Leading From Your Extremes | Live from the Global Leadership Summit AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast

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Episode: Leading From Your Extremes | Live from the Global Leadership Summit

Author: Life.Church
Duration: 00:43:27

Episode Shownotes

Many of the best leaders are confident and humble, driven yet healthy, and focused but still flexible. Greatness is often found in those extremes, and in this episode, Craig shares the secrets to mastering these extreme qualities. Watch video and download the leader guide: https://www.life.church/leadershippodcast/leading-from-your-extremes-live-from-the-global-leadership-summit/ 

Summary

In this episode of the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast recorded at the Global Leadership Summit, Craig Groeschel delves into the paradoxical qualities of effective leadership, emphasizing the need for leaders to balance traits such as confidence and humility, drive and health, as well as focus and flexibility. He illustrates how nurturing these extreme qualities can enhance leaders' effectiveness. By sharing personal experiences and insights, Craig encourages leaders to acknowledge their limitations, embrace discomfort for growth, and prioritize their tasks while maintaining mental health. The episode serves as a guide for leaders aiming to make a positive impact.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Leading From Your Extremes | Live from the Global Leadership Summit) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_00
Now I know that there are people infinitely and indescribably more dangerous than I am, and I am getting better and better and better and better and more humble and more humble and more humble, and I took that lesson into my leadership at the church, and I apologize.

00:00:20 Speaker_00
Hey, welcome to another episode of the Craig Rochelle Leadership Podcast. If you're new with us, we drop a brand new teaching on the first Thursday of every month.

00:00:30 Speaker_00
And if you're not receiving the Leader Guide yet, let me just beg with you and plead with you, you need to get the Leader Guide. It's full of additional information, content, and application questions for you to cover with your team.

00:00:44 Speaker_00
Just go to life.church slash leadership podcast and we'll send you the leader guide free with each episode. Now, let me tell you what we're gonna do today. I'm gonna share with you a talk that I did a few years ago at the Global Leadership Summit.

00:00:59 Speaker_00
If you don't know about the Global Leadership Summit, this is a global leadership event, probably the biggest leadership event in the world.

00:01:06 Speaker_00
This year, the event is going to be on August the 8th and 9th, broadcast out of Chicago to over 500 sites around the U.S. I'll be doing the opening talk again this year. Today I'm sharing an opening talk I did from a few years ago.

00:01:21 Speaker_00
If you wanna grow in your leadership, this is not a paid ad, this is just because I love the event. We'll actually put a link in our leader guide that will give you a discount.

00:01:30 Speaker_00
You can go to globalleadership.org and find out information about the event. This talk I did talks about leaders that have it. What is it?

00:01:40 Speaker_00
Well, sometimes you'll meet a leader that's so gifted, you're like going, man, like she just seems to have it, or he just seems to have it. And you kind of wonder, what is it that they have?

00:01:50 Speaker_00
Well, it is often a reflection of what I'd call paradoxical qualities in great leaders. You'll often find that great leaders have two seemingly contradictory qualities. that together can create something unusually special.

00:02:07 Speaker_00
I'm excited to share with you the majority of this talk, and I pray that it speaks to your leadership, and that I've got some more thoughts for you on the back side of it. Let's now look at leaders that have it.

00:02:19 Speaker_00
Today, we're all going to grow in our leadership. Would you look at the person sitting next to you and tell them, you gotta get better. You gotta get better. Because everyone wins. Tell them, because everyone wins. when the leader gets better.

00:02:35 Speaker_00
Now look at your second choice, the one you didn't choose. Look at the other person on the other side and say you gotta get better. You gotta get better. High five three people right now. High five three people.

00:02:47 Speaker_00
Say get better, get better, get better, get better, get better, get better. Go ahead and have a seat if you will. If you're ready to get better, say I'm ready. Are you ready? Big question.

00:03:04 Speaker_00
Have you ever met a leader and said, wow, this is a passionate visionary with like a relentless focus that's incredibly value-driven and people-centered.

