How To Process A Leadership Event – Where Do You Start?

Like tens of thousands of others, I attended the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit this past week, August 8-9, 2013.  This event was pure Leadership Concentrate!

It reminded me of the frozen orange juice concentrate that my mother used to buy. It came in a small can, but you had to mix it with a quart of water, you could never drink the concentrate! That’s the Leadership Summit – you can’t use everything you get there right away, you have to mix it with a lot of time, and practice.

I had not attended a Leadership Summit since 2008. Every summer I’ve been on vacation with family in New York during that time. This year I could make it – WOW. I won’t miss another one. Every single session and speaker brought their absolute best thinking and best practice, and I took pages and pages of notes.

The Summit notebook was heavy duty, for which I’m glad; I will be referring to it for a while. I’ve already implemented some learning this weekend in my ministry. I’ve got a lot more to work on over the coming months. I truly cannot give you my “favorite” speaker. Every single one of them brought such great and different content, and I personally needed it all.

One Learning I Took Away From The Summit
Let me mention just one learning I took away, from Dr. Henry Cloud on day two. He said, “the hardest thing that a leader has to be ridiculously in charge of is him or herself.” And, he said that the greatest determination to the success of a leader is whether or not they think they can succeed.

He cited a study that revealed that the “lower ability” employees, who nonetheless believe they can win and succeed, produce more and better than the “higher IQ, or higher ability” employees who have doubts and do not think they can achieve or succeed. In other words, a positive mental attitude and can-do spirit will win the day over intellectual or academic abilities alone.

Cloud said, “the #1 factor is this – do you believe it can happen?” Okay, I have to check my mental attitude, my faith, and my determination. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course we believe that it’s God and his power at work in us – of course we do. BUT, we can thwart things on our end and squander even the power of God available to us, by wallowing in self-pity, fear of failure, or negative thinking.

He said that a few failures can retrain our brain in a new direction – a negative direction. So I am thinking positively today, exercising my faith in a God who can move mountains, and use even asses to do his bidding. I want it to be true of me that “I believe it can happen!” God is willing. Am I?  Well, yes, I actually am!

Bill, I'm Back!
Okay, I am a Hybels junkie from way back that has gotten busy in the last few years with college kids, long distance family, etc. But even I was shocked at the quality of the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit this year. Such good stuff. I’m re-convinced, and recommitted.

How To Process The Leadership Event?
So how do you process a leadership event? One day at a time! Open the notebook regularly, process your notes, set goals, discuss learnings with others on your team, and ask God to help you be the best YOU that you can possibly be. The goal is not to be more like other leaders; the goal is to learn from other great leaders to be the best leader God wants YOU to be. The Global Leadership Summit is a great event to attend.

This Wednesday's 200churches Podcast, Episode 31!
On Wednesday, Karl Vaters is joining us for a conversation about small church ministry, on Episode 31 of the 200churches Podcast. We will talk a lot about leadership, belief in God and ourselves when it comes to small church ministry, and even the greatness of the next generation of leaders coming up. Karl is the founder of NewSmallChurch.com, and we are excited to be joining together with him in this episode to encourage pastors of small churches!

Did you attend the Summit? What was the most important learning you took away from it?