to do with the leadership and management?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

So the question is, yeah, the question would be is you is it how man, you should see how many kids they got coming on Wednesday night, or is it you should see how many leaders they're developing? Yeah, exactly. There's a difference there on it. Listen, I don't need doers at a higher level. Yeah, I need leaders at a higher level that are going to multiply other leaders who train up doers.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

Yeah, and doers that are put into leadership roles too soon tend to micromanage the people that are underneath them.

Mistakes pastors make promoting too fast

SPEAKER_00 2:18

So, what are some of the mistakes? So I I think I'm seeing something in this person. Yeah. I'm not sure. Uh and I want to test this. What are some of the mistakes that pastors often make when they're trying to elevate someone into another role?

SPEAKER_01 2:34

I think uh uh some come to my mind because uh this isn't just a question that is theory for me. This has happened I don't scores and scores. I was gonna say hundreds, it could be hundreds over the 35 years of seeing people and helping them to develop, whether they came uh went higher on our staff or I saw them be developed and go be at a higher level at another staff, because that was everything I thought about is training people in that way. But number one, you know where I made a mistake is I went to them and said, Hey, I really see executive leadership in you, and I think I'd like to get you on a uh fast track here to become executive. Why is that bad? Because what happens is that's not bad if the person actually works out and does it and can do it.

The danger of an early promise

SPEAKER_01 3:22

The bad is two things. The moment I say that, I uh most of the time it's like I'm trying to say it as a compliment and encouragement and motivation. But then that gave me a quick hit of excitement for me like this. But what they did is the moment I did that, it hit the clock. Now going like a ticking time bomb. Yeah. Well, well, it's it's they're going, when when am I getting promoted? Yeah. Uh what uh uh you said I'm getting promoted.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

The mistake here is you can have an agenda for a person, a good agenda to grow and develop them. The mistake is making an announcement.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

Well, telling them that's not just on the problem. On the executive team, there's so many pastors that have stayed years at a place and have had extreme burnout and remorse of the pastor told them, Hey, you could I could probably hand this thing off to you, and then it never really happens and never really it's so sad on.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

So you just gotta be careful to not put seeds before it's right time to do it. Yeah, and and there's ways to do that. Let's hit that in a minute, okay? But then the second is if I announce it to the team, like, hey, I'm promoting this person, you know, or I'm making it up. We're gonna try this person out at this position. You can't raise someone up in a new title as a leader, like in a they got a staff change, uh, and then if it doesn't work, move them back down. They they gotta move out. They can't move back down in the organization, it doesn't work. I think that's what the pastor's asking. Yeah, is I don't want to mess this up. Yeah, I don't want to mess them up, I don't want to mess our organization up. I don't I in fact, I think they're doing really good where they're at. I don't want to promote them into a position that they won't be able to do it well.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

So the doer versus the leader, you have to inspect that. Don't tell them a whisper thing just because it feels good that they got excited and it made you feel good too, that you have the ability to promote them. And then don't do a try-on in front of the whole staff of basically saying, like, if you promote, it's gonna be really hard to

Leading without the title first

SPEAKER_02 5:28

demote later.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Yeah. I think there are ways to give them a chance to lead in a leadership role that is not with a title. Yeah. And without announcement title. The announcement would be hey, you know, we've got this, what we talk about cycle rocks. You know, every quarter we have three, five, whatever. These things are the big things we're gonna hit. Yeah. And what we do is we'll choose somebody on the team to be the owner of that cycle rock and to build a team. Yep. Many times we assign the team to them, and it's a cross-departmental. So it isn't like, let's say, we're gonna take the youth pastor. You were saying, sure, this guy's killing it. And you know what? They do really good in following up on people. I want them to help us on our engagement pathway. And so I asked them for the Sunday experience. For the Sunday experience. I want him to help us on that. So I want him to lead that team. So, first of all, it's an area I see him doing well in. Let's see if he can lead other people in this. Yep. And I'm gonna take people not out of the whole youth department, and he brings his team to now do it for the church. No, I'm gonna bring our our men's ministry or or this other person, these other people, cross other leaders at a peer level, peer level with him to see can he or she and honestly the people that they might be uh that might be leading in the future. So, what I'm gonna see here is is his leadership that I'm seeing really doing in a positional title role in a youth pastor setting, it may even be with student leaders, yeah. People he's older than like this, and it's not really peer adult leaders he knows how to function in. So, what I've done now is put it where I'm saying this isn't positional.

