Five Levels of Hero Making

Five Levels of Hero-Making

Our newest online assessment tool is based on Exponential’s theme “Hero Maker.” It measures personal multiplication leadership capacity on five distinct levels.

Take the FREE Assessment
 

The five levels of personal multiplication leadership capacity can be developed and are not genetically constrained.  Moving to Level 5 is not easy and will require undoing some unhealthy paradigms and traditional measures of success. However, with intentionality, discipline, and hard work, anyone can develop Level 5 multiplication leadership capacity.

At Level 5, leaders see their legacy through a new and different lens.  Rather than focusing on what they can do and accumulate, they focus on who they can invest in and propel forward.

We’ve chosen to use the words “hero” and “hero-maker” to describe the transition from Level 1 to Level 5 personal multiplication leadership capacity.  Levels 1 through 5 represent a spectrum or continuum of characteristics.

At Level 1, leaders are the hero with much of the critical work and mission falling on their shoulders.  At Level 3, leaders are making heroes who they share the work and mission with to help fuel the growth of the organization. At Level 5, leaders are making hero-makers who invest in making other hero-makers to the fourth generation into the future to multiply impact far beyond the sending organization.

Level 1 is “me” focused.  Level 3 is “my organization” focused.  Level 5 is “God’s Kingdom” focused.

This spectrum is similar to the discipleship spectrum Jesus modeled for us. At Level 1 a person is a disciple.  At Level 3 they make disciples, and at Level 5 they make disciple-makers.

Hero-makers who are also disciple-makers are the fuel of multiplication movements.

Look closely and you can see how subtraction, addition, and multiplication are embedded in this continuum.  Level 5 is the fuel of multiplication movements where hero-makers make other hero-makers and disciple-makers make other disciple-makers.  In this context, the latent capacity of the Body of Christ is released to all corners of society.

The following is a summary description of each of the five levels of hero-making (personal multiplication leadership capacity).  Not every characteristic described in present in every person.  Don’t get stuck on specific characteristics.  Instead, focus on the overall aggregate description of a Level and the personal culture a leader creates or lives within at that level.

Descriptions

The five levels include:

Level 1 – Serving People:  These leaders are often constrained by their own leadership capacity and tend to be biased to doing most critical things themselves. They are the hero in their story.  Very little time is invested in coming alongside and developing others. These leaders may actually enjoy serving others so much that they lack desire to invest in and develop others. What these leaders need most is intentionality in recruiting and developing others, and letting go of their current paradigms of success. These leaders often find themselves serving within cultures characterized by scarcity. In some cases, it may be their own Level 1 paradigms that are causing or contributing to the scarcity.  These leaders may have convinced themselves their isn’t enough time or that there simply aren’t people available to develop. The opportunity cost of trying to do everything themselves is significant. It simultaneously limits their overall impact and it prevents them from ever having the perceived time to invest in others the way they need to. Heroes will always constrain their sphere of influence to their personal leadership capacity.  As a result, they are held captive at Level 1 until they embrace a new measure of success: making heroes of others. As the weight of this captivity increases, the drive to do more themselves may further hinder their ability to break free. These leaders are stuck. To move to higher levels of leadership capacity, they must first recognize their captivity to Level 1 and take steps to be set free from their current paradigms that are restraining their full potential.  There tends to be no intentional or deliberate leadership development process in place for these leaders to develop other leaders.

Level 2 – Recruiting People:  These leaders see the value in expanding ministry through others and are committed to recruiting others to share in the mission and the work. Level 2 leaders thrive on stability and drive for it. They are keenly aware of the organizations most pressing needs and what critical roles need to be filled.  They are heroes who like to recruit other heroes to share the work. A stable, effective, and efficient system and operation is important to how these leaders think. The culture being created may even be described as one that values awareness and stability.  These leaders may be content with their current leadership capacity, and hence, the need for change may not be recognized.  They’re optimizing their leadership to fit the needs of the system.  If the potential need for change in their leadership is recognized, it is likely that the perceived pain of change is thought to be greater than the perceived pain of staying the same. In this way, these leaders may be unintentionally and unknowingly held captive to Level 2 multiplication leadership capacity.  Change disrupts stability which is what their culture values.  Level 2 hero-makers do invest in people, but primarily and strategically for the purpose of operating the system, improving the system, and keeping it stable. The development is not typically for the growth and expansion of the organization. These leaders may be aware of or sensing the need for leadership development processes, but little progress has been made to turn it into a stable system.  What these leaders need most is to discern the need for change and to see others as potential heroes.

