Tag Archives: willow creek

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2018 Leadership Summit – 20 Leadership Quotes from Strive Masiyiwa

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Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit. To capture what I’m learning and to help you grow as a leader, I always share my notes from each session, so be sure to check back after each session and bookmark them for future use.

The second session featured an interview Strive Masiyiwa, who is the founder of Econet (one of Africa’s largest telecommunications companies), will help us learn what it means to be a leader who perseveres to fight for the future of our world. This was an inspiring interview.

The following are some takeaways:

  1. Too many people think they run into failure that they’re done.
  2. Vision is what we hold onto.
  3. If we’re doing what God is calling us to, we are not losing anything.
  4. Cultures matter when we grow a business or organization.
  5. Multiculturalism begins with the way we think and thinking differently.
  6. Values are universal. Just because you have differences doesn’t mean you can’t embrace and work together across cultures and differences.
  7. You haven’t been to a country until you have been in the home of someone who lives there.
  8. If your business or vision solves a problem, people will seek it out.
  9. If you want to be a success, find a human need and reach out and solve it.
  10. Meeting a need changes the way people see themselves and changes the way they live.
  11. We’re raising kids to not only think for themselves but think for us as parents.
  12. You can mentor all you want but if you don’t model it, I won’t see.
  13. A dream often dies when it is shared with people who have not seen what you see.
  14. Building anything always takes longer than you think.
  15. A great vision is only as good as your ability to deliver daily wins.
  16. Consistency is the bridge to each short-term win that finally leads to the great vision.
  17. If you know how to do things you will always have a job. If you know why you, you will always be the leader.
  18. Your people must believe in you.
  19. The best of our people are volunteers, whether we pay them or not.
  20. If you want to know who someone is, watch how they treat people they don’t need.
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2018 Leadership Summit – 11 Leadership Quotes from T.D. Jakes

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Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit. To capture what I’m learning and to help you grow as a leader, I always share my notes from each session, so be sure to check back after each session and bookmark them for future use.

The second session featured a talk from one of the best communicators, T.D. Jakes.

The following are some takeaways:

  1. You want a vision that brings out the best in you.
  2. A vision should sound ridiculous until you do it.
  3. If you don’t believe in anything crazy, you will never find out what you could be.
  4. You think something you can’t tell anyone because it’s so big. Something beyond your means. Takes you out of your comfort zone and scares you to death.
  5. Too many people have to see their way clear before they get started.
  6. It doesn’t matter where you start, it matters where you finish.
  7. Visions start in small places.
  8. Sometimes you build the idea in the wrong place. Visions need the right wind.
  9. So much of what we learn is about winning but what stimulates growth is losing.
  10. What did you learn from your last failure and how has it prepared you to soar?
  11. To believe that something is possible is what makes greatness.
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How a Leader Fails

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It seems almost every week there is another leader written about in blogs who has failed somehow. Whether that is abuse of power, finances, sleeping with someone they aren’t married to or jumping off the deep end theologically.

Every time I read about it, my heart breaks. For the people who are affected, for the name of Christ that is tarnished, for the families that are broken because of it, for the lost of mission and momentum at the church and for the leader and his wife.

My heart also breaks because I know I could easily be that leader if I’m not careful.

So much happens when a leader fails.

Each time this happens, I inevitably read too many blogs about the situation. Not out of morbid curiosity, but to find out where it went wrong. Almost every time two things happen. While there are other things that each one has in common, almost every leadership failure has two things in common:

  1. The leader is not in a small group or missional community.
  2. All the rules don’t apply to the leader.

While these aren’t always the case, leaders can be in a small group and fail. Each time I read about another leader failing, these seem to be true on some level.

Here’s why this matters.

When you are in a small group or MC, you are with “normal people.” Too many pastors insulate themselves with elders and staff. I’ve had pastors tell me, “My elder team is my small group.” Um, no. Your elders are the team that shepherd, lead and protect the church together, but they aren’t your small group. In fact, that’s a recipe for disaster. Who is around your wife? Who is around your kids? What non-Christians are you spending time with?

Slowly, the leader begins to think they don’t need the sheep anymore. They have more important things to do. Now, I’m not saying a leader needs to burn himself out making himself available to everyone. As a church grows, the leader must delegate tasks and people to other leaders. This is good and healthy. But, a church is never too big for a pastor to talk with people.

I remember when I worked at Willow Creek and watching Bill Hybels and John Ortberg stand down by the stage after preaching and talk for as long as people would stand in line. I remember watching it once to see how long Hybels would do it and I timed him standing for over an hour one day.

The second one creeps up on a leader, sometimes without notice. The rules begin to not apply to them. 

Now, the higher you move in a church or organization, the more perks come with it. A lead pastor has a bigger book budget, goes to more conferences, has more vacation days, etc. I’m not talking about more perks.

I’m talking about a lead pastor requiring his staff to work in the office but he gets to work from home “because sermon prep is a solo activity.” If you get a perk like working from home, it should be available to others. If there is a policy about social media or something else, it is applies to employees, it applies to you as the leader.

The moment a leader is above the rules is the moment a leader is in danger. The moment a leader is cut off from community with people who are not leaders, is the moment a leader is in danger.

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