There’s a difference between leading and managing.
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Month: September 2016
Encouraging Women in Leadership in a High-Risk Context
In a country we cannot name due to security risks, the Summit was held for women who hold positions as ministry leaders, doctors, teachers, nurses, office managers and lawyers. These women live in a country and a culture where leadership is seen primarily as a man’s role. So having the opportunity to be affirmed in their giftedness as leaders was a huge encouragement to them.
As a result, many of the women made a decision to dedicate their lives to Jesus, pledging to live their lives for Him.
Many of them said the teaching they received was an answer to their prayers.
The comments from a few of the women remind us why we continue to bring the Summit to difficult regions of the world:
- In reference to Brene Brown’s teaching, one of the women said, “We have never heard such a deep and profound teaching.”
- “I am absolutely blessed to attend because this has solved many doubts and questions in my mind about who I am in God… His Daughter.”
- “What a wonderful teaching, indeed it’s a new revelation from God. Thank you so much for helping me realize the world is watching me… Yes, my testimony counts. Amen!”
Iraq: Faith vs. Fear
Our world is consumed with fear. No matter where we lead, fear is always a barrier to following the call of God on our lives.
Here in the United States, our national conversation seems to be dominated by fear. Liberals fear conservatives; conservatives fear liberals. Across the political spectrum, many struggle with other fears. Immigration. National Security. Islamophobia. Refugees. Each of these issues are stirring up fear here in America.
Overseas, leaders in countries bordering conflict zones experience something similar. Terrorism, war and political instability have resulted in unprecedented numbers of refugees streaming into neighboring cities.
The refugee crisis is the greatest humanitarian issue in the world today. More than 60 million people—half of them children—forced from their homes. The relative peace and security of the cities and neighborhoods that receive these refugees has been disrupted by a huge influx of people. Of different ethnicities. From different religious sects. Who are impoverished. With different political views. And all of these new arrivals threaten the security of the people who lived there “first.”
Yet in these places, there are leaders and pastors who have taken a step beyond their own fear and have chosen to love refugees. Together, World Vision and the WCA support these fearless leaders and courageous churches.
As one Middle-Eastern pastor told us: If you want to hear the bad news, go to CNN or FOX news. If you want to see God’s version of what is happening…come and see what is going on in our area.
So that’s what we did. Our team at OX traveled to northern Iraq, in the Kurdistan region, fifty kilometers from Mosul. And we got to see firsthand what God is doing through a 26-year old pastor who is letting FAITH overcome his FEAR.
What we captured on film, changed our perspective on what it means to love refugees. We hope it changes yours as well. Click the link below to watch the video.
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Visit worldvision.org/gls to download your Refugee Crisis Leadership Guide and mobilize your congregation to respond to the largest humanitarian crisis in the world today.
And–together–let’s LOVE REFUGEES.
QI201610277
Feedback is anything that helps you get better.
Because of the GLS | Mom Discovers an Approach to Parenting a Strong-Willed Son
When Lin Wahlen attended The Global Leadership Summit for the first time, she and her husband were at their wits end with her strong-willed oldest son. “Our oldest always seemed to be able to take advice from anyone aside from his two parents—even strangers. But he (seemingly) bucked every piece of advice we offered,” Lin explained. “We were going through a crisis of wills.”
Lin had gone into parenthood believing that her kids would, “hang on every piece of advice that my husband and I would give them. I thought we would be in agreement on everything so we would never argue, and that my kids would do everything perfectly so that I’d have nothing left to do but brag and travel (sarcasm implied).” Lin soon realized she was missing something.
“I just was missing one simple point.”
She left the Summit with a fresh perspective, and attempted a different approach, “God hit me between the eyes with the revelation.”
Sheila Heen talked about two needs of human beings:
- To grow and learn
- To know we are loved and respected as we are right now
These two concepts changed life as Lin and her husband knew it in their household. “Unlike God, we were overlooking the need of our child to be loved and respected for who he is right now,” Lin shares. “It totally changed my leadership goal.”
