This is part 1 of a series of blog posts that I plan on doing on what I learned at the Global Leadership Summit last week. I will be sharing the highlights from my notes and some personal thoughts on what I took away from the two day conference.
Bill Hybels opened on Day 1. Here are some key points from my notes.
- Leaders move people from here to there. Your job as a leader is to convince people that you cannot and will not stay here.
- It takes Fantastic people. It is your job to develop a team of fantastic people. Character, Competence, Chemistry, and Culture.
- Celebrate the Mile Markers. You must inspire people to stay on the journey because when you are between here and there, the vision is most vulnerable.
- Whispers from God. You don’t ever get from here to there in a straight line or without hearing from God.
I went to this leadership conference because I find myself leading in many aspects of my life. I lead my family, I lead small groups at church, and I try to lead anyone I can to Jesus. Because I have found myself without employment, I am not leading a team of people professionally right now. So as I have reflected on what I have learned at this conference, I am mostly applying it to how I lead my family. This may be a little different than most people who attended this conference, but there are some major take aways here if you are involved in leading any type of community.
I find that I often want to change situations that my family is in. One of our goals right now is to get debt free. It took some time for me to convince my wife of the steps that were necessary to get free from debt. We have had a lot of success in paying things down for the last couple of years and we find ourselves in the middle of the journey facing obstacles such as my unemployment. This is the tough part of the journey and we need to keep celebrating the small victories to keep us on the path.
My family is a team although I only got to pick 1 member of that team. I have 2 children who I have the opportunity to build up and develop into fantastic people. I also need to continue to encourage and help to further develop my wife as a part of our team. My kids are my primary disciples and I need to do my best to show them who Jesus is and encourage them to follow Him as I have chosen to. I need to keep celebrating with them as we encounter mile markers along the way. Time with them is very important. More important than spending time away from them to make a lot of money.
I have learned that I need to act on the promptings that I receive from God. Often I think that I should do something and I test it for so long that I miss the opportunity. John 10:27 says, “My sheep hear my voice and they heed it.” So I am learning to take more risks and it has been fun so far.
I think that so often people forget that they are leaders in their household. I want to be a better leader to my wife and my children than I am anywhere else. Their lives and direction are more precious to me than anything else. So I will primarily be applying these types of principles to how I lead at home. It is harder I think because you can’t really hide from your family unless you are hiding at work and are never at home. In that case you are already failing miserably.