The key signals of true readiness

SPEAKER_01 7:08

I want to know if they're a leader uh in the definition of influence. And when it comes to influence, different than a title or a position departmentally, it means they know how they they have the respect of people and they have relationship with people. Yeah. And they understand how to lead, not by telling people what they're gonna do. Hey, I'm telling you, you're doing this, you're doing this, you're doing this. That may work as a youth pastor with youth. It doesn't work with grown people on a team. Uh they're they're wanting to collaborate, they want to have relationships, you need to have relationship and you need to have respect and to be able to lead the team in that way. That shows you now, watch. That's safe, if you will, because it's for a season that is like, hey, thanks for leading. It didn't well, it didn't. Let's and let's even on the back end, let's talk about what did we learn in this. We may even give them a chance again. Hey, that didn't go so well. Why did it not go so well? Da-da-da. But I don't have to demote them. They're still in the position. They just it didn't work out on the team, or it did work out, and everybody's going, like, dude, this guy should be leading this.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

So, you know, my counselor, he has helped me a lot with a lot of things that Emily and I have considered. Like at one time, we live in South Dallas, maybe like 30 minutes away. And I was like, Man, I really think I want to live in Dallas. Like, I want to live in Dallas, but Emily doesn't. Uh, and we keep talking about it, and we can't get on the same page. We've also talked about like, are we gonna have a third kid? Are we not gonna have a third kid? And he basically helped us go, okay, there's two

Thought experiment vs. behavioral experiment

SPEAKER_02 8:36

different things that you can do here, and this is really applying to what we're talking about. There's a difference between a thought experiment and a behavioral experiment. A thought experiment is basically saying, let's think about what it would be like for you guys to live in Dallas. And Hunter loves it, Emily hates it. Okay, on the youth pastor. Let's think about this youth pastor being an executive pastor and leading the youth. What do you think? What do you think? I think it's great. I think it's gonna be awesome. I think they're gonna do great. I think it's gonna be so good. I think they're gonna love it, right? There's a difference between a thought experiment and a behavioral experiment. A behavioral experiment is basically what's a low-risk way that we can try this on for a season and see how it goes with new data. So the thought experiment is basically I've thought about this all I can. I have all the data that I can possibly do with all the perspectives that I can possibly include without being inappropriate and including the wrong people at the wrong time. So maybe I talk to my spouse about it. Maybe I talk to a mentor about it, maybe I talk to my executive pastor about it. Nothing wrong by that. That's great anyway. Yeah. But I've collected all the data I can for the thought experiment. Now let's do a behavioral experiment in a low-risk way. Like, let them lead a cross-functional project and see how that goes. Now I've gathered more data that is confirming my thought experiment or presenting new data of like, did not see that coming. Exactly. And that went really bad.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

And and even if it goes really bad, it gives you a learning opportunity, a teaching opportunity to develop. The whole point is developing people and knowing where they're at and seeing it in different, like the behavioral uh deal. What I love about it is if it does go good, yes, now it's not just me seeing potential. Yeah, it's me seeing they are actually leading at a level that I think they could and look at it. Secondly, I'm having other people come up and say, Pastor, he's doing incredible. We love working with so-and-so.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

And I'm going, wow. So part of the thought experiment, too, is what you were saying is the definition of influence. You talked about this in your book, Impact, where uh leadership is influence, is what Maxwell says. But

Two wings of a plane: respect and relationship

SPEAKER_02 10:43

influence, how do you define that? Well, we define it as respect and relationship that can be scored on a scale of one to 10. Right. Right. So how much respect do they have, and then how much relationship do they have? We I think it's kind of the same thing with hiring people, is you can't know, and no one knows a hundred percent whether or not a new hire is gonna work out. But what you can do is have tactics to increase the odds. Yes. In a promotion, it's kind of the same thing. You are hiring a person, even if it's somebody that you know, even if they're already on the team in a new position. Yep. So you can't know a hundred percent, but you can increase the odds. Yeah. So inside of this, you believe that they have the influence to go to the next level. What you need to see in a behavioral experiment type of way is if other people see the same type of influence that you see. So can you talk about the respect and relationship and how that's broken down?