“God loves me as I am, and He empowers me to love others as they are.”
Lin discovered the freedom in loving others where they are. “It has reassured me of God’s sovereignty and plan over my own,” Lin shares. “Loving my family without expectation allows me to bask in God’s love for me, which truly is the easy yoke and a light burden. God broke through in a new way to me that day at the Summit, and I am often quickly pulled back into loving and responding to my children simply because they are my children and God says they are a blessing to me.”
Even though her children are still the people they are, Lin’s reaction toward them is now different. Lin says, “I am able, because of Jesus Christ, to send fear packing, and to focus on expressing love freely.”
Romans 8:1 No condemnation in Christ Jesus
It has also changed her relationship with her husband of 23 years. “I have been released from holding my husband accountable to an expectation that I myself was not able to live up to,” Lin exclaims. “It is not my responsibility to control my husband’s spiritual growth or his relationship with our children. I have to trust God with his development and know that as I surrender my fear and expectations and focus on the relationship God wants for me with my children, He will work those same things through in my husband.”
God’s voice has become more audible as she opens herself up to his love, and shares it without burden. “He empowers me to keep on loving my family even when they’re un-loveable,” Lin shares. “He is encouraging me to expand His reach through relationships all around me—though that used to feel overwhelming, and sometimes it still causes me to take deep breaths.
“The difference is that His voice is more audible to me these days because as I take the deep breaths, I turn my entire face upon Him and His loving demeanor, arms outstretched, soothing and holding me…GUIDING me on His path.”
God uses the Summit to bring people together to bring hope to our broken world—starting with the heart, and then often with your closest, direct influence—your family. “We are ONE body and though God doesn’t need to use us, He chooses to use us as His light in a broken, but beautiful world,” Lin says. “If God has put you in a position of leadership, whether at church, business or in the home, then there’s a perfect leader for you to follow. We need to spur one another on to lead others to this abundant life Jesus speaks of in John 10:10: Press on brothers and sisters and enjoy His presence.”
Announcing a New Podcast: Leadership University with Dr. Henry Cloud
This week, Dr. Henry Cloud is introducing a new FREE podcast Leadership University with Dr. Henry Cloud. The podcast is a companion to Leadership University, Henry’s subscription-based digital training resource for leaders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH2HG__Dcaw
“No, I have not started a college or a degree program,” I replied to someone who inquired about the Leadership University platform. I was trying to solve a different problem.
Leaders often talk to me about the development needs of their team members. One common frustration was people who had competency gaps in their leadership backgrounds, experience, modeling, or training. In fact, it seemed like some of the most gifted people in a particular area of focus could turn out to be some of the worst leaders. So, how could this be?
Most organizations do some form of leadership development, but it is often patchworked and piecemeal. Some people are highly developed: they have gone to lots of experiences, workshops, coaches, or had great mentoring. Others had very little. Across an organization, skill development was not cohesive or systematic. Department leaders often did not feel confident about the leadership competencies of everyone under their watch.
About the same time that I was seeing the scope of this need, technology was getting to the point where creating leadership development for individuals and teams could be done utilizing more effective, scalable, digital methods.
So, I had a dream.
I wanted to take the same leadership development information and experiences and processes that I deliver in person to my client companies, and make them available to businesses and ministries everywhere in a scalable form to anyone.
I have built the curriculum to cover both sides of the leadership spectrum: the hard skills of leadership and the soft skills as well. Leaders, from the lowest rungs in organizations to the highest, always need both sets of competencies.
Leaders need hard skill competencies such as:
- how the science of vision clarity drives performance,
- successful ways of engaging talent,
- how to practically design and implement metrics and accountability,
- And more.
These hard skills are needed from the assembly line all the way to the executive levels. When you get everyone at every level understanding what it means to create a “desired future”, and then know how to execute it, you have an organization that is moving forward to making vision a reality.
