One of our priorities at Ignite (www.igniteme.org) is to develop leaders, particularly young leaders. We run a Leadership Academy and we prioritise having young people as interns in the organisation. In recent weeks we have appointed Chloe Roberts as our new Training Manager. At 26, she will bring a dynamism to this role. She will work to develop the academy, Inspire, Offensive and the training of our interns. This an exciting time for the organisation and I am delighted she is joining us. Leadership is a subject that has fascinated me for quite a while now. I think it is the subject that I read about most and along with being a man of God, a good dad and a good husband occupies a lot of my thinking. This is probably because I am confronted with the reality of it on a daily basis. Being the Executive Director is both a privilege and a huge responsibility. I know some days I have a good day and some days a lousy day. Simply my aim must be to have more good days this week than I had last week! I am currently reading "Developing the Leaders Around You" by John Maxwell.  He has a great gift of making this subject very readable and achievable. One quote of his that I know to be true is this: "A person can impress potential leaders from a distance, but only from close up can he impact them". Of course this a double edged sword. The impact you have can either be positive or negative depending on the values, commitment and integrity that you bring to the relationship. There is no doubt about it, there is no substitute to investing quality time in to developing leaders and for that matter developing relationships. Also there is personal example. By being committed to being the best leader there is potential to inspire others to greatness. Roger Bannister achieved what all the experts said was impossible. He ran a mile in under 4 minutes. He believed it was possible and he committed himself to doing it. He was the first but now, any decent mile runner can beat the 4 minute barrier. The reason for this is simple. He initially raised the bar but in doing so, he set the standard by which other runners would be measured. What is the standard I want to set as a leader?