Level 3 – Developing Leaders:  These leaders tend to thrive in organizations with a culture of growth and expansion.  These leaders tend to be keenly aware of their own leadership capacity limitations and are striving to improve.  A primary measure of success is numerical growth. Making heroes is about growing their organization. They tend to pursue legacies that will be measured by what they build, grow, and accumulate rather than by who they develop, release, and send.  These leaders see the vital importance of leadership development and are putting (or have put) formal “leadership development pipelines” in place to fuel the growth of the organization.  They want to make heroes of others.  However, a key distinctive on their internal drive is that their efforts are primarily focused on growing the local organization and achieving organizational impact and success.  They see each potential leader as fuel for local growth.  They do invest in people, but it tends to be with an eye toward mobilization for the good the local organization.  “Winning” tends to be measured more by mobilizing people into the organizations needs than it is by helping the person discover and engage their unique sweet spot of personal calling.  What they need most is to see the leaders they recruit and develop as uniquely made children of God who might have a purpose beyond the local organization and its needs.  They need to see their hero-making efforts as a stewardship of God’s people for His purposes, beyond the numerical growth of their own organization.   These leaders need to embrace Level 4 and 5 measures of success and legacy to increase their personal multiplication leadership capacity!

Level 4 – Releasing Leaders:  These leaders see beyond addition growth. They embrace reproduction strategies over addition strategies and consider a key measure of their success the development AND release of leaders.They are moving beyond making heroes and see the fruit and impact of making hero-makers. They are pursuing the 5 essential practices of hero-making in their own lives. To the extent that Level 3 is about accumulation and growth, Level 4 is about growth and release.  Their scorecard is biased to counting people who’ve been sent for impact beyond the local organization. These leaders are intentional about investing in leaders who will be sent for impact beyond the local organization.  However, this “release” is often painful. The best people you develop tend to be the ones who want and need to be released. At Level 4 you deal with the grief of loss.  Especially in light of the proven Level 3 practices and strategies that may have propelled them to Level 4. Level 4 is simultaneously exhilarating and exhausting, and the tension to Level 3 is always lingering and influencing.  These leaders experience the real life tension between the Level 3 and Level 5 characteristics that seem to pull them simultaneously in both directions. What these leaders need most is intentionally and perseverance, with an eye toward Level 5 hero-making.  They need to move from hero-making being programmatic to it being built organically into their DNA and natural rhythms of life.

Level 5 – Unleashing Leaders:  These leaders see their primary purpose and legacy as the people they invest in.  They spend significant time and energy intentionally looking for and investing in other leaders.  They model the 5 essential practices of hero-making, including multiplication thinking, permission giving, disciple multiplying, gift activating, and Kingdom building.  They care deeply about their organizations, but their scorecards and measures of success have no organizational boundaries.  They are committed to identifying, developing, and releasing leaders for Kingdom impact regardless of where that may take the leaders being released.  Level 5 Hero Makers care deeply about helping people find their unique sweet spot of personal calling and the best place for them to live it out. They care more deeply about others finding their unique roles than in filling the critical roles inside the organization.  These leaders have a vision for impact far beyond what happens inside their organization and direct span of control.  They value results, but care deeply about the stewardship of how results are attained.  They believe multiplication through hero-making is the fuel of sustained impact.  The rhythms of hero-making are so deeply embedded in their lives that these Level 5 hero-makers would produce other hero-makers without even having formal systems. However, they do embrace reproducible systems for hero-making that allow increasing numbers of leaders to develop as hero-makers.

Additional Hero-Maker Resources

We’re developing a growing library of resources to help leaders move from being heroes to becoming hero-makers.  Our top 3 equipping resources include:

#1Exponential Hero Maker Events – We have Hero Maker events in Washington DC, Southern California, Northern California, Chicago, and Houston.  These events are designed to equip leaders and teams in the 5 essential practices of hero-making. Click here to learn more.