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Yeah, the respect is about character and competency. So, in other words, again, people can be competent to do something as a departmental leader, as a youth pastor, as a kids pastor. It doesn't mean they know how to lead people who are peers, people who are higher level, let's say even in those who are adults, you know, like this type of deal. So, what you're doing is you want to see do they have the character, the personhood, the self-esteem, the the the the they're not insecure in the in the character of their life. Competency is they don't just know how to do puppets or they don't just know how to be cool with kids at their school at the football games, but they actually can lead with true leadership and influence. They know what they're talking about, they know what they're doing at that high level. Okay. I don't think I can let this go. Do it.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

What youth ministry is doing puppets that you know of?

SPEAKER_01 12:34

No, kids. I said kids ministry. Oh, he said kids. I think we're still talking about thing either.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

But he said, What does that have to do with puppets? And I'm like, I don't know if I can let this go. Keep going, keep going, keep going.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

I was saying like your kids minister or your youth minister. Sure, sure, sure. Both of them are functioning, that they could be killing it there. He's been out of youth for me.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

He's been out of youth for a while, guys. Hello, welcome to the youth.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Hello, youth. All right, go, go, go. Character and competency. Okay, so it's character and competency at that level. The second is on the relationship is time and trust. So that means people like them and people trust them that they don't just want to win, they want to help the team win, and they want to help others win. People who are doing things,

Character, competency, time, and trust

SPEAKER_01 13:18

it's about their department. People who you're promoting to be over departments has to be a person who doesn't just want to see them themselves win. Their whole, their whole vision is to help others win.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

And I I think on this, Dad, the respect and relationship, it's gonna be really dangerous for somebody to be promoted if they only have one. I can think of two different people that we have been a part of that we were thinking about moving to an executive role. One of them had the respect. Everything they did was great, but they fought with their peers a ton. Yep. Right. And so what that looks like is yeah, this project is probably gonna go well with the follow-up. Nobody likes them. But I never want to be on their team again.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

And that's something you need to see. And no, because here's the deal lead pastor, they probably aren't acting that way with you. Yeah. Well, that's why you don't see it because when they're you're their boss. It's what how it is at peer level is different. They can lead up, they can lead down, but they can't lead amongst the people. How many times have we been uh before an evaluation and I'm saying, dude, I love this guy, dude. He's killing it. And you go, like, well, yeah, but you know, he can't get along with anybody. No, I didn't know that. What do you mean? Oh, he's always putting everybody down, he's always bossing people around. He never really department sucks. Yeah. I say, Oh, well, I was thinking, you know, he he has potential. You're telling me I didn't know that. That's information I didn't have. And that tells that now, let me tell you something. If you're a a staff member listening to this right now, you need to know it's not just about what you do, it's how you relate to others. And that comes in. You say, Man, I don't know why I ain't getting a raise or I don't get promoted around here. Well, it's because you're a butthead. I mean, you're not you're not living in a way that is loving and kind and wanting other people to work.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

There are people on the team too on the opposite route that I can think of without saying names that had all the relationship. Oh, everybody loved being within. Yes, but it's almost like the way that they led was like, all right, guys, so glad we're here to do this uh follow-up process. Uh, what do y'all think? And it's like, yeah, I love you and I want to go to lunch with you, but you're not like leading us in any way.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Yeah, it's like you're saying, I I I love being friends, but I don't want you to be my leader. We're not gonna be able to do that. 100%. Yeah. What I always compare the respect and relationship to is like two wings of a plane. If you're on a plane and there's two wings, you know you need both to fly, which one do you say, I'm okay, all right, I'm okay with the right one. No, you've gone. No, you got both to fly. Same thing with respect and relationship. You can't have one without the other and think your leadership's gonna fly. Influence has to do with both. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

