We Keep Asking Where Strong Leaders Have Gone
We keep asking where strong leaders have gone. We often fail to ask what it actually takes to form one. Leadership does not begin when someone is given authority. It is the result of years of formation that happen long before anyone is ever placed in a position to lead, shaped in families, churches, schools, and communities by what is expected, corrected, tolerated, and required.
Leadership is not primarily a talent problem. It is a formation problem. And formation is always aimed at something. The question is whether what it is aimed at is worthy of the people being formed, whether it is oriented, finally, toward flourishing rather than merely toward performance.