The Global Leadership Summit is perhaps the world’s premier training event—an opportunity for people from all walks of life to spend two days under a diverse array of presenters from a variety of backgrounds and enterprises where they can gain handles and insights that will help them be more skilled and effective in their leadership. With a live audience and over 500 host sites around the world (of which the local church where I’m currently involved is one) it annually provides an opportunity for those who are trying to improve their organization, community, and world a setting where they can grow and become better. As they often say, “Everyone wins when a leader gets better.”
This year’s event, held on August 3-4, proved to again be both inspirational and actionable, engaging and stretching both mind and heart. Below are some statements from my notes that will give you a flavor for some of the takeaways and insights the event had to offer.
The number one biggest challenge leaders face today is that people aren’t going to give us the benefit of the doubt. People today tend to withhold trust until they see evidence. Distrust is society’s default emotion. (Criag Groeschel)
Building trust isn’t about you looking good; It’s about you loving well! (Craig Groeschel)
If your team wonders which “you” is going to show up on a particular day, you’ve got problems. (Craig Groeschel)
Some people are like hummingbirds—they flit around energetically from one thing to another and never settle. Some are like seagulls—they swoop in, poop on everything, and fly away. (Craig Groeschel)
To earn trust, you have to extend trust. The way to figure out if you can trust someone is to take a risk and trust them. You will periodically be disappointed if you trust too much, but you will always limit your leadership if you don’t trust enough. (Craig Groeschel)
When it comes to building trust, it’s not what you do occasionally that matters. It’s what you do consistently. The best leadership is boring because it’s consistent. Consistency creates emotional safety and organizational clarity. (Craig Groeschel)
When you try to dummy proof the system, only dummies will want to work there. We must be able to deal with short-term chaos to empower the positive things we’re looking to put in place. (Erin Meyer)
Most organizational controls are established to deal with average or below-average employees. Top people don’t need to be controlled. For high producers, a fabulous work environment is about being surrounded by stunningly great colleagues. (Erin Meyer)
The “Keeper Test”: Which of my people, if they told me they were looking for a similar job at a peer company, would I fight hard to keep? (Erin Meyer)
You have to own your past, but you can’t be a prisoner of it. It will inevitably shape you, but you can’t allow it to limit you. When you consider yourself a victim, you have given control of your life to someone else. (Condolezza Rice)
Your internal limitations are not the product of what you’ve experienced but of how you’ve responded to those experiences. (Condolezza Rice)
One of the best proofs that you were created by God is the fact that it’s impossible to settle for less and find fulfillment. (Erwin McManus)
When you get to a place where you’re genuinely OK if what you’re doing doesn’t work out, that’s the place God wants you to be. Your job is not to feed the 5000 but to provide the loaves and fishes. (Dallas Jenkins)
Leaders need to get up each day not thinking “What am I going to accomplish? but rather “Who am I going to serve?” (Pat Gelsinger)
As leaders, we need to understand not just why we failed, but also why we succeeded. If we don’t know the reasons for our success, we will never be able to replicate it. (Anita Elberse)
You can have a hard season and still be a good leader. Hardship and difficulty is not a disqualifier for leadership. The issue is not how strong or solid a leader you are, but whether you’re a growing one. (Albert Tate)
Habits are a double-edged sword—they can either build you up or tear you down. We need to be the architect of our habits and not the victim of them. They are the compound interest of self-improvement; time will magnify whatever you feed it. (James Clear)
We need to focus more on current trajectory than our current position. If you’re on a good trajectory, all you need is time. (James Clear)
If you’re struggling to improve, the problem often isn’t you but your system. You don’t rise to the level of your goals but, rather, fall to the level of your systems. The goal is your desired outcome, but the system is the daily habits you put in place to accomplish those goals. (James Clear)
The reason habits matter is because every action you take is a vote for the kind of person you want to become. (James Clear)
You are not alone in feeling alone. Your loneliness is not an accusation of your unworthiness. It is a signal. (Liz Bohannon)
If you are waiting for someone else to reach out and be the friend you wish you had, you’ll spend your life waiting. You need to go first. Doing so is one of the bravest and most visionary acts of leadership. (Liz Bohannon)
Rejection is quite often God’s protection—it keeps us from going down a path that is not in our best interest. It is God hiding your value from someone because they aren’t assigned to your destiny. (Jamie Kern Lima)
Authenticity doesn’t automatically guarantee success, but inauthenticity virtually guarantees failure. The things about yourself that you think are odd, different, and quirky are the things God wants to use for His purposes. (Jamie Kern Lima)
We must understand the difference between self-confidence and self-worth. Self-confidence will fluctuate based on what’s going on around you, but self-worth is the deep, internal knowing that you are innately worthy exactly as you are. (Jamie Kern Lima)
Our success should be marked by who we want to impact more than what we want to accomplish. (Ryan Leak)
Good leaders are consistently trying to be interesting. Great leaders are consistently trying to be interested. (Ryan Leak)
Failure is the tuition you pay for success. Chasing failure will typically take you further than chasing success ever will. (Ryan Leak)
Diversity is about being invited to the party. Inclusion is about being asked to dance. (Cynt Marshall)
In life, there are crystal balls and rubber balls. Some things, when they drop, shatter and are ruined. Some things drop and they bounce. Leaders need to think about what’s crystal and what’s rubber. (Cynt Marshall)
The question we need to ask ourselves, as we think about courage, is “What are we afraid of?” Courage and fear are mutually exclusive. (Patrick Lencioni)