5 Leadership Principles I Learned from the Global Leadership Summit

This blog post is an excerpt from “The Summit Is a Gift of Disorientation” by Craig Groeschel. Read the full post here.

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As a young pastor, I honestly never saw the value of leadership in the church. I thought pastors were supposed to focus on spiritual things. Leadership sounded like a business term—certainly not something helpful to pastors. None of us understood that leading well is one of the most spiritual things we could learn to do.

When I first heard leadership taught at the Summit, it was as if something came alive in my spirit. The talk at that conference gave me permission to do more than pastor people, it gave me permission to lead them to Christ.

Year after year and Summit after Summit, I’ve absorbed new truths that have changed the way we lead our church.

Here are a few big, specific takeaways I remember:

1. After hearing Jim Collins talk about what great organizations do, and what good ones fail to do, we cut about half of our programming to focus on the things with the highest impact.
2. Following a challenge to “roll the dice” and take courageous risks, we had the courage to reorganize our entire leadership structure. This one change was a major catalyst in moving us forward.
3. After listening to Patrick Lencioni unpack organizational wisdom, we restructured our meeting and communication strategy, freeing us to grow and expand beyond what we’d planned.
4. Following an interview with Chip and Dan Heath on their book Made to Stick, we overhauled our core values and transformed them from lifeless statements on a wall to powerful truths written on the hearts of our team.
5. And at one Global Leadership Summit, my wife Amy was stirred by a talk that sparked her faith to launch Branch15 Ministry Homes. This thriving organization serves women who are transitioning from human trafficking, prison, and other challenging situations to recovery and independent, sustainable living.

So much of what our church is doing today came from moments, talks, and ideas absorbed through the years at the Global Leadership Summit.

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Pastor Craig Groeschel is one of the speakers lined up for this year’s Global Leadership Summit, this Thursday and Friday, August 9-10. Our Open Network team will be attending the Summit live and sharing leadership tips and quotes throughout the day on social media and our blog. To follow along with the days’ event, follow us on:

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