So inside of this, what we're talking about is before you promote it or advertise it and tell everybody on the team, before you actually pull the move, you need to see if they're a good leader, not just a good doer. Mark, I love the way that you talk to people in this without like revealing too much, like in our staff evaluations about like I want to include you in this process, because again, what we're saying is we need to try to figure out a behavioral experiment to test this out in a low-risk way. How do you do that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Well, I think what you said was really good. You start first doing it mentally, maybe write it on the thought experiment. I'm gonna have a thought experience on this person. And I'm always thinking, due date discipleship, how can I hand off more and more to this person? Because I'm leaving at some point. So I'm gonna walk through and go, behavioral experiment. Well, that looks good. Now I'm looking for what's the next incremental step that I think they could probably win at.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

It passes the test of the thought experiment.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

If it passes. Now let's move to behavior. And like you said, it could either be a project, it could be a team, it could be something that is bookended. You do want it to be bookended. It could be because if it's ongoing, it's not fair.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

It could be like, hey, we're gonna lead our our fall festival.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

It needs to have a start date and a stop date that hopefully goes so well that the next evolution is to add more or make it permanent.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Because we talked about it before. When you think you see something in a person, and we were talking about a specific person before this. When you think you see something, you do one of two things. You either draw that thing in closer to you, okay, or you move closer to that thing. Same thing. Because you need to see it closer. I think I see more information. And so the behavioral experiment is more information. So I think we were talking about the mistakes we make are to make an announcement instead of a behavioral experiment. To the team or the person. Don't make an announcement to the team or the person, or you're gonna start feeding something that now you got to fill a bucket on. And then the second thing or third thing was what?

SPEAKER_02 17:50

Oh, you need to see if they're a leader, not just a doer. But yeah, in the staff evaluation, talk to them. Like, what would you say language-wise? Because usually, like when I've sat in there with you, doing a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

You've done things like hey, man, would you be interested in Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

I always like to, I instead is I am not the potential guy. Like, I'm not gonna say to you, hey man, I see something in you, and I really want to test this out. I'll never do that. But I will say, hey, would you be interested in taking on this project? Here's the start, here's the finish. I think this is the scope of it. Is that something that's even interesting to you? If they say no, then now I've got good information because I'm like, they actually don't want to escalate. They don't want to elevate. But if they say yes, okay, now we can start testing that. And then we bookend it, we create a project. Now, I would never give a project to someone that I didn't think could probably pull it off. They we have to be careful about that too.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Yeah, you're not moving. Yeah, you're not gonna give them something that's bigger than what you think they could win at. That's right. You're seeing where they're at. And if they can, I I I think they should be able to kill it here, yeah, and then move on uh to the next.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

It's an interesting concept, as like a final thought here is just because someone's killing it in a role doesn't mean that they need to get promoted to a higher role. Where's the whole idea of like that's the perfect fit

Final thought: killing it here doesn't mean promote there

SPEAKER_02 19:10

for you? So that's a hard part about a leader.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

