Leadership Development and Discipleship

I just had a few quick thoughts I wanted to get down...

I'm starting to think more about the relationship between discipleship and leadership development, especially in the context of ministry and church planting.  What is the difference between them?  Can one take place without the other?  At the moment, I feel like the questions of discipleship need to be addressed prior to the issues of leadership development, because I think that leadership development will come naturally out of discipleship.  Maybe focusing on leadership development without first establishing a clear sense of discipleship among potential leaders is like putting the cart before the horse.  But I'm thinking that a first step of discipleship formation is learning how to listen both individually and collectively to God's call.  Leadership development can have a sense of go-go-go (at least, that's how I can feel about it).  And there's certainly nothing wrong with urgency and leadership growth.  However, the urgency can sometimes overwhelm us, and we can lose sight of (or even never really grasp) the work and will of God in our unique situation.  I believe that starting with discipleship serves as a sort of guard against just developing leaders for the sake of having leaders.  More importantly, I think, is the issue of discernment.  How do we learn, and how do we teach our leaders a posture of listening and of the subsequent readiness to respond to God's unique call.  When we talk about leadership development in ministry - and especially in church planting - I want to talk first about discipleship.  Because I sense that all too often we can develop leaders apart from disciples; but I think it would be difficult to develop disciples apart from leaders.