#2Hero Maker Digital Access Pass – All main stage videos and creative elements from our national HeroMaker event in Orlando, FL are available for immediate download and use. These are great training resources. Click here to learn more.

#3 – Hero Maker Book –  This is our key resource for the Hero Maker theme during 2018 at Exponential.  This book by Dave Ferguson and Warren Bird highlights the 5 Essential Practices for Leaders to Multiply Leaders.

#4 FREE Multipliers eBook – This free eBook from Exponential has a chapter (chapter 9) that addresses hero-making.  It also covers core content from the past 4 years at Exponential.

#5 – FREE Online Assessment Tool – Discover your personal multiplication leadership capacity on a 5 level scale.

#5 – The Five Essential Practices of Hero Making – The following links give a collection of equipping resources for each of the 5 essential practices of hero-making:

Multiplication Thinking

Permission Giving

Disciple Multiplying

Gift Activating

Kingdom Building

 

Five Levels of Hero Making

Five Levels of Hero-Making

Our newest online assessment tool is based on our Hero Maker content and it measures personal multiplication leadership capacity on five distinct levels.

The five levels of personal multiplication leadership capacity can be developed and are not genetically constrained.  Moving to Level 5 is not easy and will require undoing some unhealthy paradigms and traditional measures of success. However, with intentionality, discipline, and hard work, anyone can develop Level 5 multiplication leadership capacity.

At Level 5, leaders see their legacy through a new and different lens.  Rather than focusing on what they can do and accumulate, they focus on who they can invest in and propel forward.

We’ve chosen to use the words “hero” and “hero-maker” to describe the transition from Level 1 to Level 5 personal multiplication leadership capacity.  Levels 1 through 5 represent a spectrum or continuum of characteristics.

At Level 1, leaders are the hero with much of the critical work and mission falling on their shoulders.  At Level 3, leaders are making heroes who they share the work and mission with to help fuel the growth of the organization. At Level 5, leaders are making hero-makers who invest in making other hero-makers to the fourth generation into the future to multiply impact far beyond the sending organization.

Level 1 is “me” focused.  Level 3 is “my organization” focused.  Level 5 is “God’s Kingdom” focused.

This spectrum is similar to the discipleship spectrum Jesus modeled for us. At Level 1 a person is a disciple.  At Level 3 they make disciples, and at Level 5 they make disciple-makers.

Hero-makers who are also disciple-makers are the fuel of multiplication movements.

Look closely and you can see how subtraction, addition, and multiplication are embedded in this continuum.  Level 5 is the fuel of multiplication movements where hero-makers make other hero-makers and disciple-makers make other disciple-makers.  In this context, the latent capacity of the Body of Christ is released to all corners of society.

The following is a summary description of each of the five levels of hero-making (personal multiplication leadership capacity).  Not every characteristic described in present in every person.  Don’t get stuck on specific characteristics.  Instead, focus on the overall aggregate description of a Level and the personal culture a leader creates or lives within at that level.

Descriptions

The five levels include:

Level 1 – Serving People:  These leaders are often constrained by their own leadership capacity and tend to be biased to doing most critical things themselves. They are the hero in their story.  Very little time is invested in coming alongside and developing others. These leaders may actually enjoy serving others so much that they lack desire to invest in and develop others. What these leaders need most is intentionality in recruiting and developing others, and letting go of their current paradigms of success. These leaders often find themselves serving within cultures characterized by scarcity. In some cases, it may be their own Level 1 paradigms that are causing or contributing to the scarcity.  These leaders may have convinced themselves their isn’t enough time or that there simply aren’t people available to develop. The opportunity cost of trying to do everything themselves is significant. It simultaneously limits their overall impact and it prevents them from ever having the perceived time to invest in others the way they need to. Heroes will always constrain their sphere of influence to their personal leadership capacity.  As a result, they are held captive at Level 1 until they embrace a new measure of success: making heroes of others. As the weight of this captivity increases, the drive to do more themselves may further hinder their ability to break free. These leaders are stuck. To move to higher levels of leadership capacity, they must first recognize their captivity to Level 1 and take steps to be set free from their current paradigms that are restraining their full potential.  There tends to be no intentional or deliberate leadership development process in place for these leaders to develop other leaders.

