The Everest Ascendancy

A Model for developing your Creative Leadership and Confidence.

Photo by Manuel Meurisse on Unsplash

When I started out as a young worship and creative leader, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. In fact, I thought I knew it all, which makes me laugh as I think about it now. But back then, it made me confident in myself, even though I had no real reason for such confidence. I thought that if people weren’t following me, that was on them, and definitely not due to my poor leadership.

As the years went on, I began to see the areas in my life that needed work. It turned out that some things take time and attention in order to learn and gain skills.

At other times I realized I had the technical ability to perform certain tasks, but my confidence was lacking. It took work and attention to grow the confidence to step into all God has placed in my hands to do.

As it turns out - good leadership is a combination of high levels of skill and experience combined with well-grounded confidence.

"So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?"
Hebrews 13:6 (MSG)

Where do you find yourself?

In order to help others not to meander their own way through their creative leadership/confidence journey, we have developed a model for self-assessment and development.

We call the model the Everest Ascendancy.

Imagine Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. Leadership development can feel like a huge mountain to climb. It’s not an easy task. It takes intention, partnership, and a great deal of learning. If you want to reach the summit, you can’t do it alone. You won’t do it without a true combination of expertise and confidence.

So the question is; Where do you currently find yourself?

Look at the chart below.

If you had to rank yourself from 0 to 10 for your creative leadership skill (experience and ability to innovate), what would you give yourself?

And if you had to give yourself a score for confidence in your creative leadership ability, what would you give yourself from 0 to 10?

Side note: This model is not limited to one type of activity. As examples, you can apply to worship leading, team leading, pastoring, or creative leadership.

Before reading the rest of this article - To make this model applicable to your own situation, we suggest you draw the diagram above on a piece of paper and actually plot a point where you feel you are currently.