2013 Global Leadership Summit Session 1: Bill Hybels

Founder and Senior Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church

• Founded The Global Leadership Summit, now in 530+ cities and 90 countries
• Senior Pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, a pioneer in contemporary church strategy and one of America’s largest churches with more than 24,000 weekly attendees
• Committed to developing and mentoring leaders worldwide, including those in some of the most difficult, overlooked and under-resourced countries
• Best-selling author of more than 20 books including Courageous Leadership and Axiom: Powerful Leadership Proverbs

Session Notes

• Joshua 1:9 Be strong and courageous…
• Leadership demands a non-stop dose of fortitude
• Ending apartheid is a cause I’m fully prepared to die for. -Nelson Mandela
• 1) The courage to define a vision
  • Vision is a picture of the future that creates passion in people.
  • God made you a leader to move people from here to there.
  • Every significant vision that’s birthed in you is going to put your courage to the test.
  • Told the story of Willow Creek building a care center.
  • Why any senior pastor would keep capable, fired-up women from full deployment in the church is beyond me.
  • Do we blame the problems of the world on God or on gutless leaders who lacked courage and aborted their mission?
  • Don’t die with a hidden vision shriveling up inside of you.
• 2) Courage to define reality
  • Sometimes a leader must declare a “code red.” (Things are declining)
  • Sometimes a leader must light a fire, declare the status quo is not acceptable and extremely dangerous.  (Plateaued)
  • Your whole team knows the reality of your current situation. They’re waiting for you to work up the courage to acknowledge it and start leading them out of it.
• 3) Courage to build a healthy culture
  • Nothing has required more courage at Willow Creek than moving our team to a healthier culture.
  • First step – bringing in an outside firm to measure our culture. Put it off a year due to fear.
  • Used “Best Christian Workplace” assessment
  • Initial assessment put them just above “toxic.” Put an action plan into place.
  • What action steps did they take?
  • People join organizations. They leave managers. 
  • Staff are now evaluated twice a year based on not just what they accomplish but how they do it.
  • A staff culture will only ever be as healthy as the organization’s leader wants it to be.
  • Delegating improving culture to HR is the kiss of death.
  • We are no longer going to pay people to bruise and bust our culture.
  • You will not believe how much more productive your people will be in a healthy culture is compared with a toxic culture.
  • Missed some really good Pew research stats cited about employee engagement.
• 4) Courage to establish and enforce values
  • The more I utilize social media the hungrier I get for true community. (uh, oh Bill. I disagree – virtual community is real community.)
  • Social media provides the illusion of true community.
  • Told story of how no one befriended a grieving friend in a church service.
  • Commentary – doesn’t Bill’s story show lack of sincere, loving relationships is just as much a problem in “real life” and is not a social media problem?
  • We are not going to allow people to leave services at Willow unwelcome or unnoticed.
  • Made this a value at Willow. Created a “section strategy” to raise the level of community, care, and intentional engagement at Willow.
  • It takes courage to go from vision to saying this is a value, this is who we are from this point forward.
• The courage for a leader to finish strong
  • Some of the most rewarding experiences in a leader’s marathon are reserved for quite late in the race.
  • At 22 years old before starting Willow… Lawyer: Why are you starting this church? Hybels: To change people’s lives. Lawyer: People don’t change. Hybels: I’m betting my whole life you’re wrong.
  • You have to step out in faith even when you are vibrating in fear.