Level 2 – Recruiting People:  These leaders see the value in expanding ministry through others and are committed to recruiting others to share in the mission and the work. Level 2 leaders thrive on stability and drive for it. They are keenly aware of the organizations most pressing needs and what critical roles need to be filled.  They are heroes who like to recruit other heroes to share the work. A stable, effective, and efficient system and operation is important to how these leaders think. The culture being created may even be described as one that values awareness and stability.  These leaders may be content with their current leadership capacity, and hence, the need for change may not be recognized.  They’re optimizing their leadership to fit the needs of the system.  If the potential need for change in their leadership is recognized, it is likely that the perceived pain of change is thought to be greater than the perceived pain of staying the same. In this way, these leaders may be unintentionally and unknowingly held captive to Level 2 multiplication leadership capacity.  Change disrupts stability which is what their culture values.  Level 2 hero-makers do invest in people, but primarily and strategically for the purpose of operating the system, improving the system, and keeping it stable. The development is not typically for the growth and expansion of the organization. These leaders may be aware of or sensing the need for leadership development processes, but little progress has been made to turn it into a stable system.  What these leaders need most is to discern the need for change and to see others as potential heroes.

Level 3 – Developing Leaders:  These leaders tend to thrive in organizations with a culture of growth and expansion.  These leaders tend to be keenly aware of their own leadership capacity limitations and are striving to improve.  A primary measure of success is numerical growth. Making heroes is about growing their organization. They tend to pursue legacies that will be measured by what they build, grow, and accumulate rather than by who they develop, release, and send.  These leaders see the vital importance of leadership development and are putting (or have put) formal “leadership development pipelines” in place to fuel the growth of the organization.  They want to make heroes of others.  However, a key distinctive on their internal drive is that their efforts are primarily focused on growing the local organization and achieving organizational impact and success.  They see each potential leader as fuel for local growth.  They do invest in people, but it tends to be with an eye toward mobilization for the good the local organization.  “Winning” tends to be measured more by mobilizing people into the organizations needs than it is by helping the person discover and engage their unique sweet spot of personal calling.  What they need most is to see the leaders they recruit and develop as uniquely made children of God who might have a purpose beyond the local organization and its needs.  They need to see their hero-making efforts as a stewardship of God’s people for His purposes, beyond the numerical growth of their own organization.   These leaders need to embrace Level 4 and 5 measures of success and legacy to increase their personal multiplication leadership capacity!

Level 4 – Releasing Leaders:  These leaders see beyond addition growth. They embrace reproduction strategies over addition strategies and consider a key measure of their success the development AND release of leaders.They are moving beyond making heroes and see the fruit and impact of making hero-makers. They are pursuing the 5 essential practices of hero-making in their own lives. To the extent that Level 3 is about accumulation and growth, Level 4 is about growth and release.  Their scorecard is biased to counting people who’ve been sent for impact beyond the local organization. These leaders are intentional about investing in leaders who will be sent for impact beyond the local organization.  However, this “release” is often painful. The best people you develop tend to be the ones who want and need to be released. At Level 4 you deal with the grief of loss.  Especially in light of the proven Level 3 practices and strategies that may have propelled them to Level 4. Level 4 is simultaneously exhilarating and exhausting, and the tension to Level 3 is always lingering and influencing.  These leaders experience the real life tension between the Level 3 and Level 5 characteristics that seem to pull them simultaneously in both directions. What these leaders need most is intentionally and perseverance, with an eye toward Level 5 hero-making.  They need to move from hero-making being programmatic to it being built organically into their DNA and natural rhythms of life.

