Much is said and written about effective leadership at the top, understanding how to build an organization that is able to change, grow and face ever-moving economic environments. But, the strength and effectiveness of an organization is also measured by the depth of leadership that runs through its ranks. I was privileged recently to see that type of leadership in action and participate in helping to harness the energy and depth of understanding that participants displayed. This was not in a large industrial, financial or technological organization. It was in a church setting, within a ministry group focusing on care and support of “blended families” engaged in integrating two family units into a single healthy family following divorce.

Three couples who had experience living out the challenge of blending two family units came forward to plan a program to minister to other parents and families just entering the early stages of merging. This was a group of peers coming together to develop a blended family support group for a local church. The ministry leader understood very well her limitations to create an effective program to serve this population, and wisely allowed the participating couple leaders to develop the program themselves. Rather than impose an off-the-shelf program, the ministry leader asked these volunteer couples to create a plan that aligned with their own experiences, the needs of the community of blended families as they had experienced it, and one that would fit the culture of the hosting church.

My role was not as an expert in the topic area, but as a coach and facilitator for the work team, to concentrate on the process and leave the results up to the volunteers. After discussing everyone’s roll in the process, we quickly began to discuss how a support group for blended families might look. Several key content areas came out of that brain storming. We then talked about the kind of structure that might be flexible enough to accommodate content as well as other important pieces of the group structure. I worked to guide the discussion, provide general summaries, and ask questions to help team members clarify in their own mind points they wanted to cover. These couples all had a depth of experience in both engaged couples as well as previous experience teaching a class for blended families. Some also had experience with other marriage curricula. Their level of understanding of the subject material ran deep. The ministry leader wanted to pull this all together into something unique, and so decided to use a facilitator/coach to focus the energy and ideas that came from the volunteers. As a result, a structure quickly emerged, materials were identified to use as content, coming from several divergent sources. They also identified other local advisors that could provide input in their project. A new support group with highly motivated leaders emerged after less than two hours.

Several things emerged in this process that merit attention:

1. Rules of the Road were developed that would facilitate member discussions – a real support for the couples leading the group. “No bashing ex-spouses”, confidentiality, and speaking of your own experience, were some of the Rules the  group would follow. These also would allow the volunteer facilitators to redirect conversation as necessary.
2.  A format for each group session was developed to accommodate a myriad of material that the leadership team might want to include.
3. Many times these groups are created around teaching material. Because of my coaching background, I introduced to the conversation structures that would support individual
   processing of material, and application in individual lives. The focus was not creating a better power point presentation or lesson plan.
4. Because this was a group of peer volunteers a facilitator/coach serving as an objective third party, focused on the success of the process, not the ultimate outcome, was a great help. No time was wasted in vying for dominant influence, no bruised egos, and everyone participated.
5. The ministry leader purposely stepped aside to allow the volunteer leaders to create a program that was unique to themselves. There was total buy-in because it was their project. There will be bumps along the way, and still much to do before the first support group meeting but the project was infused with lasting energy and purpose. The volunteers enjoyed a sense of unity and confidence to manage the program with little additional input from the ministry leader.
6. A “product” emerged that better fit the leadership group that was tasked to deliver it, as well as the needs of host church.

Coaching within an organization can lead to big dividends for the organization, whether it is for-profit, service oriented or faith driven. I encourage managers and top leadership to learn to grow leadership from the bottom up, to harness the valuable experience of their employees or volunteers. Organizations can become more effective, more flexible, and experience energy, solutions and innovation flowing upward. This has been one case study of an application to make these things happen. What an opportunity for leadership at the top of any organization.