Leadership

Leadership Summit Session with Patrick Lencioni

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Patrick Lencioni – Organizational Health

“People need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed.” – Samuel Johnson

Organizational health is the single most resource for every organization, but often untapped.

Two requirements for success:

  1. Smart – marketing, strategy, finance
  2. Healthy – minimal politics and confusion, high morale, productivity, very low turnover among the best people

It’s easier to deal with the more objectifiable ‘smart’ stuff. The truth is that most organizations are indistinguishable based on the strategy, technology, etc., but often they can’t tap into it b/c of a lack of organizational health.

Four disciplines to building organizational health:

  1. Build a cohesive leadership team. Master five behaviors: results, accountability, commitment,
  2. Create clarity: intellectual clarity, on the same page. Mission statements don’t do this. Rather answer 6 questions to create clarity:
  • Why we exist? Purpose. Easy for churches to answer. When you know why you exist, it will inform the decisions you make. Keeps you for losing your way.
  • How do we behave? Values. Churches have a harder time with this. The challenge is to narrow down to the three truly accurate behaviors that describe our culture. Don’t get confused by aspirational values (what we want to be); or ‘permission to play’ values (minimum standards: eg. Christian values, practice and faith)) Something you are willing to die for. What are the core values of my church?
  • What do we do?
  • How will we succeed? Strategy. Must be accessible to everyone – intentional decisions you make that will differentiate you and cause you to succeed. Three strategic anchors to help inform every decision.
  • What is most important right now?
  • Who must do what?

Answers to these questions will empower people!

3. Over-communicate clarity. Need to hear something seven times to get it across.

4. Reinforce clarity. Employ creative means to reinforce your values.

Session 2 – Condoleeza Rice

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Session – Condoleeza Rice

Three shocking moments of the 21st C.

  • 9/11/01 – notions of physical security are blown up
  • 2008 – housing crisis, global financial meltdown blow up notions of prosperity
  • 2011 – Arab spring, totalitarian regimes do not stand, freedom breaks out, and this is not the same as democracy –> there is a journey towards maturity = strong cannot exploit the weak. Majority cannot rule, but make room for the minority.

Leadership is not just about having people follow me, but helping them see that they too can lead. Help others become leaders, but others will not want to become leaders unless they see that you are an optimist believing in the brighter and better future. 

How do you stay an optimist:

  • Keep perspective about how difficult your circumstances really are. If you are so focused on today’s headlines instead of looking for history’s judgment, you will achieve nothing.
  • Out of hardship comes often comes great achievement.
  • It is a privilege to struggle! There you realize your own lack of power and strength.
  • Think about past faithfulness. That those things that seem impossible seem actually inevitable in retrospect. But those outcomes were not inevitable, but the fruit of sacrifice and suffering. The outcomes of people who put everything on the line. Those are leaders!

Make it a world not as it is, but as it should be.

Summary notes from the Global Leadership Summit

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Today and tomorrow, I am soaking (drowning?) in the wisdom of leaders from the church, academia, and business world.

I’ll post my notes and reflections as the sessions go. This might not be related to hearing echoes of the gospel in daily life, but I hope it will make you a better leader who creates your own echoes!

Session 1 – Bill Hybels

The idea of self-leadership: you are the most difficult person you will ever lead.

Work habits of a leader. The leader’s most valuable asset is not time, but energy, and the ability to energize people around him. *Ministry planning: what is the most important contribution you can make to the church in the next chunk of time? Look at a few projects/goals and put energy towards it in bursts.

“God didn’t make you a leader just to respond to things, but to move stuff ahead for the kingdom!”

Thoughts about Succession.
Planning phase: every important issue needs to be addressed. Who will choose? What is the timeframe? How will the retiring pastor be honored? What role will he take? Etc. Need to take your time.

  • Search phase: priority given to an external candidate
  • Transition phase: identify successor with increasing responsibilities and decreasing responsibilities. ~18 months.
  • These must be delicate conversations – it will be hard for senior leaders to think about transition.

Continuing thoughts about moving ppl from here to there.
Leaders take ppl from an unacceptable reality to a preferred future.

When is the vision most vulnerable? Beginning? Middle? Just before the End? –> vision seems most vulnerable in the middle when you’re in the middle of the tunnel, when you can’t see the starting point or the finish line.

When is a leader most vulnerable? In the middle of the run…mistakes catch up with you, change comes, can’t see the finish line. Must be very careful and pay attention during this middle phase!

When was the last time you thanked God for the privilege of leading his church?!