Leveraging Influence
How Tim Elmore grows leaders from the inside out.
Tom Neven
Say leader and some may picture Gen. George Patton, standing in front of that huge American flag, barking at the troops. Or maybe it's Donald Trump, readily firing interns who fail to measure up to his standards.
Not Tim Elmore. The founder of Atlanta-based Growing Leaders, Inc. (GrowingLeaders.com) believes anyone can be a leader. "We all have a gift, a passion to be Jesus in a certain situation. Leadership is not about a position, title, or badge. If it were, only a small fraction of us could be leaders."
For Elmore, leadership is using one's God-given influence for a worthwhile cause—wherever you happen to be. A person can be in the middle of an organization and still leverage his influence. "Leadership is a disposition, not a position," Elmore says. "It's a way of looking at life."
Elmore caught the leadership bug when he went to work for John Maxwell after graduating from Oral Roberts University in 1983. Elmore always loved mentoring others in school and church settings, and after learning the art of leadership under Maxwell, he wondered why he couldn't merge the two.
"I thought, 'How do we get these timeless principles to the next generation when they're 17 and not when they're 47 and have already ruined two marriages and three businesses?'"
Turns out he had a few things to learn first. "During my first job evaluation, John went over the good things I was doing," Elmore recalls. "He was very affirming, and I was taking notes. Then he said, 'Here are a few things you need to work on.'"
'Off-Platform Charisma'
One of his chief criticisms was that Elmore was not the same on the platform as he was off. "He said, 'When you're on the platform, you're on,'" Elmore says. "He told me that when I stepped off the platform, I turned off. I needed what he called off-platform charisma."
Elmore watched Maxwell's off-platform behavior, as he interacted with crowds. "He listened to them, loved them," Elmore says. "I learned that leadership is not moments when you think you're on; it's found in those moments when you think you're not on."
But leadership is definitely not about dominating a room. "Charisma is not just being loud," Elmore notes. "There's such a thing as quiet charisma. I never ask a young leader to be something he's not. Be who you truly are inside. If we learn to value people and relationships, then we can have even quiet charisma."
A perfect example of this, he says, is Mother Teresa: "She was never boisterous and never called attention to herself, but she exuded quiet charisma."
Growing Leaders tries to find the passion inside young people and fan those flames. "We don't need everyone to be a mini-John Maxwell or Jack Welch or Donald Trump," he says. "We try to help young leaders discover their strengths. They need to find the situation in which they were meant to bloom."
He tells the story of Sara Grace Turner, who interned with Elmore five years ago: "She realized that her strength—training leaders—could be used to equip college students. She returned to Oral Roberts University and, as a senior, launched Ignite, designed to raise leaders from within the student body through mentoring relationships. Students have since planted churches, launched companies, or started nonprofit organizations."
Working at Maxwell's organization, equip, she helped coordinate the "Million Leaders Mandate," a three-year leadership development program to train the trainers. "As a 23-year-old young adult," Elmore says proudly, "she led the way for us to equip over 1 million leaders around the world."
Citing the examples of Martin Luther King and John Wesley, Elmore says a little influence can go a long way. "We want to build leaders from the inside out so they can turn the world upside down," Elmore says. "Throughout history God has raised movements that have changed nations, even though only one percent of the population bought into it.
"What would the world look like if 1 percent of the world under age 25 started to live and act like a life-giving leader?"
Tom Neven makes his home in Colorado Springs. E-mail him at frontrangewriter@comcast.net.
For more resources on Executive Leadership, go to ChristianLeadershipAlliance.com/ManagingLeading.
