Leaders Continue to Improve

We had the good fortune to attend the Global Leadership Summitagain this year with a team with whom we are privileged to work. The summit is an informative, inspiring leadership program with world class speakers who are passionate about helping improve leadership in our businesses, churches and communities.

We cannot think of a better investment of time than to attend the summit, whether by our self or, ideally, with our team.

Next year, it will be Thursday and Friday, August 8th and 9th. It will be streamed live to about 500 locations across the country and many more globally. In fact, about 500,000 people attend the summit annually at these locations. Virtually everyone raves about the content and quality of the program.

The program this year opened with Craig Groeschel. While a pastor, his messages are very relevant to those of us in business. Groeschel is a servant leader and his staff members are a true team with high energy, enthusiasm, collaboration, and pride in their work.

There were many takeaways in Groeschel’s discussion and we will name just some that particularly resonate with us and we believe are important reminders to all leaders:

• Humble leaders can learn from everyone and should ask others for their ideas and listen with curiosity and an open mind to understand and learn.
• We, as leaders, must address problems,conflict, and a difficult team member, not sit back and hope the situation goes away. Ignoring the situation will only disappoint our team members and increase the stress we all face.
• Leaders help their team members feel important,which they are. We must let them know that they are appreciated and heard, and what they think matters.
• Leaders respond quicklyto emails, voice messages, and all requests for help. We must respond, at least acknowledging receipt and that we will be back to them as soon as we are able. If we do not respond quickly, our team members will be frustrated and feel they are not important in our minds.
• Leaders follow through.We must do what we say.
• Highly effective leaders trust their people, empower them.
• And highly effective leaders delegate authority, which helps develop other leaders. This is our responsibility, to develop other leaders. In fact, the more authority we give away, the more authority we have.

These principles require our humility. They also require that our character and our values are based on our wanting to help our team members develop and succeed. We must genuinely care about our team members and their well-being. If we do, we are well on the way to being a servant leader and we, as well as our people, will continue to become better.