Gleanings from the Global Leadership Summit Day 1

Have you ever gone to an event unprepared for its personal impact? There are many trade shows out there, as well as various business development expos from "experts" claiming they have the silver bullet for your struggling organization. I'm not knocking them. Yet seldom are we expecting a spiritual impact from them, even if hosted by Willow Creek Community Church. This is not a slam against Willow: it's just that my limited knowledge of this event was predisposed to expect feel-good chats from well-known leaders and some exhortations to improve in the leadership arena. All of this is just fine, and I certainly would expect some typical pep-talk jargon and business hoopla. Thankfully, I was disappointed today!

I'll say this up front: Bill Hybels is not my ideal pastor. Don't get me wrong, I don't despise him in any way. Some people like to crucify megachurch pastors. I'll also admit that I'm not really a fan of megachurches. There are several reasons (not really relevant to this post). What surprised me today was that, my regard for Hybels notwithstanding (again, I'm not anti-Hybels), he shared a pastor's heart today and did it with biblical integrity. Those are qualities that get my attention!

Hybels opened by defining leadership in a way I've heard before from Henry Blackaby in his book Spiritual Leadership. I've read that book years ago, so it had a familiar ring. Simply put, leaders see the future ahead of time. That's what people call "vision". Nothing really new here. He continued under the heading of humility, which did get my antenna up. You see, that's a quality we rarely find in leaders. Then he unpacked what this looks like -- my notes below are a basic outline:

A.  All leadership is ultimately spiritual in impact.

1. Objective benchmarking of the organizational culture and human impact.
2. Top leaders need to own the turn-around process.
3. Get serious about ongoing training of people management.
4. Raise level of candor in semi-annual job review. Start. Stop. Continue. Move. Modify. Motivate.
5. Ruthless commitment to resolving relational conflict no matter what. Conflict as an opportunity to deepen the relationship. 

B. Leadership must always focus on development of new leaders. See if emerging leader can be resourceful via fully engaged test case leadership opportunity - pass/fail task-force test.

C. Hireling versus good shepherd (cf John 10). Cares for the well-being of the sheep. Leaders with a legacy mindset, thinking beyond themselves.

D. Endurance. The greater the vision, the greater the price.

The point on endurance really got to me. As I listened to Hybels, I was reflecting on my journey from the time I served as an associate pastor to where I am at now. While it may be true I have some leadership qualities, I did not envision this 5 years ago. I'm not complaining and I'm very grateful for the opportunities I've been given. There is simply a profound sense of loss when I invested years in seminary and thought I would spend decades at my church as a pastor. I felt I was prepared to pay the price to stay in vocational ministry, but that's not how things turned out.

I suppose I've been thinking I had completely recovered from the trauma of leaving a church ministry post. After Bill's message the worship team got up and we started singing (I don't even recall the song). I just realized after a minute I couldn't sing -- I was completely overcome. The outpouring of emotion caught me off-guard. As my boss (and friend who knows all this) was standing next to me, I was feeling very vulnerable at that moment.

That vulnerability is actually a leadership trait also mentioned today. Susan Cain also spoke about "Quiet: Challenging the Extrovert Ideal", where she expounded value of introverted leadership. As a self-proclaimed introvert, I share this vulnerability publicly as a way to remain connected to those I know I can trust: you.

These gleanings are simply meant to continue that transparency and encourage others to do the same. Life is hard enough without feeling guilty that we threw away precious opportunities to be real with one another.