Level 5 – Unleashing Leaders:  These leaders see their primary purpose and legacy as the people they invest in.  They spend significant time and energy intentionally looking for and investing in other leaders.  They model the 5 essential practices of hero-making, including multiplication thinking, permission giving, disciple multiplying, gift activating, and Kingdom building.  They care deeply about their organizations, but their scorecards and measures of success have no organizational boundaries.  They are committed to identifying, developing, and releasing leaders for Kingdom impact regardless of where that may take the leaders being released.  Level 5 Hero Makers care deeply about helping people find their unique sweet spot of personal calling and the best place for them to live it out. They care more deeply about others finding their unique roles than in filling the critical roles inside the organization.  These leaders have a vision for impact far beyond what happens inside their organization and direct span of control.  They value results, but care deeply about the stewardship of how results are attained.  They believe multiplication through hero-making is the fuel of sustained impact.  The rhythms of hero-making are so deeply embedded in their lives that these Level 5 hero-makers would produce other hero-makers without even having formal systems. However, they do embrace reproducible systems for hero-making that allow increasing numbers of leaders to develop as hero-makers.

Additional Hero-Maker Resources

We’re developing a growing library of resources to help leaders move from being heroes to becoming hero-makers.  Our top 3 equipping resources include:

#1Exponential Hero Maker Events – We have Hero Maker events in Washington DC, Southern California, Northern California, Chicago, and Houston.  These events are designed to equip leaders and teams in the 5 essential practices of hero-making. Click here to learn more.

#2Hero Maker Digital Access Pass – All main stage videos and creative elements from our national HeroMaker event in Orlando, FL are available for immediate download and use. These are great training resources. Click here to learn more.

#3 – Hero Maker Book –  This is our key resource for the Hero Maker theme during 2018 at Exponential.  This book by Dave Ferguson and Warren Bird highlights the 5 Essential Practices for Leaders to Multiply Leaders.

#4 FREE Multipliers eBook – This free eBook from Exponential has a chapter (chapter 9) that addresses hero-making.  It also covers core content from the past 4 years at Exponential.

#5 – The Five Essential Practices of Hero Making – The following links give a collection of equipping resources for each of the 5 essential practices of hero-making:

Multiplication Thinking

Permission Giving

Disciple Multiplying

Gift Activating

Kingdom Building

 

Kingdom Building

Note: Our Personal Multiplication Leadership Capacity Assessment Tool is based on 5 essential practices from our Hero Maker theme content.  The fifth essential practice is Kingdom Building.

Overview of Kingdom Building

Kingdom building is a shift in counting and how we measure success. Instead of counting the people who show up at “my thing,” I begin to count the leaders whom I send to go out and do “God’s thing.”

Heroes ask, “How do I grow my thing?” Hero Makers ask, “How do we multiply God’s Kingdom?” Heroes tend to measure accumulation and growth. Hero Makers measure release and multiplication.

Heroes grow fantastic orchards with lots of trees in their local context. Hero Makers send leaders to who plant far more orchards than one person could do on their own in a single context.

Heroes primarily measure success by the accumulation metrics inside the local organization. Hero Makers build on these important measures and give equal priority to Kingdom multiplication measures beyond the local organization.

Heroes see their success primarily through the lens of what they accomplish with others in the local context. Hero Makers see success through what others activate and accomplish beyond the local context.

Heroes measure legacy by what they leave behind. Hero Makers measure legacy by what they propel forward.

Short Video Summary

Check out this short video (approximately 9 minutes in duration) where Dave Ferguson, co-author of the book Hero Maker, provides an overview of Kingdom Building.

Making it Personal

Think about the average person you invest yourself into.  Think across the various domains of your life including family, work, church, community, neighbors, and friends. Which question below captures your actual attitudes, behaviors and practices the best?

  • Are you Kingdom building as if your legacy is being made by what you accumulate and leave behind? Are you measuring success by what you accumulate now?
  • Or by the people and leadership potential you release and propel forward beyond yourself?
  • Or are you simply too busy and distracted to be strategic about what legacy you are leaving and how you are pursuing it?

Additional Resources

Click here to learn more about Exponential’s Hero Maker events where you can join 1,000s of other leaders who are seeking to move from being heroes to becoming hero-makers.

Click here to learn more about the Hero Maker book.

Click here to take (or return to) the Personal Multiplication Leadership Capacity Assessment Tool.

Gift Activating

Note: Our Personal Multiplication Leadership Capacity Assessment Tool is based on 5 essential practices from our Hero Maker theme content.  The fourth essential practice is Gift Activating.