I'll tell you two of those things is is what he just said. When they say, Hey, I think I could do, I I could see myself doing that. They're saying I like this. Yeah, like you say it. No, well, watch. When somebody comes to me and says, Hey, listen, I love what I'm doing, but I really feel God's calling me to be a pastor someday. I don't know that it's there now, but could you mentor me? Yeah, I've had that multiple times. That's somebody saying, I feel God has called me to leadership. I think I could do more. So, hey, well, let's look, let's see what, let's see if maybe let's see, let me pray about that and see what you could take on and help us. I I love you, I appreciate you. I I see greatness in you. I want to help. I'd love to be a part of that. Yeah. That's them initiating it. What he just did is he initiated it to ask them. Here's two things on that response when they say no. Number one, it could be I don't know that I could do that. That's them wondering, do you think they could do it? Like sometimes they they're wanting to, I don't know. I we could see. Why don't we see? I think you could do it, but let's see. We could we could just give you something and we'll we'll talk about it. Would you like this? Secondly, no man, I don't want to do that. What that is, is it can be I'm happy where I'm at, but it can also be I want in my domain, and I want you to promote my domain. I want you to promote me and my domain, not I want to take on stuff for the whole church. That's an attitude, that's a silo, and that tells you something too, and you got to deal with that. Let me just bring this back to something that is I see greatness in someone. It may not even be I'm thinking promotion now, but I want to always be developing people. So what are uh one of the ways I've done that that I just wanted to close out here saying is when you said bring them close or I get close to them, do you know part of what I did is every time I saw somebody and I thought, man, that guy could be an executive, or that guy could be, or that lady, you know, could be a pastor, that type of deal. Many times I'd bring them on my teaching team, you know, like come in and help me to put the message together. Uh here's my passage, write up all the notes of how you would preach it and bring it in and we would talk it together. That was a way for me to see even what was in them. Secondly, how much would they work to help me do something that they weren't gonna get credit for? Thirdly, how are they able to interact with me and share perspective in a way that's a good idea?

SPEAKER_02 21:42

And you're not saying that the only people that get promoted are people that have aspirations to preach, but that's more of the route that you would take somebody on if they're saying, I want to be a pastor someday. Correct. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

It's that type of deal. If it's the other, I'm just showing a different way. It's a type of behavioral experiment. Those people, I've done that probably. 30 times over. Yeah. Okay. And in those uh chan those opportunities, I saw people as people that I could send out to start a church. People that I thought could step into an executive and then perhaps go take a new church or teaching pastor. The point is, if if I if I want to get close to people, it could either be in helping me put the message together. Other people I had where they were just there to give me feedback when I preached. That was just so I could just interact with them. Hear how they share their perspective. Do they say that that stinks? I didn't like that. Or are they just always, you're so good, you're so good. Or is it that they can share their perspective in a way that's kind uh but is also thoughtful? You know, so I'm getting information on that. It may be taking them on a missions trip with me, or taking on a time when I'm gonna go speak at a conference and they go with me. I'm getting to see them when they're meeting people, when they're interacting with high-level leaders, when we're eating together. Are they trying to push their way in? Are they are they serving? Do they how do they do they initiate to serve? You're seeing, you're getting information that isn't on the assignment as much as on the personhood.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

Yeah, so I think uh last thing I would say on it is from your perspective, from your vantage point as being their leader, you think they have the influence to go to the next level, which means you think they have the respect and relationship. They're nice to me. I think they're doing good. That's basically the oversimplification. What I would recommend is if you've made it past a thought experiment, take them on a behavioral experiment. We talked about multiple ways you can do that, whether it's a project, whether it's a teaching team, whether it's an event, uh, some kind of book-ended experience where they're getting experience, not just being the great doer that they are, but leading people that they would potentially lead and seeing if the respect and relationship translates on a peer level because you don't know that vantage point. Correct. And then evaluating that experience afterwards. And if it goes well, which I hope it does, it's the natural progression to double down on that and keep moving in that direction.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

It's almost as if you don't want to make an announcement that people aren't already telling you it should be made. Yeah, it's great. So not announced this is the new blah, blah, blah. Everybody's going, duh, they've been doing that, right? It's a head nod instead of what? Of course, everybody's been saying you should do it, you should do it. Yeah. So I think that's uh very important. And I love it that um God's called us to disciple people. And I love it that this pastor is not just excited, like, man, I may have a ringer here who could help, but it's more of I see greatness in people. I pray that every pastor who's listening to this is looking at everybody on your team, not just for what they're doing, but for who they're becoming. And that you're constantly looking for ways to not just say, yes, they could lead at that level or not, but if they couldn't at this time, what's the feedback I could give them? What's the coaching I could give them to help them to grow no matter where they're at?

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Super good. Thank you. Hey, thanks for joining us today on the ReadySet Grow Podcast, and we will see you soon.