Two weeks ago, I proudly announced a relationship between this site and the Willow Creek Association to promote the 2016 Global Leadership Summit (GLS) in August. This is an event and organization I am thrilled to be associated with because of the impact it has been having in my life since the early 1990’s.
Because of the WCA’s kindness and desire to invest in you as leaders, they are offering a series of FREE resources for this tribe of leaders. The reason is simple – everyone wins when a leader gets better.
Click HERE for a FREE copy of Bill Hybels’ 6 by 6 Strategy For Leadership. This complimentary ebook will help you identify your 6 most strategic goals and adopt best practices for accomplishing your goals in the next 6 weeks. No resource will help you be more effective!
I hope to see you at this year’s Summit. You can see the conference faculty and register at WillowCreek.com/Summit. Super early bird rates will expire May 24th.
To help whet your appetite, below are 150 of the Best Leadership Quotes From Bill Hybels from the 2013-2015 Global Leadership Summits. Enjoy and once again, click HERE to download your free resource.
2013 Global Leadership Summit
- Everybody wins when a leader gets better.
- We are incurable learners.
- Leadership requires a non-stop demand of fortitude from Day 1 to the end.
- Leadership is not for the faint of heart.
- Courage, old fashioned fortitude and bravery, relates to every component of leadership.
- Vision is a picture of the future that creates passion in people.
- God made you a leader to move people from here to there; to make people discontent with the way things are.
- Be strong and courageous. He will always be with you. He will never leave you or forsake you.
- There is dignity in choice instead of just being given a bag (for people needing food).
- Why any senior pastor would keep fired up women from full service in the church is just beyond me.
- Every significant vision God births in you is going to put your courage to the test…A certain percentage of people are going to resist going.
- Every vision tests the mettle of the leader. So leaders often abort the vision secretly.
- Should we lay the blame (for the violence and tragedy in this world) at the feet of gutless, cowardly leaders?
- I’ve got to live with myself. And I got to stand before God someday…I have to step out in faith even though I’m vibrating with fear…It’s why God made us leaders.
- Don’t go to your grave with cool vision shriveling up and dying inside of you. Don’t be that leader. Don’t be a coward.
- Our new Care Center was her family’s only hope. And I thought of how close I came to killing that vision…What a tragedy that would have been.
- Visions are holy commodities…Treat them with the utmost respect.
- The leader’s job is to define reality.
- All leaders are leading in situations where things are going down, status quo, or an upturn. And each requires a different leadership style.
- In a downturn a leader has to declare an emergency.
- Seasoned leaders have to come up with some way of signaling to everyone in the organization they are in a code red.
- In a status quo, the leader has to set a fire. Status quo is not acceptable and extremely dangerous for an organization. Status quo is precursor to something bad.
- In upturns, leaders need to pour gasoline on fires.
- If you lead long enough, you’re going to experience all three of these circumstances. If internal circumstances don’t cause it, external circumstances will.
- Your whole team knows what reality your organization is in. They already know. They are waiting for you to develop the courage to admit it to yourself.
- Nothing I have done in the last six years at Willow has required more courage than moving Willow to a healthier place.
- People join organizations. They leave managers.
- We had to change out some managers because they were blocked learners.
- We are every bit as concerned about building staff culture as we are building the church.
- Whose job is it to drive the improvements we want in our organization? Staff cultures will only be as healthy as the CEO or Senor Pastor wants it to be. Delegating it to anyone else is the kiss of death.
- Enormous courage is going to be required to make significant changes in your organization’s health. It starts with apologies.
- I had to tell new staff and 20-30 year staff to accept the new culture or leave.
- There are only two people at Willow – Culture Builders or Culture Busters.
- We are no longer going to pay people to bruise and bust our culture.
- It’s hard to row a boat to the other side of the lake when 3 are rowing, 5 are napping and the other 2 are doing their best to sink the boat. Contrast that with a boat where 10 are rowing. Who’s going to win that race every time?
- Social media makes a lot of things easier.
- The more I utilize social media the hungrier I get for face-to-face interaction.
- The more I utilize social media the hungrier I get for true community. Social media provides the illusion of community.
- It’s insane that a broken-hearted person can sit in a church service and not a single person could reach out to them.
- If it’s the last thing I do I’m going to find a way to show compassion to everyone in our service who is looking for it.
- There is a time to cast vision and there is a time to establish a value in a church.
- We are no longer going to be a church where broken people are going to leave a Willow service unloved, unnoticed, and uncared for.
