Why You Should Trade Your Leadership Pipeline Mentality for a Leadership Culture

By David Ashcraft  

The key to growth in any business, organization or church is leaders. If we are going to increase our impact, we need a pool of skilled, highly trained people ready to take on the next high-impact project. But I’ve observed that many top leaders chase an idea of a mythical leadership pipeline, as if they can set it up, turn it on and then wait for a consistent flow of leaders.  

I’ve never found anybody who has that.  

Instead, we should strive to create a leadership culture. Whereas a leadership pipeline is an artificial process that focuses on a few “stars” in your organization, a leadership culture is a personal approach that elevates everyone’s leadership capacity. When you create a leadership culture, many people—instead of only the few—become better leaders.  

Leadership isn’t a pipeline; it’s a culture. And leadership development elevates everybody’s leadership.  

How to create a leadership culture 

I served as the Lead Pastor of LCBC Church in Pennsylvania for 32 years. We had a bold goal to dramatically increase the number of people our church reached. When I started, we were a small congregation of 150. When I stepped away 32 years later, our average weekly attendance was more than 22,000. It is now the largest church in the Northeastern United States.  

How did that tremendous growth happen? A few things came together—prayers, strategy and faith—but it never could have been successful without a strong leadership culture that intentionally focused on leadership development.  

Here are my four key takeaways on how to foster a leadership culture that will create dramatic results.  

1. Intentionally and consistently invest in leadership development.

At LCBC, leadership development opportunities were a part of our DNA. We started in the 1990s by attending John C. Maxwell leadership conferences. We later invested in the Global Leadership Summit (of which, I now serve as President and CEO), hosting it for more than 20 years.  

Prioritizing opportunities like these helped us to continuously challenge ourselves, set audacious goals and get the soft skills we needed to execute our goals.  

But leadership development must go beyond once a year events. We need to regularly and intentionally invest in our own, and others’, leadership. Read books together, listen to podcasts. Visit organizations you’d like to emulate. 

I love the example of CityLead in Boca Raton, Florida. The leaders of Boca Raton Community Church were regular hosts of the Global Leadership Summit. They wanted to create leadership opportunities throughout the year for their staff and community, so they created CityLead, a monthly gathering of leaders from all sectors in their city focused on developing leaders with integrity. You can read their inspiring story here: “How One Church Is Reshaping the Story of Its Town.”  

2. Trust new leaders.  

The next step to creating a leadership culture can be hard for many of us: We must trust new leaders. As leaders, we often don’t delegate because we secretly (or not so secretly) think we can do it better.  

I believe that God gives us the people to do the work he wants us to do. But we often don’t trust them to do the work. We look for the perfect volunteer or leader. But they’re never going to be as good at that task as we are—yet—because they haven’t had the opportunity to develop their skills. 

When you refuse to delegate, you’re robbing the people you lead from the possibility of becoming great at something God has designed them to do. 

In order to develop a leadership culture, we need to loosen our grip. We need to give new leaders permission and room to learn, fail and grow.  

3. Give leaders a grand vision. 

The key to developing great leaders is to give them a grand vision. When I was developing a new leader at LCBC, I wanted them to know that their potential was 

much higher than they might realize.  

Far from believing I could do it better than they could, I’d tell them, ‘You can be way better than I am at this. You can be an expert, to the point that other people want to come and see what you are doing.’ 

Together, we’d visit other churches excelling in that ministry to see how they were doing it. This gave these leaders a specific goal and vision—and helped them 

see that their capacity was higher than they thought. It gave them a vision to say, ‘Wow, I could be best at this in the whole country.’”   

Eventually, these leaders were way better than I could have ever been, and they created some of the best ministry programs in the country.  

4. Don’t just set new leaders loose; invest in them.  

One thing I have often seen is that when a leader finally delegates, he or she turns their employee loose and then checks in with them in a year to see if they met their goals. Without enough guidance, these new leaders struggle, so their supervisor then tightens the parameters and restricts them.  

I’ve found that in developing new leaders, while we trust them, we also need to give specific parameters and guidance at the beginning and loosen up later.  

When I was in college, I worked as a camp counselor. Every Sunday, we’d get a new cabin of kids. Some counselors would let the kids be wild on Sunday and Monday. Then later in the week, they’d have to restrict and threaten them. The kids would end up miserable by the end of the week—not allowed to have any fun—because the counselors were too loose at the beginning. Instead, I would clamp down on the first night, making sure the kids knew the rules and were observing the guidelines. Then by the second half of the week, they would be having a great time because they understood the parameters. 

I think developing leaders is similar. It’s better to intentionally invest in the beginning. Help them understand what the goals and expectations are; give them guidance, vision and parameters, and then loosen up later. When employees understand expectations and direction, it frees them. They have a model to follow, and they don’t have to wing it or create something new.   

Creating a leadership culture is worth it.

All of this isn’t easy. It takes time and intentionality.  

But I believe that when we shift our mindset from a leadership pipeline to a leadership culture, it will elevate everyone. It will foster grand visions. And it will allow us to reach our audacious goals.