Finding Leaders in Your Ward Outside the Same Ten People | An Interview with Jessica Johnson

Jessica Johnson works in leadership development with the RBL Group. She holds an MBA from Brigham Young University and previously worked in management and marketing consulting, and in television sports. Jessica spoke about councils as part of the Leading Saints Leadership Conference in November 2018. The video of this podcast is also part of the Motivating Saints Virtual Summit. Highlights 8:30 We try to find the best people for the job, but our own biases can cause us to overlook latent leaders 10:10 Metrics for success are different in the Church 12:10 Think about the role and needs: Who are the stakeholders? Who are they serving? What are their needs? 15:15 Don't start with the people who can fill any calling, but start with the people who are less visible 16:15 Will trumps skill: look for the Amuleks along with the Almas 17:10 First seek the Spirit, but pray for discernment 18:15 Always be training new leaders 20:15 As we seek inspiration and get to know the members of the ward better, inspiration comes 20:25 Example of a bishop who had a weekly new-member meeting in his office that was a Sunday School class, including representatives of the bishopric and relevant auxiliary leadership 23:45 We often have unrecognized internal assumptions about people that we don't question: question those assumptions 25:40 There may be leaders in the ward that are not in formal leadership positions 27:10 Storytelling is how we build culture: Tell stories to spark genuine ministering 29:20 Facts and figures can be dismissed but we remember stories because we insert ourselves into them 30:45 How do we support new leaders? What does that look like? How do we train them? 31:35 Support them by doing assignments and tasks with them first 31:45 Follow-up by giving very specific positive feedback 32:35 Kurt: Sometimes we don't choose that less-than-ideal candidate for a calling because we don't know how to support them 33:45 Kurt: Hold those stewardship meetings 34:20 Not everyone knows exactly what they're supposed to do: example of newly-returned member with a Primary calling 36:00 Give them a few expectations up front so they can create habits and grow into more expectations 36:45 Knowledge about how to do things is often assumed in our culture and we all need a little help knowing how to do things 38:00 Consider assigning a mentor 39:00 "One of the most important things you can leave after you're released is people who have increased in capacity and confidence."—Elder Bednar 40:30 In a business, 20% of the time should be spent on developing people and not "administratia": flip this in a ward setting to 80% 42:20 "Feed forward" (not feedback): Look to the future and ask, "How do we make this better for the future?" then have a collaborative conversation. 44:35 SCARF model of dealing with feedback (David Rock) 45:45 You can learn a lot from those conversations that help with understanding and compassion 47:00 There will be "failure" and struggle but they will learn from it 47:40 Kurt: example of parade float and what was learned 49:00 Look outside your network to find these latent leaders: get to know people you don't know 49:30 If no one disagrees with you in a presidency meeting, that is actually a problem: conflict is healthy (not contention) 51:40 We want everyone involved: D&C 82 That every person may gain other talents Links SCARF Model