Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Careers, Workplace and Religion
How do you curate human potential?

How do you curate human potential?

Last updated on: October 8, 2016 at 11:42 am by Guest Contributor

How do you curate human potential? 2016-10-05T11:52:04-05:00 Guest Contributor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Courageous institutional leaders work to hire and develop the next generation of leaders — even knowing that those leaders likely will leave to work somewhere else, writes a managing director of Leadership Education at Duke Divinity. This post originally appeared at Faith & Leadership.

By Victoria Atkinson White

I recently congratulated a well-respected leader for hiring and developing a particularly stellar young leader. “Your employee is clearly bright and capable,” I said to the senior leader. “What do you see next in her future?”

The leader looked at me as if I had spoken treason. “I have spent all this time getting her here. I need stability! I can’t think about where she is going next.”

The senior leader may not be thinking about where her young hire is going next, but the hire most certainly is.

Few remain with a single institution for the length of a career. Families move. Technology has enabled us to change jobs without leaving our home office. Travel is as easy as ever.

The U.S. Department of Labor reports that the average job tenure is 4.6 years nationwide, but in the religious world, it is only three to four years.

Hiring well takes effort and time, and it’s understandable that senior leaders would focus their attention on trying to buck this trend and retain staff through competitive benefits and a positive work environment. A stable staff is safe and predictable — but it’s not a mark of a vibrant institution.

The work of a senior leader is to cultivate an institutional mindset of incubating talent.

Vibrant institutions take fresh talent and mold those hires into excellent leaders in their field — not just leaders for a single institution. Courageous leaders seek out, nurture and support rising leaders, even knowing that those leaders will leave for other work one day.

Pastor and filmmaker Marlon Hall, who teaches in Leadership Education at Duke Divinity programs, is one of these courageous leaders. He sees himself as “a curator of human potential.”

Let that sink in.

A curator of human potential.

Courageous leaders curate human potential not just because Christian institutions need leadership development but because it is part of their own calling.

Paul modeled this beautifully for us in the potential he curated in Barnabas, Silas and, most clearly, Timothy. Paul had the courage and self-awareness to acknowledge that he could not do what he had been charged to do on his own. He also knew he had to cultivate the kind of leaders needed to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. There wasn’t exactly a hiring pool of potential early church missionaries.

Paul knew that if he did his job well, those he trained, encouraged, challenged and mentored would leave him.

That is what courageous leaders do. They see the bigger picture of institutions and the development of leaders within them. They have the courage to look past the fear of bright young talent leaving their institutions and instead develop that talent for the present and future value of their institutions and others. They have the courage to curate human potential today to have excellent leaders tomorrow.

So if you accept the reality that your staff is going to change, how can you think of your institution as a generative organization, constantly recruiting, training and deploying leaders rather than dwelling on the stark statistics of hiring pools and staff turnover?

How can you look at the job requirements for your next hire as an opportunity to bring in someone incredible, someone everyone looks at and says, “Wow! How did they get him?”

Imagine yourself in an interview conversation like this: “I know you have a number of opportunities right now. Let me tell you why I think you would be an excellent fit here. If you give me three years, I can promise that you will have experiences in X, Y and Z. You will lead A, B and C teams, and you will develop 1, 2 and 3 skills and 4, 5, and 6 connections. You will help our organization reach H, I and J goals, so that you will have essentially worked yourself out of a job. At that time, you will find a new challenge either inside this organization or perhaps outside. I will help you do that. I want to set you and this institution up for success, and that means developing you as a leader.”

If you make that kind of clear investment in your hires, your institution will gain the reputation of developing leaders. Potential employees will come to you because of what they know you can offer them.

It is not treasonous or disloyal for institutional leaders to think of their hires’ overall careers. High staff turnover doesn’t necessarily reflect a failure in the hiring process; instead, it may mark success in developing human potential, and in deploying more competent and well-trained leaders into the workforce.

Paul had the ability and intellect to attract, train, mentor and nurture talent, as well as the courage to send these missionaries out into the world. His results are pretty impressive. Imagine what yours could be.

Victoria Atkinson White is the managing director of grants at Leadership Education at Duke Divinity. In this role, she encourages traditioned innovation among Christian institutions and their leaders. For eight years, Victoria was a chaplain at the 900-resident Westminster Canterbury Community in Richmond, Virginia. Before that, she worked as minister to alumni at the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. Victoria is a graduate of Duke Divinity School, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond and Rhodes College. She is an ordained minister affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

Common Good

Leadership

investing in people

leadership development

mission

Previous Post

October 6, 2016

The Cure to Our Culture's Cancer

Next Post

October 10, 2016 Thinking Christianly About the Denmark Model of Economics

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Art Audio posts Bible and Work Book Review Books Budgeting Calling Common Good Community Development Conferences Discipleship Economics Entrepreneurship Ethics Faith and Family Faith and the Marketplace Faith and the Workplace faith and work History of Work and Vocation Leadership Local Church Meaning New Blogger News Prayer Relationships Seminaries Theology of Work Uncategorized Video posts Vocation Worship Resources

Select a Month April 2026 October 2025 September 2025 July 2025 April 2025 January 2025 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 May 2024 March 2024 February 2024 December 2023 November 2023 August 2023 July 2023 April 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 June 2021 May 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 January 2020 December 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 April 2018 March 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which Christian group follows the Five Points of Calvinism?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Methodists Baptists Reformed Pentecostals