- The better prayer is “God do something in me…we’re going to do something important to move vision to a value.”
- If you lead an organization long enough you’re going to have to totally reinvent the organization and reinvent yourself more than once.
- If you have any desire to finish strong you have to have the courage to start the succession conversations.
- Some of the most rewarding experiences in a leader’s marathon are reserved for late in the race. The Care Center came in Year 38 of my race.
- “Why are you starting this church?” asked his lawyer at age 22. Bill answered, “To change people’s lives.” He said, “People don’t change.” Bill replied, “I’m betting my whole life you’re wrong.”
- I’m still such a sucker for a changed life. There is nothing to touches me more deeply than watching God change a human life. All I want in this life is to watch God change human lives and destinies.
- Do not bail on your mission. Do not quit on God. Endure. Finish strong.
- If there is ever a time crying out for courageous leadership, it’s now.
2014 Global Leadership Summit
- There is a grander vision somewhere on planet Earth with your name on it.
- I bet a lot of you still wander around asking the question, “Is this all there is?”
- The satisfaction you’re looking for is never going to come from self-gratification.
- Find God’s bidding for your life and serve people indiscriminately.
- God loves you. He didn’t mean for your life to feel bankrupt.
- God make you on purpose for a purpose. There’s not an accidental human being.
- Pastors, you have to bring the Kingdom of God outside the walls of your church and into your community and the world.
- World peace rises and falls on leadership.
- Building prevailing churches, enduring businesses and governments rises and falls on leadership.
- One of the supreme values of the Leadership Summit is humility.
- Armed with enough humility, pastors can learn from business leaders. Business leaders can learn from pastors.
- Every decision you make as a leader has a direct impact on the emotion, psyche and spirit of those you lead.
- Leaders are visionaries. We can’t help ourselves….We paint pictures that produce passion in other people.
- Often, leaders with the highest level of passion for the vision have the lowest level of awareness of the spirit the team he/she has assembled to achieve that vision.
- A grunt is someone who works long hours, is not appreciated, and expendable.
- What God treasures most in this world is people.
- Don’t make your people pay because you’re so fired up about the vision.
- Had I simply delegated culture to the HR Department, it would have been doomed from the start.
- Your culture will only ever be as healthy as the senior leader wants it to be. Senior pastors, CEOs, there is no place to hide.
- You will never meet your culture’s full vitality potential, until those who lead people get better.
- Every single worker secretly wants to know at the end of the day how they are doing.
- “The kindest form of management is the truth.” – Jack Welch
- 3M. Start the meeting by clarifying what you’re trying to Move ahead. If it’s not moving, Modify the plan. Motivate the people before the meeting ends.
- I try to motivate people so they levitate out of my office.
- What if we look at conflict as a way to strengthen a relationship?
- In the average Christian organization, only 54% of the employees are truly engaged in their work. In the U.S. corporate world only 30% of the employees are engaged in their work. Internationally, it’s half that.
- Everyday when I drive on this campus, my heart rate increases.
- Great leadership is by definition relentlessly developmental.
- A short-term task force allows you to test a young emerging leader.
- Resourcefulness is the most important weapons in a leader’s arsenal. We lead in chaotic environments and there is not a roadmap at their level.
- Before you put any emerging leader in a senior role you must ascertain what they are going to do when they don’t know what to do.
- In today’s complex world, no senior leader can know enough to handle what will be thrown at them.
- When is the last time you have taken the time to assign an emerging leader a Pass/Fail task?
- Hirelings don’t give a rip about your sheep. They have no intentions of staying long-term…He will risk nothing for the sake of your sheep.
- Owners actually care about the sheep and have a long-term view…They will lay down their life for the sheep.
- Find and develop leaders with a legacy mindset.
- The average tenure for a Fortune 500 CEO is 4.5 years.
- Prevailing churches cannot be built on the shoulders of hirelings with short-term mindsets. They just don’t care enough. They won’t be around long enough to build something lasting.
- Legacy leaders are the only ones willing to pay the price to change culture because they’re going to live in it.
- Legacy leaders are working for the grander vision.
- Legacy leaders are the ones who leave something beautiful behind when their hourglass is empty.
- Right now several hundred are watching this from our newest satellite location – the Louisiana State Prison.
- I’ve never seen a single leader drift into being a legacy leader.
- Please don’t go to your grave without tasting a life that is truly life.
- Have you given any real thought to what your legacy will be?
