77 Leadership Quotes from the Global Leadership Summit

I had the opportunity to spend this past Thursday and Friday at the Willow Creek Association’s Global Leadership Summit.  The Summit featured some of the world’s top leaders sharing their leadership wisdom.  Here are 77 awesome quotes from those leaders.

Bill Hybels (session notes)

1. When the leader stops learning, the leader should stop leading. @BillHybels

2. We live in a world that’s crying out for better leadership. @BillHybels

3. If you don’t deal with challenging people in your organization, you discourage and demotivate your best people. @BillHybels

4. Nothing rocks forever. @BillHybels

5. Churches ought to be in the people transformation business. @BillHybels

6. Don’t get caught up in a pattern of creating excuses instead of bold solutions to solve the problems. @BillHybels

7. For those approaching the finish line, why go out with a whimper? Go through the finish line in a full sprint. @BillHybels

Len Schlesinger (session notes)

8. Nobody can tell me you can ride one business model for your entire career. Must reinvent yourself 3-5 times in your career. @lschlesinger

9. We need mechanisms that deal with economics, sustainability, and social values simultaneously not sequentially. @lschlesinger

10. “We are all entrepreneurs, only too few of us get to practice it.” -Muhammad Yunus @lschlesinger

11. If you can’t predict the future, create it. @lschlesinger

12. You can’t think your way into an unknowable future, you must act. @lschlesinger

13. Successful entrepreneurs start with things they care about. @lschlesinger

14. Stop worrying about what you want to do and worry about what you want to do next. @lschlesinger

15. Instead of calling it failure just call it an exercise in learning something nobody else knows. @lschlesinger

Cory Booker (session notes)

16. You have a choice, are you going to grow fat and happy on your ancestors’ struggles or will you use all of your blessings to move forward? @CoryBooker

17. Everyone is born an original but most die as copies. -Abraham Lincoln @CoryBooker

18. The world you see outside of you will always be a reflection of what you have inside of you. @CoryBooker

19. The only way to make change in this world is to start with ones self. If it is to be, it’s up to me. @CoryBooker

20. Before you tell me what you teach and preach. Show me how you live and give. @CoryBooker

21. In any given set of circumstances – in every moment – you have a choice to accept circumstances as they are or to change them. @CoryBooker

22. Do somethin’! @CoryBooker

Brenda Salter McNeil (session notes)

23. Catalytic events are never nice, easy, or comfortable. @RevDocBrenda

24. Our mission is to lead the church forward into the globalness of what the church is called to be. @RevDocBrenda

25. Are you ready to break through your sound barrier? @RevDocBrenda

Seth Godin (session notes)

26. We’re seeing the death of the industrial age. It’s being replaced by a new age. An age of tribes… -Seth Godin

27. We have a need to be in sync. We get in sync in tribes and tribes need leaders. -Seth Godin

28. There’s something after the job… the artist. -Seth Godin

29. There is no map for being an artist. -Seth Godin

30. We don’t need you to memorize facts – we can look them up. We need you to solve interesting problems. -Seth Godin

31. Don’t wait to get picked. Pick yourself. -Seth Godin

32. It’s impossible 2 do art and always succeed. If failure is not an option, success is not an option. -Seth Godin

33. Make art. Give gifts. Lead. Make a difference. -Seth Godin

Steven Furtick (session notes)

34. I’m just dumb enough to believe God can do anything. @stevenfurtick

35. I don’t want to just survive the world, I want to change the world. @stevenfurtick

36. I can’t expect God’s blessing on my work unless I do it God’s way. @stevenfurtick

37. If all you have is good ideas, you’re just a day dreamer. @stevenfurtick

38. If the vision for your life isn’t overwhelming to you, it’s probably insulting to God. @stevenfurtick

39. One of the reasons we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with other people’s highlight reel. @stevenfurtick

Mama Maggie Gobran (session notes)

