What is your gifting as a church leader? 4,800 church leaders have gotten their picture and are able to serve better through the Executive Indicator.
The 5 scales of the Executive Indicator show your strengths as a Mentor, Administrator, Catalyst, Relational and Overseer.
Just like we all have a dominant left or right hand, so we have God-given strengths in our leadership styles. What are your strengths? How will you shore up your limitations?
What Are the Five Areas?
Mentors are people who come alongside of you and develop you to be your best. They hone who you are, fanning the flame of your ability.
Mentors build into you and help you realize your potential. They coach and guide you to help you discover your whole self.
As trusted allies, they are friendly faces who encourage you to grow, develop and change.
Those with the Mentor Pattern are such people as U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower:
I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.
Dwight Eisenhower
WW II Supreme Allied Commander & President of the United States
Administrators help establish the plan and then follow it as it is laid out. They like policy and structure, and are good with details and budgets.
Administrators focus on management and tend to be averse to taking risks.
They are good with procedures and like to follow the rules.
Those with the Administrator Patterns are such people as Anthony Kennedy, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court:
But, if you look over time, if you ask what the American people—the majority of the American people—want over time, over our history, they want judicial review. They want to make sure that the promises of the Constitution are honored, that the commitments we made basically over time with our ancestors are followed.
Anthony Kennedy
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Catalysts
Catalysts are people who will challenge you, and so take you to new ground. They innovate and experiment in life, motivating you to change.
Catalysts seem to light fires under people, spurring them on to unconventional or entirely new methods.
They can be revolutionary, stirring up people. As trusted critics, we know their words are speaking truth as they speed up change in our lives.
Those with the Catalyst Pattern are such people as Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross:
I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past.
Clara Barton
Founder of the Red Cross
Relationals are people who are motivated by harmony and see the team as crucial. They want people to be whole and healthy, and so are good team builders.
Relationals highly value grace and mercy and can be quite loving and warm.
People deeply matter to them. Decisions are guided by deep-seated values and personal connections to others.
Those with the Relational Pattern are such people as Princess Diana:
I wear my heart on my sleeve. I don’t go by the rulebook … I lead from the heart, not the head … Everyone needs to be valued. Everyone has the potential to give something back. I’d like people to think of me as someone who cares about them … I remember when I used to sit on hospital beds and hold people’s hands, people used to be shocked because they’d never seen this before … To me it was quite normal. Helping people in need is a good and essential part of my life, a kind of destiny.
Diana
Princess of Wales
Overseers like to see the big picture. They work best with principles and concepts as their guiding force.
Overseers prefer to work on strategy, aligning people with their right places to work.
They think in terms of the vision and direction of things, tending to look at the horizon rather than at what is immediately in front of them.
Those with the Overseer Pattern are such people as Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of Britain:
To wear your heart on your sleeve isn’t a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best … You don’t tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.
Why do you climb philosophical hills? Because they are worth climbing. There are no hills to go down unless you start from the top. A well ordered society would be one where the State only had a negative action, comparable to that of a rudder: a light pressure at the right moment to counteract the first suggestion of any loss of equilibrium. Economics are the method; the object is to change the soul.
Margaret Thatcher
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Example

One of your Middle Grounds is the Mentor Pattern. With some concentration and effort, you can coach and develop others. Mentors are people who like to come alongside of you and develop you to be your best. They hone who you are, fanning the flame of your ability. Mentors build into you and help you realize your potential. They coach and guide you to help you discover your whole self. As trusted allies, they are friendly faces who encourage you to grow, develop and change. All these Mentor qualities are within your grasp and will come with moderate effort.
Your Shadow is in the Administrator Pattern. It will be harder, and take more time, to establish a plan and then follow it as it is laid out. You may dislike or chafe at following all the policies in an organization. Details and budgets may be a challenge for you. Management tasks may be challenging. Whereas Administrators are averse to taking risks, you might not see the risks in a situation–until it is too late.
You can develop your Administrator skills through education, on the job training or life experience. Using your Administrator skills can bring satisfaction if you have developed this weaker area into a “Middle Ground.” However, you will tire faster when using your Administrator skills, and these skills will be the first to under-perform when you are tired or in a crisis. The Shadow is like using your non-dominant hand to sign a check. While a few people out of ten thousand are ambidextrous, most people are not innately able to do the same functions with both hands. Through education, on-the-job-training, or the school of hard knocks, you may get fairly good at your Shadow function.
One of your Middle Grounds is the Catalyst Pattern. With some concentration and effort, you can be an innovator. Catalysts are people who will challenge you, and so take you to new ground. They innovate and experiment in life, motivating you to change. Catalysts seem to light fires under people, spurring them on to unconventional or entirely new methods. They can be revolutionary, stirring up people. As trusted critics, we know their words are speaking truth as they speed up change in our lives. All these Catalyst qualities are within your grasp and will come with moderate effort.
One of your Middle Grounds is the Relational Pattern. With some concentration and effort, you can be a great team builder. Relationals are people who are motivated by harmony and see the team as crucial. They want people to be whole and healthy, and so are good team builders. Relationals highly value grace and mercy, and can be quite loving and warm. People deeply matter to them. Decisions are guided by deep-seated values and personal connections to others. All these Relational qualities are within your grasp and will come with moderate effort.
Your Sunlight is in the Overseer Pattern. Overseers like to see the big picture. They work best with principles and concepts as their guiding force. Overseers prefer to work on strategy, aligning people with their right places to work. They think in terms of the vision and direction of things, tending to look at the horizon rather than at what is immediately in front of them. As an Overseer, you do these things with relative ease, like using your dominant hand to sign a check. You won’t have to give these things much thought as they flow naturally from your giftedness. President Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were Overseer leaders.
President Reagan said, “We’ve gone astray from first principles. We’ve lost sight of the rule that individual freedom and ingenuity are at the very core of everything that we’ve accomplished. Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.” Overseers think in terms of vision. Margaret Thatcher was a tough woman, called the “Iron Lady.” Thatcher served longest as Prime Minister of Britain and changed the course of that nation with her politics. She said, “Why do you climb philosophical hills? Because they are worth climbing. There are no hills to go down unless you start from the top … Economics are the method; the object is to change the soul.”