Dr. J. Robert Clinton’s book, The Making of a Leader, gives great insight into the development process God moves people through in order to reach their full potential as a leader. Clinton’s premise is based on the “crying need for leadership” today in churches and organizations whose “lives of faith [are] worth imitating.”1 Through Clinton’s research and observations, he has developed a Leadership Emergence Theory that points out how God develops a leader throughout a lifetime by the means of leadership lessons.2 This theory is based on six phases of development. The phases include: Phase I – Sovereign Foundations, where God providentially works within the leaders life starting at birth;3 Phase II - Inner-Life Growth, where God focuses development in the heart of the leader by testing motives;4 Phase III - Ministry Maturing, where “the emerging leader gets into ministry as a prime focus of life”5 and lessons are learned primarily through relationships;6 Phase IV – Life Maturing, where the leader begins to operate in their gifts, resulting in fruitfulness;7 Phase V – Convergence, where the leader operates solely out of their strengths and abandons roles outside of their gifts;8 and finally, Phase VI – Afterglow, where leadership influence expand across broad networks.9 All in all, Phases I, II, and III are about God working within the leader; where as, Phases IV, V, and VI God works through the leader.10 In other words, God’s goal is to develop the leader before sending the leader.
