Your growth as a leader is one of the most important aspects of your leadership. If you are not growing as a leader, you will soon stop being a leader. It’s that simple.

And so, developing an atmosphere in which you can sustain and encourage your own growth, as well as the growth of those around you, is crucial.

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We’ve taken a look at several different key elements in developing a growth-oriented environment. You may want to refresh your memory on the first three elements we examined, and then the second group of three.

Today, I want to briefly look at four final characteristics that are found in growth-oriented environments. I see these in all types of organizations, whether that is a church or ministry like my situation, or a business of some sort. These principles ring true across the spectrum.

Creating a growth environment is important. Someone once said that “when you’re through improving, you’re through.” I don’t know about you, but I’m not through.

Here are the final four elements.

One of the ways that leaders grow is by maintaining an environment of growth. Without building such an environment in your life, you could be setting yourself up to fail. Or, at the very least, setting yourself up to experience difficulty in leadership.

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In my last post, we looked at three indicators of a growth-oriented environment.

Today I want to look at three more.

Epictetus is credited as saying “It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” This is true. Without an environment designed to foster growth, you will not grow.

A crucial element in leadership is continual growth.

This is true in all areas of leadership, but I find it to be especially true in ministry.

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Growth is critical if you want to stay on top of your game and be effective for the long term. I’ve seen too many leaders sacrifice personal and spiritual growth. It doesn’t take long for their leadership to crumble, for their effectiveness to wane, and even for their integrity to be compromised.

In order to grow, you have create the right environment. Hank Aaron understood this when he said, “My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.” He created an environment where he could continue to grow, no matter what. And we must do the same.

In order to maintain your leadership abilities, you need to make sure that you are in an environment that is designed for growth. There are a lot of aspects of your leadership environment that you may have no control over. But there are several elements that you can control.

So how do you determine if you are in an growth environment? Here are a few tell-tale indicators that will show you. And if you don’t see these, many of them you can seek out or even create.