Leadership Assessment… Fit and Flourish Process vs. Pass/Fail Test
If you’ve ever applied for a job and gone through an interview, you’ve felt this underlying question from the interviewer: “Can you do this job or not?”
In essence, you experienced a “pass/fail” type of assessment.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if the interviewer helped you find what job is best for you?
In the ministry world, assessments take different forms…
1. Job Interview: Much like the business world, you meet with different people, demonstrate your capability (usually preaching a message) and get the job…or not.
2. Education/Theology: Do you have the right academic credentials? Do you believe like us? You’re in.
3. Warm Body: We need someone, and you are available. We hope you’ll work out.
4. Assessment Center: After various profiles you spend two to three days with other couples and an assessment team doing interviews and simulations, followed by an evaluation. In the end you pass or fail as to whether you can plant a church.
5. Behavioral Interview: An analytical interview measuring your aptitude regarding a certain set of skills and criteria. In the end, you pass or fail as to whether you can plant a certain kind of church.
6. “Mr. Rogers”: “Based on relationship and personal observation, who would you like to be part of your neighborhood?”
7. Fit and Flourish Mutual Discernment: An intentional process of clarifying personality, gifts, and values through profiles, capturing your personal timeline, and describing your ideal ministry setting. All of this blended with an interactive workshop to help you look at your life from several important but uncommon perspectives, leading to a “Painting Your Picture” interview that captures the “skills inside your stories”. It helps you describe your:
Personality, gifts, and values that influence your relationships
Ministry orientation—pioneering or pastoral
Geographic and culture affinity
Skills that help you design your ministry strategy
Price and pluses for your family
Partners you need on a team
Place and role in the life span of a ministry
In other words, you have a description how you best fit and flourish!
At The Fit & Flourish Group, we believe the best kind of assessment is a mutual discernment process that honors and values everyone, treats people like adults, and affirms people for who they are. When that happens, everyone passes. Everyone wins. God is honored and His Kingdom expanded.
Coach Yourself Forward
1. What kind of assessments have you experienced? What are your observations about them?
2. What values would guide any assessment process you’d want to be a part of?
3. What are your observations about our “Fit and Flourish Mutual Discernment” process? What would you add? What would you change?