- Legacy making does come with the price tag. The grander the vision, the greater the price tag.
- Don’t be surprised when grand visions get complicated or costly.
- It’s hard to hear God at Mach 2.
- You might be one prayer away from a rescue.
- 5 Ways To Develop Young Leaders
- High challenge roles
- Short term task force
- Real time feedback
- Coaching and mentoring
- Classroom teaching
5 Ways To Use A Short-Term Task Force
- Success of failure must be possible.
- The emerging leader must take full charge.
- Must work with a wide variety of people.
- Must involve real pressures and deadlines.
- Must be evaluated by a senior leader.
2015 Global Leadership Summit
- We define leadership as moving people from here to there.
- Leadership is not about presiding over something, protecting a position or pontificating about how smart you are.
- Leadership is all about movement.
- 10% of you are thinking about quitting whatever you are leading right now.
- Leaders at the highest levels of effectiveness have more subtle, advanced leadership traits than their peers.
- One of the greatest predictors of success is grit.
- Grit is the passion and perseverance over the long haul.
- Gritty people play hurt. Gritty people don’t quit, ever. Gritty people believe they can overcome whatever obstacle stands in their way.
- Those will ample amounts of it will achieve more than those without it regardless of intellect.
- The archenemy of grit is ease.
- Grit development demands difficulty.
- Grit grows every time you prove to yourself you can overcome an obstacle.
- You must assign yourself very difficult tasks and will yourself to achieving them.
- Elite leaders have learned overcoming physical challenges is developing grit.
- Don’t just deliver the required result. Over-deliver and over-deliver every time.
- When senior leadership demonstrates grittiness…teammates and volunteers notice and develop an appetite for grit themselves.
- Gritty organizations are unstoppable.
- When you read about a huge mess in an organization, you can bet a lot of it is driven by low self-awareness.
- The definition of a blind spot is something someone thinks they do well but everyone knows is unture.
- Every leader has 3-to-4 blind spots.
- The danger with blind spots is you really have no idea they exist.
- Your direct supervisor has the best insight into your blind spots.
- Self-awareness is a very big deal. Knowing how your past is messing with the decisions you are making today is crucial information.
- Growing in self-awareness demands feedback from others. Honest feedback.
- Everybody will win when you grow in self-awareness.
- Resourceful people are quick learners. They are endlessly curious about how things work.
- Organizations that grow resourcefulness among their senior leadership teams grow 25% more than their competitors.
- The Wright brothers studied birds for years.
- Resourceful people figure it out.
- So much of your success in the coming years is dependent on your resourcefulness.
- The primary way to discover resourcefulness is to put yourself in positions that are confusing and being forced to figure it out.
- Self-sacrificing love is at the very core of leadership.
- Self-sacrificing love always has been and always will be at the very core of leadership.
- Love never leaves a heart the way it found it. Love changes people.
- Love melts people and molds people into tightly nit communities that feel more like families than work groups.
- We live in a day of celebrity leaders with narcissistic blood flowing through their veins.
- At the root of all of this is an absent of self-sacrificing love.
- Everyone takes their cues from the senior leader.
- Do workers feel personal concern coming from their managers?
- Love never fails. Love changes the order of things.
- Don’t hesitate a single moment in showing genuine concern and love to your teammates.
- The quality of your loving will set the tone for the whole organization.
- There’s The What. The How. The Why.
- Almost all leaders know The What. Everyone knows The How. The huge disconnect is The Why.
- Leaders in tomorrow’s world will have to build the case for The Why in everyone’s job.
- What moves you and drives you as a leader to get better and better every year?
- If God’s perfect, you have a gap. God sees your gap.
- My white-hot Why is never going to be money. My white-hot Why is going to be changed lives.
- Leadership matters in every industry.
- It matters in life and it certainly matters in death.
Bonus: Bill gave 8 characteristics of Global Leadership Summit leaders.
- Leaders of Vision
- Leaders of Passion
- Leaders of Love
- Leaders Committed To Ongoing Growth
- Leaders Who Can Handle Complexity
- Leaders From Every Segment Of Society
- Leaders Who Embrace Diversity
- Leaders For The Long Haul
Click HERE or on the image to the left and as a free gift for subscribing to this site, you can receive my new Ebook 1869 Leadership Quotes: Timeless Truths From 2015 Global Leadership Summit, That Church, REACT and Catalyst Conferences. If applied, these insights will make you an exponentially better leader. Enjoy!!!