My last post shared what I learned at Day 1 of Willow Creek’s Global Leadership Summit. Here’s what I learned the second day:
MASTERING THE SKILL OF INFLUENCE | JOSEPH GRENNY
Joseph Grenny is a business leader and author. His presentation was practical and engaging.
- Leadership is intentional influence.
- We’re naive about how profound our social influences are.
- There are personal, social, and structural influences.
- Your job as an influencer is to help the good stuff feel pleasurable and the bad stuff feel painful.
- Help people frame specific daily decisions in godly ways.
- There are 6 sources of influence that can work for or against us:
Motivation | Ability | |
Personal | Make the Undesirable Desirable |
Surpass Your Limits |
Social | Harness Peer Pressure | Find Strength in Numbers |
Structural | Design Rewards & Demand Accountability |
Change the Environment |
DARING GREATLY | DR. BRENE BROWN
Brene Brown is a professor at the University of Houston who gave a wildly popular TED talk on vulnerability.
- People need to be be seen and loved, to belong, and to be brave.
- If you struggle to ask for help, then you are judging other people when you offer them help.
- Professing love has very little meaning in comparison to practicing love.
- You can choose courage or comfort, but not both.
- If you are not in the arena also getting your butt kicked on a regular basis, I am not interested in or open to your feedback.
- As the world has grown, so have the number of cheap seats.
VIRAL LEADERSHIP: MULTIPLYING YOUR IMPACT EXPONENTIALLY | OSCAR MIRIU
Oscar Miriu is the Senior Pastor of Nairobi Chapel in Kenya and is, apparently, a leadership development machine. As somebody who oversees a pastoral residency program, I had great interest in his talk.
Five Convictions About Leadership Development
- The size of your harvest depends on how many leaders you have (Matt 9:37-38).
- Don’t live just for your generation, but for the next one (Psalm 71:18).
- Identify the budding leaders around you and take them to the Lord in prayer (Num 11:10-17).
- Instill the 5 loves into your budding leaders (Mark 12:32-33).
- Never do ministry alone (Acts 4:13).
REVERSING THE DEATH SPIRAL OF A LEADER | DR. HENRY CLOUD
Dr. Henry Cloud has written about a million books and consults with many top companies and leaders. This talk resonated with me personally as I’ve had some moments where I’ve fallen into the trap he discusses.
- The hardest thing that a leader has to be “ridiculously in charge” of…himself.
- Leaders who lead themselves well think, feel, and behave differently than others.
- When leaders get stuck along the way, they’re tempted to fall mentally into the 3P trap:
- Personal — taking the challenge or failure personally. “I’m not good enough.”
- Pervasive — thinking the problem is bigger than it is. “This happens all the time. Everyone knows I’m not good enough. Everything sucks.”
- Permanent — thinking it won’t change. “It’s always going to be this way.”
- Fortunately, there’s a way out:
- Log & Dispute — write down the negative thoughts. Dispute it when it comes into your head with the word of God.
- Get Back in Control — write out what you can and can’t control. Control what you can. Don’t worry about what you can’t.
- Connect — your brain runs on oxygen, glucose, and relationship. Reconnect with people.
CLOSING SESSION | ANDY STANLEY
Andy Stanley is the Senior Pastor of North Point Community Church. I’ve learned so much from Stanley over the years and I love his leadership podcast. This talk combined some of the material in his latest book, Deep & Wide. It was my favorite session by far. Great way to end the conference.
I liked this message so much that I plan to show it on a Sunday at Redemption Gateway at some point when the DVD is released. Because it was so good and I was so caught up in it, I didn’t take too many notes.
- Jesus said he would build his “congregation”—how Tyndale translated Matt 16:18.
- We are here because Jesus made a promise that he would build his church. Jesus has been and will continue to build his church and nobody will stop it.
- The central teaching of the church was not, “We believe something was true” but “We believe something happened.”
- Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain.
Sounds like you got to experience a lot of variety in the messages; thanks for sharing!