Courage To Lead Live Blog – 42 Leadership Quotes From Shawn Lovejoy on Courageous Conversations and Healthy Conflict

Today I am being dispatched by INJOY Stewardship Solutions to bring you the top leadership thoughts and lessons from the Courage To Lead Conference in Birmingham, AL.  I LOVE this coaching organization.  Led by Founder and CEO Shawn Lovejoy, they work with you to help you discover who you are as a leader and organization, and lean into it.  Their coaching helps you assess where you need to go, and help you measure success.  Hope is not a strategy, so they help you plan for what’s next through assessment, goal setting, and accountability.

The Courage To Lead coaches help you clarify your PURPOSE, lead with more PASSION, set & maintain PRIORITIES, achieve goals that mark PROGRESS and more effectively lead PEOPLE.  Click HERE to sign up for their FREE assessment of your church or organization.

The event’s first speaker was Shawn Lovejoy himself.   As mentioned earlier, Shawn is the Founder and CEO of CouragetoLead.com.  He leads a team of coaches who’s passion is coaching leaders through what keeps them up at night.  Shawn loves helping ministries + organizations accomplish all of their potential + gain or sustain momentum!  He is also the author of Be Mean About the Vision: Preserving and Protecting What Matters and his latest book The Measure of Our Success: Your Path To Significance, Satisfaction, & Leading Yourself.

Before getting to his comments, I want to make you aware of a new online giving organization, GiveINJOY.  If your church, business or nonprofit is not happy with fees you are paying for or customer service you are receiving from your online giving provider, then click HERE or on the image above to sign up for a FREE demo. They have the best rates in the industry.  That means MORE MONEY for MORE MINISTRY.

Now as promised, the following are 42 leadership quotes from his incredible session on courageous conversations and healthy conflict:

1. We want to have a relationship with you. We want to inspire you.
2. I’m a pretty good pastor but I’m a great coach.
3. Truett Cathy said, “No one ever died from too much encouragement.”
4. Growth happens at the intersection of Team, Culture, and Systems.
5. What takes us down is our weaknesses, our blind spots.
6. Where would you be without courage? Has anything significant in your life ever happened without courage.
7. Courage is refusing your fears to paralyze you.
8. The average pastor leaves their church because of four people.
9. We’re literally commanded by God to have courage.
10. A lot of you today are discouraged. You’ve been paralyzed.  You’ve lost your swagger.
11. The fundamental gift of leadership is the gift of encouragement.
12. I needed someone to push me beyond my own limits.
13. You can learn courage.
14. It takes courage to leave something certain for something uncertain.
15. It takes courage to say something to someone is better than saying something about someone.
16. The Organizational Life Cycle – Birth, Growth, Decline, Death.
17. Consistent growth happens on a courageous curve.
18. These are the courageous jumps you have to make – Confrontation, Conversations, Collaboration, Catalyzation.
19. Jim Collins says the first step in becoming a great organization is to confront the brutal facts.
20. Our tendency is to deny and defend what’s not working. This is why success is the greatest inhibitor of future success.
21. When you have momentum in your organization, you’re not as good as you think you are.
22. 46% of new hires don’t make it 18 months. 26% could not make it because they could not handle feedback from others.  23% could not handle their emotions.  Only 11% couldn’t make it because of technical skills.
23. Once you know what your blind spots are, they’re just sin.
24. When approached by someone about your blind spots, say “Thanks for coming to me. Let me process that.”
25. Humble yourself or God will humble you.
26. Two of the most credibility-building words you can say are, “I’m sorry.”
27. “Leaders who don’t listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.” – Andy Stanley
28. We can’t expect to see if change if we don’t make one.
29. There’s a thin line between conviction, confrontation, and condemnation.
30. There’s a cost for staying where you are and the way you are.
31. Most of us don’t enjoy courageous conversations but we need to.
32. Things never get better on their own. An infected wound never gets better on its own.
33. The opposite of courageous leadership is cowardly leadership.
34. I tell leaders we should have more conflict than we’re having.
35. The #1 demographic of divorce in our country is people who have been married 20 years or more.
36. My wife and I have decided to rather than have artificial harmony to have intense fellowship.
37. A healthy culture balances grace and truth.
38. Gracers need to speak up more.
39. Truthers need to shut up more, be careful what you say.
40. Conflict is inevitable. Drama is a choice.
41. Don’t condemn yourself but you have to confront yourself.
42. An organization can’t grow faster than its ability to make decisions.

What an incredible start!!!

My book Timeless: 10 Enduring Practices Of Apex Leaders is available for purchase.  If you have ever wanted to become the leader God created you to be, this book is for you!  By combining leadership lessons from biblical heroes like Jesus, Daniel and Joseph, along with modern day leaders like Bill Gates, Nick Saban, Kobe Bryant and multiple pastors, Timeless will equip and inspire you.  This book is not to be read alone.  Discussion questions are included in each chapter allowing you to develop those in your circle of influence.  Click HERE or on the image provided and order your copies TODAY.