But you need more than that: you must also have leaders that possess the “soft skills” that make all of that work:
- the ability to build trust,
- confront others well and have difficult conversations,
- to be good listening leaders in ways that build the performance of others,
- And more.
Leadership is always both sides: the technical side of leadership, and the personal and interpersonal competencies. I wanted to make a comprehensive, easily delivered program that organizations of any size could implement. And that is what Leadership University does.
The Leadership University product is available via subscription, though each module can be purchased a la carte. But in addition to the product, we wanted to be able to supplement the content with regular doses of leadership insight and inspiration. And to expose a wider audience to these kinds of leadership ideas. So we decided to create a podcast!
Creating this podcast has been thrilling. One of the most exciting things is that it has allowed us to give you direct access to not just our own thoughts, but the thoughts of our brilliant guests, who we are sure you will find uniquely inspiring and motivating.
I believe you will find it to be a source of new energy and new intelligence — two of the fundamentals for needed improvement.
Leadership University, in product and podcast form alike, takes information, relationships, experiences and structure (the four pillars of development) and creates a learning path designed to build leadership competencies.
I hope you enjoy these offerings and find them helpful! Click here to learn more and subscribe.
God Bless,
Henry
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It is impossible to do art without failure…that’s what makes it art.
4 Dysfunctional Myths of Leadership Passion
As I write this article, I am on vacation with my family. I needed to get away…we needed to get away. What we discovered was that we were trying to do life on an empty passion bucket. Our family was just going through the motions every day and we were living for the weekend. At work, I was finding myself exhausted and feeling unproductive. We even noticed it in our kids— they were cranky and visibly discontent with life.
We had all lost our passion. Ever happen to you?
And, the bigger issue was that we weren’t taking necessary steps to refill our passion buckets. Instead, we were buying into myths that not only didn’t fill our passion buckets, but also caused even bigger dysfunction in our work and our home. We were spiraling deeper into a passionless black hole.
I would imagine there are dysfunctional myths you’ve believed when your passion bucket was low or on empty. You have probably believed some of these myths and quickly found them void of anything helpful. Or, you’re still buying into them and you haven’t identified them as dysfunctional myths.
In an effort to help you move from dysfunction to a full passion bucket, here are four myths I’ve found myself buying into far too often:
- Those I lead can be passionate even if I’m not. I often found myself confused and frustrated when those I lead weren’t showing passion about their work. I couldn’t understand why they weren’t fired up and excited about what they were doing. Then, it hit me—they are only going to have as much passion as they see in me. It is my responsibility to be passionate and then pass that passion onto them.
- I can fake it and no one will notice. When my passion bucket is on empty, I would regularly try to fake it and hope it would then ignite something in me and those around me. But, the truth is passion must be genuine and authentic. Faked passion is not only exhausting, it can also cause those you lead to become completely turned off to any direction where you’re trying to lead them.
- I can copy someone else’s passion. We’ve all read that article or heard that leader who we admire speak at a conference and we want to emulate their passion. And that can be noble. What isn’t so noble is when we simply try to copy their passion. We try to give their speech or we read their words from a magazine article and try to pass it off as our own. Borrowed and copied passion will quickly wear you out and cause you to lose sight of the unique vision God has given you for your organization.
- My passion bucket will fill back up on its own. I’ve bought into the myth that my passion bucket is on empty because I’m in a “season” or because I’ve hit a “lull.” If I’m being honest, I use those statements when I don’t want to take the steps to fill my passion bucket. They’re excuses that lead me to believe I don’t have to fix the problem. The truth is that my passion bucket will never fill back up on its own—I must take intentional steps to refill it…like take a vacation! 🙂
So, after you’ve assessed where your passion bucket is—on full, on empty or somewhere in between—the next step is to assess what you’re doing about it. Are you taking steps that will actually help you re-fill your passion bucket or are you buying into dysfunctional myths that are only making the problem worse?
The great thing is that it’s not too late! You can take steps today that will help you move away from myths and toward the truths to help you fill your passion bucket.
