In an effort to add value to pastors and church leaders during the next three days, I will be bringing the top leadership quotes and lessons from the incredible faculty at the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit.
The Global Leadership Summit is a two-day event telecast from Willow Creek Community Church’s campus to hundreds of locations across the globe. An estimated 305,000 leaders are expected to participate.
As a special gift to everyone reading these posts, INJOY Stewardship Solutions offering a complimentary downloadable Ebook entitled “The Absolute Best Quotes From The 2016 ReThink Conference.” Click Here to Download this Free Resource!
As is customary, the Summit opened with the incomparable senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church Bill Hybels. Bill spoke on the different lenses of leadership.
The following are 56 Leadership Lessons And Quotes From Bill Hybels Opening Session from the 2016 Global Leadership Summit:
Heather Lawson, Willow Creek Community Church Executive Pastor
- In this room we have over 1600 internationals from over 100 countries.
Opening Video
- None of us are all we are yet made to be. There is more for us to do. More for us to discover.
- Everyone wins when a leader get better.
Bill Hybels
- Everybody wins when a leader gets better. Absolutely everyone.
- The stakes of leadership are sky high. Our troubled world is calling out for a better brand of leadership.
- The world is waiting for leaders who will put the interest of others ahead of themselves.
- The highest value here at The Summit is humility.
- We have so much more to learn about this mysterious force called leadership.
- Armed with enough humility, leaders can learn from anyone.
- In its simplist from, leadership is moving people from here to there.
- Leadership is not protecting a position. It’s moving people. It’s energizing people.
- For team members to pay the price needed to go from here to there, they are most assuredly going to have to feed off the passion of their leader. Passion is like protein for team.
- The highest inspiration for team members is to work for or around a passion-filled leader.
- How does a leader get passionate?
- Passion is usually derived from the mountaintops of a beautiful dream or the valleys of frustration of what is going wrong in this world.
- I have met leaders all over the world who are frustrated over products poorly made…or children who are trafficked or churches who are poorly led or poorly fed.
- No one on your team really cares where your passion is derived from. They just want to feel the heat and energy coming from the heart of their leader. They want their souls stirred by the leader.
- Whose job is it to fill a leader’s passion bucket? It’s the leader’s job to fill his or her passion bucket. It’s your job to fire yourself up.
- Read passionate authors and passionate books. Get around passionate leaders. Go places that stir your passion.
- I did not solve the refugee crisis. But sometimes helping out one kid does something wonderful for the human soul.
- Find your passion. Feed your passion. Keep your passion bucket filled and everyone wins.
- My dad’s way of protecting our company was to speak softly and carry a big stick.
- Our culture was what I would call “spontaneous and primitive.”
- I came into organizational leadership with shattered lenses regarding the people side of the ministry.
- Willow Creek Community Church was named the Top Workplace in all of Chicago for medium-sized companies.
- Even if you start with shattered lenses you can build a beautiful culture.
- An organization will only ever be as healthy as the top leader wants it to be.
- We can do better and we must do better.
- Hire a reputable outside firm to help you measure the health of your current culture.
- God really only treasures one thing in this vast cosmos – people.
- What the difference between religion and Christianity – Do and Done.
- Religion doesn’t work. It messes up a lot of actually.
- “I have no problem with you becoming a pastor as long as your flock is the employees in the company your currently own.” – God to a freshly-redeemed businessman
- What this world needs is more pastors of businesses.
- We are trying to reduce transactional noise around our organization.
- I’m developing the skill of Talent Observation.
- If I discipline myself to sit in the back of the room and pay attention, I will find tomorrow’s superstars.
- Leaders have to get stuff done. Speed of the leader, speed of the team.
- We challenge everyone in our congregations to read their Bible 15 minutes a day.
- Even at a church, staff members want to know exactly what we are trying to move ahead.
- And what they really want to know is what we think of their progress.
- “Being faithful to our callings” is Christian language for sitting on your hands and getting nothing done.
- Every single worker you employ wants to know how they’re doing.
- It is cruel and unusual punishment to employ a person and not tell them how they’re doing.
- The staff loves the clarity.
- A legacy is what people remember of you once you’re gone.
- Everyone leaves one (a legacy).
- Leadership is not fundamentally about time. It is about energy. What do you put your energy in?
- There aren’t Do-Overs but there are Makeovers. God helps people write new storylines.
- If your leadership journey would come to an end sometime soon, are you good with your legacy you are leaving behind?
- Leadership can become a legal drug that provides a high the rest of your life can‘t compete with.
- 43 prisons are watching us right now.
- God never intended our vocations to crowd out the rest of our lives. We are far more than commerce machines.
- Legacies can be made new in a single moment in time.
- A single humble prayer at this moment can change what your future will hold.
- Leadership matters. It matters disproportionally. It matters so much it scares me. We need to get better.
- Some of your lives are not exciting because there is nothing exciting happening in you.
- Do you drive your organizations so hard it has to misbehave?
- You’re all leaving a legacy behind. Let’s make sure it’s a God-honoring one our grandkids can be proud of.
Next up is Alan Mulally. Check back throughout both days for live blogs and updates. And if you have not already, don’t forget to click here or on the image below for your free resource from INJOY Stewardship Solutions.
