Learning a New Vocabulary
Seeing Others as “Leaders in Making”; Seeing Myself as a “Hero-maker”
Everyone wants to be a hero.
Yet only a few understand the power of being a hero-making.
I’m changing my vocabulary. When referring to a leadership environment, I’m trying to never use the word “follower.” David Marquet of Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders convinced me to refer to followers as “leaders in making.”
Now I’m seeing my role as a leader as one who helps “make heroes.”
Hero Maker: A leader who shifts from being the hero to making others the hero in God’s unfolding story.
Dave Ferguson, Exponential president, and co-author of the new bookHero Maker: Five Essential Practices for Leaders to Multiply Leaders stresses that there are at least five practices that derive from the characteristics we see in the life and ministry of Jesus, the ultimate hero maker.
Warning—Read this before you read the list below:
Shifting to these hero-making practices means that we die to self in order to live more for Christ and his kingdom. It might mean that we never get the public credit because we have chosen to live in a shadow rather than to seek out a spotlight.
Hero-Maker Practices
*HeroMaking Practice 1: Multiplication Thinking* – The first practice requires a shift in thinking. Leaders must move from thinking the best way to maximize ministry is through their own individual efforts to believing that effective ministry actually happens through developing the leadership of others.
*HeroMaking Practice 2: Permission Giving* – The second practice is a shift in seeing. Hero makers take the focus off their leadership and begin to see the leadership potential in the people around them.
*HeroMaking Practice 3: Disciple Multiplying* – The third practice is a shift in sharing. Leaders begin to share not just what they know to help others follow Jesus but to also share their lives and invest in the development of leaders who become disciple makers and then do the same for other leaders.
*HeroMaking Practice 4: Gift Activating* – The fourth practice is a shift in blessing. Not only do leaders ask God to bless the gifts He has given them, but they also ask God to bless the leaders they have developed and sent out.
*HeroMaking Practice 5: Kingdom Building* – The fifth practice is a shift in counting. Hero makers are no longer only concerned with who’s showing up at their thing; they also count those who are doing God’s thing!