Overview of Gift Activating

Gift activating is a shift in blessing. Instead of asking God to bless the use of our own gifts, we learn to ask God to bless leaders that we’re sending out.

Gift activating requires that we not simply fill slots but instead develop people’s gifts and commission them to be sent out for ministry. We look for opportunities to activate people’s calling.

We move from mobilizing people with a “we can do it, you can help” motive to a “you can do it, how can I help” open-handed posture. We shift from viewing success as people being recruited to fill volunteer slots to support our needs to people being mobilized on their unique gifting and calling for God’s purposes and impacts.

Heroes attract and accumulate to support building bigger organizations. Hero makers release and deploy to support taking Kingdom impact into more corners of society. Heroes see people as volunteer assets with a supporting role to play. Hero makers see people as missionaries with a unique mission field to engage.

 

Short Video Summary

Check out this short video (approximately 8 minutes in duration) where Dave Ferguson, co-author of the book Hero Maker, provides an overview of Gift Activating.

Making it Personal

Think about the average person you invest yourself into.  Think across the various domains of your life including family, work, church, community, neighbors, and friends. Which question below captures your actual attitudes, behaviors and practices the best?

  • Are you activating God’s unique gifts in people for God’s purposes no matter where that positions and sends them?
  • Or are you mobilizing workers to satisfy your priorities for growth into the spots you most need them in now?
  • Or are you continually stressing over recruiting volunteers to keep things running?

Additional Resources

Click here to learn more about Exponential’s Hero Maker events where you can join 1,000s of other leaders who are seeking to move from being heroes to becoming hero-makers.

Click here to learn more about the Hero Maker book.

Click here to take (or return to) the Personal Multiplication Leadership Capacity Assessment Tool.

Disciple Multiplying

Note: Our Personal Multiplication Leadership Capacity Assessment Tool is based on 5 essential practices from our Hero Maker theme content.  The third essential practice is Disciple Multiplying.

Overview of Disciple Multiplying

Disciple multiplying is a shift in sharing. Heroes share what they know; hero makers share their lives. Heroes focus on making and growing disciples. Hero makers focus on developing and releasing disciple-makers to the fourth generation.

Heroes focus on growing and extending their leadership impact by mobilizing others who can grow the organization. Hero makers invest in the development of other leaders who then invest in the development of leaders to the fourth generation for the purpose of multiplying rather than simply adding.

Hero makers see a core responsibility of stewarding their time as the investment of their lives into others as the best way to release the potential in others. When you’re committed to be a disciple multiplier, the impact reaches beyond growing your organization.

Disciple multipliers do not rely on programmatic approaches to making and growing disciples. Instead, they follow Jesus’ relational approach to investing directly and substantially into others. Disciple multipliers focus on making disciple-makers (those who make disciples who make disciples who maker disciples) rather than just disciples who do not reproduce themselves. Disciple-makers who make other disciple-makers are the fuel of multiplication.

Are you focused on making disciples or on making disciple-makers? The difference is subtle but significant!

Short Video Summary

Check out this short video (approximately 8 minutes in duration) where Dave Ferguson, co-author of the book Hero Maker, provides an overview of Disciple Multiplying.

Making it Personal

Think about the average person you invest yourself into.  Think across the various domains of your life including family, work, church, community, neighbors, and friends. Which question below captures your actual attitudes, behaviors and practices the best?

  • Are you intentionally investing your life into others as Jesus did to multiply and release disciple-makers who make disciple-makers who make disciple-makers?
  • Or are you primarily focused on making and growing disciples through programmatic strategies and public teaching?
  • Or are you struggling to be intentional about making disciples?

Additional Resources

Click here to learn more about Exponential’s Hero Maker events where you can join 1,000s of other leaders who are seeking to move from being heroes to becoming hero-makers.

Click here to learn more about the Hero Maker book.

Click here to take (or return to) the Personal Multiplication Leadership Capacity Assessment Tool.

Permission Giving

Note: Our Personal Multiplication Leadership Capacity Assessment Tool is based on 5 essential practices from our Hero Maker theme content.  The second essential practice is Permission Giving.

