Leadership Summit – Thursday Afternoon

More notes from The Leadership Summit.

Session 3 – Bill George

Bill George is the former CEO of Medtronic and is currently a Harvard Business School Professor and author.  At the age of 8, his father began encouraging him to strive to become a CEO of a major corporation.  Bill spoke on Finding Your True North.

• There is nothing enlightening about shrinking around around other people thinking that it will make the more comfortable.  Always be yourself.
• Getting people aligned with the vision is much harder than getting the numbers right.
• Passion to lead comes from your life story, not from your talents and competencies.

Bill’s keys to leadership:

• Understand the purpose of your leadership – “follow your compass and not your clock”
• Gain self-awareness
• The real test of your values is when things are going down the drain
• Follow your motivation and capabilities
• Building a support team around you is important
• Lead an integrated life – be the same person in all environments

Session 3 – Wendy Kopp

Wendy Kopp is the founder of Teach for America. Bill Hybels interviewed Wendy on her passion for education, and unfortunately he did most of the talking.

• Sacrifice adds value to your life
• Disparity in education is a huge problem, but a solvable one

Session 4 – John  Burke

John Burke is the lead pastor at Gateway Community Church and author of No Perfect People Allowed.  John spoke on Leading in New Cultural Realities. 

• “How many sexually-active, drunk atheists do you have in your church?”
• Jesus came for messy, broken people.  We have to get our hands dirty to reach them.
• Am I leading more like Jesus, or more like the Pharisees?
• Don’t make it difficult for people to find God.  Don’t be a barrier to God’s grace.  Are we teaching people to hate others?  Gays for example.
• Authentic, confessing community is important
• Our job is not to change or grow people; our job is to cultivate the soil so God can grow them
• All we have to do in order to bear fruit is to stay connect to God

Session 4 – Efrem Smith

Efrem Smith is the senior pastor at The Sanctuary Covenant Church and is freakin’ hilarious.  He spoke on multicultural leading.

• God wants to love the world through us
• “When Jesus comes back, it’s ultimate justice.  Until then, it’s ‘just us’.”
• We must be able to love across race and class and place
• Rather than saying “God told me this…”, Efrem says “I think I heard God say…”
• The best thing a leader can say is “my bad”
• The high pressure of what God wants to do bumping up the low pressure of what we want to do is what causes storms in this world
• Efrem promotes socially innovative churchs

More to come tomorrow…  Who knows?  Maybe I’ll blog live…