EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is an excerpt from What Actually Starts Movements by Emanuel Prinz, used with permission. This book is a significant new resource for leaders pursuing disciple-making movements. You can purchase the book here.
There is a kind of person the Lord of the Harvest looks on with favor and uses to start a movement.
—Bill Smith
As you prayerfully engage with this content, consider:
What kind of person consistently shows up at the center of gospel movements?
Which leadership qualities really matter—and which ones are just noise?
Could these traits be intentionally developed in your own life?
Traits and Competencies of Effective Leaders
Effective catalytic leaders use a variety of movement ministry approaches. While there is no single method that guarantees a movement, those God uses to initiate them consistently manifest the same set of traits and competencies.
If we sat down in a coffee shop with catalytic leaders from rural Kenya, an American city, an Indian metropolis, and an Indonesian island, we would find all four remarkably alike in their essential character—even allowing for cultural and personality differences.
So, when we ask what starts a movement, we first need to examine the kind of leader behind it.
Digging Deeper into the Research
To answer that question, Emanuel Prinz and his team conducted a comprehensive review of movement and leadership literature, along with empirical research. They started with 31 key sources—14 focused on apostolic and movement leadership, and 17 drawn from over 600 studies on secular leadership. From these, they identified 228 unique traits and competencies.
They narrowed the list to just 24 traits that appeared in at least three different works. Then, using surveys of effective movement catalysts worldwide, they compared these qualities between leaders who had catalyzed movements and those who had not.
The traits fell into three distinct domains:
- The Personality domain: traits related to individual personality and character.
- The Spiritual domain: traits and competencies of a spiritual nature, having to do with one’s relationship with God.
- The Social Influence domain: traits and competencies having to do with relating with others, describing social behavior and ways to influence others.
Wherever movements are happening, leaders marked by these traits are leading the way. They don’t all share the same tactics—but they share the same kind of transformation.
Want to become the kind of leader who catalyzes movements?
Start by examining your own leadership profile—and pursue the kind of growth that aligns with how God tends to work when revival breaks out.
Emanuel Prinz (D.Min., Ph.D. cand.) is a missiologist and educator who has conducted the broadest-ever research on movements. He has taught at various universities and has published numerous articles in journals such as Missiology, Evangelical Missions Quarterly, Journal of the Evangelical Missiological Society, Global Missiology, and Christianity Today.
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