Overview of Permission Giving

Permission givers take the focus off their own leadership and instead see more fully the vast leadership potential God has put around them. “I see what God can do through my own leadership” shifts to “I see what God can do through the people he’s put in my life.”

  • Permission givers let others know what they see in them. It’s a shift in seeing: “I see this gift in you,” and “I see God at work in you when you . . .”
  • Permission givers see the potential in other people, say it, encourage it, and then equip them for what God wants to do in and through them.
  • Role Recruiters mobilize people to fill the most pressing needs of the organization.
  • Role Recruiters naturally see the gifts of people as critical resources for growing the local organization and overcoming its current barriers and obstacles.
  • Self-Reliant Doers are critical to the operation of the organization and tend to be lone rangers who spend most of their time doing the things they perceive only they can do
  • Self-Reliant Doers are so busy balancing their primary responsibilities that they find little time for directly investing in the development of others to take some of their workload.

Short Video Summary

Check out this short video (approximately 7 minutes in duration) where Dave Ferguson, co-author of the book Hero Maker, provides an overview of Permission Giving.

Making it Personal

Think about the average person you invest yourself into.  Think across the various domains of your life including family, work, church, community, neighbors, and friends. Which question below captures your actual attitudes, behaviors and practices the best?

  • Are you a permission giver, having regular ICNU conversations to bless others (“I see in you…”)?
  • Or are you a role recruiter, having regular conversations to recruit others (“I need you to…”)?
  • Or a self-reliant doer, tackling most critical tasks yourself (“I will do it…”)?

Additional Resources

Click here to learn more about Exponential’s Hero Maker events where you can join 1,000s of other leaders who are seeking to move from being heroes to becoming hero-makers.

Click here to learn more about the Hero Maker book.

Click here to take (or return to) the Personal Multiplication Leadership Capacity Assessment Tool.

Multiplication Thinking

Note: Our Personal Multiplication Leadership Capacity Assessment Tool is based on 5 essential practices from our Hero Maker theme content.  The first essential practice is Multiplication Thinking.

Overview of Multiplication Thinking

Multiplication thinkers move from thinking that the best way to maximize ministry is through their own efforts to embracing the truth that multiplication happens through mobilizing the leadership capacity of others. Multiplication thinking is a shift from the scarcity paradigm that ministry happens through my own leadership to the abundance paradigm that ministry happens by developing and releasing the potential of other leaders to the third and fourth generations into the future.

Three key types of thinking are characterized by:

  • Scarcity thinking is often focused on overcoming the obstacles and barriers that keep your organization from growing.
  • Scarcity thinking seeks to supplement or increase your personal leadership capacity to grow the organization.
  • Growth thinking sees the world through the lens of opportunity rather than constraints or barriers.
  • Growth thinking looks for ways to overcome obstacles and barriers right now, right here to see growth now in our local context.
  • Multiplication thinking naturally sees the potential of others not just to grow the organization but to pioneer, and activate, and fuel new opportunities beyond the organization.
  • Multiplication thinking sees the potential beyond the challenges and realities of today, sees investments in people as the seeds of future fruit, and embraces a measure of success that is dependent on a cycle (or chain) of leaders who release leaders who release leaders.

Short Video Summary

Check out this short video (approximately 7 minutes in duration) where Dave Ferguson, co-author of the book Hero Maker, provides an overview of Multiplication Thinking.

Making it Personal

Think about the average person you invest yourself into.  Think across the various domains of your life including family, work, church, community, neighbors, and friends. Which question below captures your actual attitudes, behaviors and practices the best?

  • Are you a multiplication thinker who often dreams about the potential multiplying impact that each person could have beyond your organization when they invest in leaders who invest in leaders who invest in leaders?
  • Or are you a growth thinker, often consumed in your thinking by how to find and release the potential of each person in your organization to help your organization grow?
  • Or are you a scarcity thinker, often overwhelmed by the seemingly impossible obstacles and barriers in your path, often too busy for investing directly in others?

Additional Resources

Click here to learn more about Exponential’s Hero Maker events where you can join 1,000s of other leaders who are seeking to move from being heroes to becoming hero-makers.

Click here to learn more about the Hero Maker book.

Click here to take (or return to) the Personal Multiplication Leadership Capacity Assessment Tool.