Because of the GLS | Servant Leadership Changes the Story for Orphans in Zambia
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Because of Lawrence Temfwe’s positive experience at his first GLS in 2007, he knew he had to share it with the leaders of his country. He became the key leader who brought the GLS to Zambia for the first time in 2009.
“Zambia needs the GLS because leadership matters,” Lawrence shares. “All things — the success of Zambia — is dependent on leadership. If we are going to move forward, we need to depend on leadership. And at the GLS you bring some of the best leaders in the world at a very affordable cost. These people cannot be brought to Zambia to teach, but we take them there.”
Since Lawrence brought the GLS to Zambia, there’s been a ripple effect of servant leadership across the nation. What is happening as a result is changing lives, especially the lives of orphans and vulnerable children.
Shifting perspectives in Zambia
“The biggest thing I learned from the Summit is the issue of servant leadership,” says Lawrence. “One of the big challenges in Zambia is self-serving leadership. People are very excited about being the big man on the block, but GLS has taught me how to serve people with humility.”
Lawrence changed his leadership model toward servant leadership, and helped the leaders of Zambia realize the value of servanthood in transforming the country.
“I want to see leadership that serves our nation. I see big hope in that,” Lawrence shares. “My nation has a lot of resources, but what we need is leadership that serves people — leadership that is concerned about people. That is really my biggest cry. We have begun working with people – young and old, helping them understand that if they want to see a stronger Zambia, they have to learn to serve.”
God is with the servant leader
God spoke to Lawrence many times through the GLS, but one of the times changed the course of his life. “I was serving and living in an extremely under-resourced community. There were times I felt very lonely and unappreciated. At the Summit, they talked about the thing that wrecks you, and feeding upon it until it becomes a vision, God spoke to me. I heard Him say,
‘I am with you in the trenches. This is where I will bless you.’
So I continued to serve there, in the trenches.”
Servant leadership changes the story for orphans in Zambia
Lawrence leads an organization that focuses on helping the churches in his country serve and care for orphans and vulnerable children, people with HIV/AIDS, and strengthen leaders. “Most of these types of programs are totally foreign to churches, but this work is strengthened by hearing stories at the GLS about people who are doing incredible things in these areas.”
Last year, Lawrence heard the grander vision story about a pastor whose church started adopting orphans. He was wrecked. Lawrence went back to Zambia with his team to come up with a plan to implement a similar program.
“We have 15 million people in Zambia and 1.5 million orphans. Between 600,000 – 700,000 of those orphans are orphans because of HIV,” Lawrence explains. “When we got back to Zambia, we brought 10 orphanages together and said,
‘Children shouldn’t be raised in orphanages, but in homes. There are thousands of churches in this country; why don’t we reach out to churches so they adopt the children from you?’
One of the orphanages agreed and we are working with them. Five people are ready to adopt. We are now working with the government so they can adopt quickly.”
If more orphanages and churches catch onto this vision, imagine what kind of impact that could have on the 1.5 million orphans in Zambia?
“We are grateful for the church and we are praying to God that we can strengthen the church to raise leaders who would help the nation and change children’s lives.”
Thank you for supporting leaders like Lawrence
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“To all people who support the GLS, I want to say thank you so much for your generosity.
“Your generosity in Zambia has helped bring 120 church leaders from poor, under-resourced communities to come and participate in the GLS. Over the last two years, we have also been able to bring 30 young because of your support. We are most grateful that you are helping develop quality leadership in Zambia. Thank you and God Bless.”
Please continue to pray and support leaders like Lawrence in Zambia who seek to change lives, impact the Kingdom, and ultimately introduce people to Jesus. You make a difference for hundreds of thousands of leaders through your support and prayer.
To make a gift to the Willow Creek Association,
go online at willowcreek.com/give
They Broke Out Of The Whirlwind
Breaking out of the whirlwind takes time and intention. Listen to execution expert, Chris McChesney, talk about someone who took the time to figure out their Wildly Important Goal in order to break out of the whirlwind.
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