We are currently accepting applications for the next cohort of Leaders Lab, which will begin on October 23. As we prepare for the new cohort to start, we are sharing the experiences of Leaders Lab participants from earlier cohorts. I have been inspired by these stories and the amazing lessons that these leaders are implementing in their work to address material poverty.

This week’s story comes from an international missionary leader.

How did you learn about Leaders Lab?

A colleague went to a Reimagine Charity event in Lubbuck, Texas, met some people who were in Leaders Lab and introduced me to the material. I knew joining the next cohort was the right move for our organization.

What is your work?

My organization works with many different missionaries, both African and American. When the ministry started to grow, it was hard to know how to engage, and in what direction we should be focusing. We wanted to make sure that the people working with us were passionate and had a vision for what we wanted to accomplish.

How has Leaders Lab been helpful?

In Leaders Lab, I learned how to manage adaptive change. As we grew organizationally, we tried to solve our programs with technical changes and we wondered why things weren’t working. Through adaptive change management, we learned how to take ownership of our work. Now we can better assess where we are.

Leaders Lab was comprehensive, it helped us to teach other people what we do. We developed a more articulate way to share our vision, through a new vision statement. We learned to be professional and how to be more holistic in our work.

We continue to engage our network members using adaptive change, and we use the techniques, methods, and approaches we learned in Leaders Lab, especially keeping our eyes open to see the right people to sit in the right places.

Leaders Lab has also been great exposure, through it we have been able to network and meet other people from different ministries and organizations. It is good to know that leadership challenges happen to everyone, not just to certain kinds of leaders. I learned a lot from watching other leaders overcome their challenges.

Shawn Duncan facilitated my cohort and was my coach throughout the year. He is a very good man, very knowledgeable in a way that I didn’t expect. He helped me to articulate the status and health of the organization.

What about the SPIRE Assessment?

SPIRE was a great mirror for the organization, it was really helpful in showing us the toxicity in our organization.  Now we know where the challenges are, we can do our jobs more effectively, and know where to put maximum effort.

The SPIRE Assessment taught us that when the right people are in the wrong seats we aren’t at 100%, and we learned how to get people in the correct seats.

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