Thursday, August 11, 2011

GLS 1: Bill Hybels “5 Critical Questions of Leadership”

bill_hybelsGlobal Leadership Summit Session One: Bill Hybels

Disclaimer: These are my notes. They might not be exact quotes from speakers, and some of it below is just my reflections or summary.  But I’m trying to capture during the session what the speaker is saying.

Purpose of the Summit: When leaders stop learning, they stop leading.  When a leader gets better, everyone wins.  Every leader can get better, if they want to.

5 Critical Questions of Leadership:

1.  What is your current challenge level at work?

Everyone is at one of three levels: Under challenged, appropriately challenged, or dangerously over challenged.  Which one are you? You do your best work if you’re a little bit more than appropriately challenged.

For Senior Leaders in an organization: step it up.  Add something to get you more challenged.  You leadership gifts will atrophy if you’re not challenged enough.  BUT if you’re over-challenged, you will break down.  Senior leaders need to set the example.  If you’re stressed, your performance will increase, but if you’re over-stressed your performance will decrease.

Under challenged people/leaders usually leave their organization.

2.  What is your plan for dealing with challenging people in your organization?

I need to field and develop a fantastic leadership team for our fantastic ministry for our fantastic God.  But some people can do a lot of damage if they have bad attitudes.

How long should a person with a bad attitude be allowed to stay around?  Your team needs to set a limit, a time frame, in order to deal with it.

How do you deal with under performers (people who don’t carry their weight)?  Bill says three months.

The single most challenging issue is to deal with people who don’t have a high capacity, even though their great nice people.  Some people don’t have enough “elasticity” to grow, and thus limit their organization.

If you don’t deal with challenging people, your fantastic people will be really discouraged.

3.  Are you naming, facing, and resolving the problems that exist in your organization?

Denial is destructive.  Acts 2-4: there was a problem. Racial profiling, unequal distribution.  Acts 6: the leaders said we’re going to address this problem.  They built trust.  Acts 6:7 then the church grew even more.

We need to call problems problems and deal with them.  Part of your job is to look problems straight in the eye and address them.  All ideas, initiatives will decelerate eventually.

4.  When was the last time you examined the core of what your organization was all about?

What is our main thing?  Are we clear about our core?  It is easy for churches to lose the plot.

Churches are in the life-transforming business.  There is only one power able to do this- the gospel.  But what is the very message of the gospel?  You need to talk about this with your team.  What are the 5 words that best describe the good news of Jesus Christ?  Bill’s 5 words: 1. Love, 2. Evil (we have to discern evil, especially within us), 3. Rescue “substitutionary atoning work” of Christ 4. Choice (each person has to choose), 5. Restoration, God is trying to restore this broken world.

When teams talk through this they get more excited about it and more passionate about declaring it.

5.  Have you had your leadership bell rung recently?

What book or issue or talk or crisis rocked your leadership lately?  We don’t learn or grow without getting seriously challenged.

How you finish in leadership is how you will be remembered.  Make the next 5 years your best 5 in leadership.

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