40. We don’t choose where to be born. But we do choose either to be sinners or saints… to be nobody or be heroes. -Mama Maggie Gobran

41. To be elegant comes from the inside, to love. To love is to give, to give until it hurts. -Mama Maggie Gobran

42. The silence is the secret, the first step, to finding treasure. -Mama Maggie Gobran

Bill Hybels (session notes)

43. It’s easy to get addicted to the narcotic of success and growth. @BillHybels

44. God is looking for some strong-shouldered leaders who say, ‘If there’s a tough assignment any where in the world, I’m available.” @BillHybels

45. I don’t know a single leader who ever regretted taking a tough assignment from God. @BillHybels

Michelle Rhee (session notes)

46. I would much rather deal with anger than apathy. @m_rhee

47. If you turn your head to the people who are yelling the loudest, you’ll be turning your back to the children, because they don’t vote. @m_rhee

48. Speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves. @m_rhee

Dr. Henry Cloud (session notes)

49. Are you going to allow “that guy” to stop this vision? @DrHenryCloud

50. When a wise person hears the truth, he/she adjusts himself to match the truth. @DrHenryCloud

51. When a fool sees the light, he tries to adjust the light. @DrHenryCloud

52. It’s hard for an optimistic person to believe that there really are bad people. @DrHenryCloud

John Dickson (session notes)

53. We are really scared of crocodiles in Australia… and man hugs. @DailyDickson

54. Humility is the noble choice to forgo your status and use your influence for the good of others. @DailyDickson

55. What we don’t know far exceeds what we do know, so humility is common sense. @DailyDickson

56. Humility is beautiful. We are more attracted to the great who are humble than the great who want everyone to know about it. @DailyDickson

57. Science is based on humility. 1 can’t just observe the world & make a declaration. A theory has to be tested & peer tested. @DailyDickson

58. The most believable person in the world is the person who you know has your best interest at heart. @DailyDickson

59. You don’t need the keys to the kingdom to impact the kingdom. (Don’t need political or structural authority) @DailyDickson

Patrick Lencioni (session notes)

60. Vulnerability runs counter to the dominant value in our culture – to avoid suffering at any cost. It’s counter-cultural. @patricklencioni

61. People are desperate for the kind truth. @patricklencioni

62. There’s a technical term for people who don’t like to tell people the kind truth… wuss. @patricklencioni

63. My job is not to look smart but to help you do better. @patricklencioni

64. The best leaders are the ones who are open about their shortcomings. @patricklencioni

65. When we acknowledge our humanity it’s attractive, people want to be around us. @patricklencioni

66. Leaders, show your people that you’re willing to do whatever it is you’re asking them to do. @patricklencioni

67. We don’t come out of the womb wanting to be vulnerable. It involves pain, sacrifice. @patricklencioni

68. We are called to be humble and vulnerable by the most humble and vulnerable Leader of all. @patricklencioni

Erwin McManus (session notes)

69. Don’t do evangelism. Live Christ. @ErwinMcManus

70. We are God’s instruments to create the future. @ErwinMcManus

71. Evil men don’t wait 4 permission 2 create the future. But good people sit idly by waiting 4 God 2 create a better world. @ErwinMcManus

72. The future is whatever we want it to be. @ErwinMcManus

73. We need to become the cultivators of human potential. @ErwinMcManus

74. I believe there has never been an ordinary child born on this planet ever. @ErwinMcManus

75. Whoever tells the best stories changes the culture. @ErwinMcManus

76. Sometimes the truth is lost in a bad story and the false is perpetuated through a good story. @ErwinMcManus

77. It’s not that hard to lead people to Jesus when you tell them a story which they are in. @ErwinMcManus

And one bonus quote…

Jesus has come and he has made all things new. @ErwinMcManus

Thanks to Adam Jeske, whose Top 37 Quotes post inspired me to borrow his idea, super-size it, and link it up.

Which were your favorite quotes from the Global Leadership Summit?