00:03:20 Speaker_00
There's something special about the leader and you think something like, well, this leader gets it. This leader has it.

00:03:28 Speaker_00
Or maybe you've walked into a church or a business and there was this vibe, there was this hum, there was this sense of expectation and you thought, well, this church has it or this business has it.

00:03:41 Speaker_00
Or maybe you walked into a church or a business and you thought, I don't wanna be here. The employees don't wanna be here. This place is dead. There's no momentum, there's no vibe, there's no vision, there's no expectation.

00:03:58 Speaker_00
And maybe you thought, well, this place doesn't have it. I wanna talk to you about it. Everybody say, I want it. I want it. Everybody say, I'm gonna get it. I'm gonna tell you the story behind it. It's very special to me.

00:04:14 Speaker_00
In the year 2005 or so, I lead a church, and our church was one of the first ones to expand to doing church in multiple locations, something that had never been done before.

00:04:27 Speaker_00
And as we were expanding, we were learning, and we would build a building that would look exactly the same in one place as it would in another.

00:04:36 Speaker_00
If you dropped into any one and we blindfolded you, you wouldn't know which one you were in because they were exactly the same. The worship was the same songs at each place done by equally solid worship leaders.

00:04:50 Speaker_00
The staff was all hired in the same system, trained in the same culture and values. The teaching was exactly the same via video. All the contributing inputs were the same, but the outcomes were incredibly different. It was bizarre.

00:05:08 Speaker_00
You could walk up to one and walking into the building, you felt something, this faith and this anticipation that you could almost hear this like, something was gonna happen.

00:05:20 Speaker_00
Then you could go 12 miles down the road to the exact same building with the exact same music, the exact same teaching with the same kind of staff and you'd walk up and you wouldn't feel it and people didn't seem to really care and wanna be there.

00:05:32 Speaker_00
And it was so bizarre because all the contributing factors were the same, but the outcome was very different.

00:05:38 Speaker_00
We started to scratch our head and we didn't really have language for it, but what we just started to say is like, well, this one has it and this one doesn't have it. And so we started to ask ourselves what is it and what contributes to it.

00:05:53 Speaker_00
And we did kind of a real in-depth organizational study. Well, in 2008, at the Global Leadership Summit, my first time ever to be there, I released a book that was called It.

00:06:06 Speaker_00
I'm excited today to re-release a very expanded and revised version of it called Lead Like It Matters, better title, I must say, Seven Principles for a Church that Lasts. And I wanna encourage you to get a copy of this.

00:06:22 Speaker_00
Even if you're not a church leader, I learn from business leaders all the time. Leadership principles are leadership principles. Buy a bunch, buy a hundred for your team. You say, you just wanna sell your book. Yes, I worked hard on it.

00:06:35 Speaker_00
but my family is honored to donate 100% of every dollar from every book sold everywhere to start new churches, so I say it with integrity, I believe this will help you. I wanna help you lead like it matters. That raises the question, what is it?

00:06:54 Speaker_00
And the answer is, I'm not really sure. Beautiful, you wrote a book on it and you don't know, I'm not buying that one, okay? Let me tell you what it's not. It is not the result of a model.

00:07:08 Speaker_00
In other words, your business can't copy someone else's model and get it. Your church can't copy a program from a great church and get it. It's not the result of a program.

00:07:18 Speaker_00
What we do know is that there are things that you can do to lead toward it, and there are also things that you can do to kill it. We found that one leader doesn't necessarily bring it, but the wrong leaders can kill it. We could say that it happens.

00:07:44 Speaker_00
But sadly, more often, it doesn't happen. What is it? There's bad news and good news. What do you want first? Somebody shout out. You want the bad news first, good news first? Shout it out, shout it out. Bad news, get the bad news out of the way.

00:07:56 Speaker_00
The bad news is, just because you don't have it, doesn't mean you can't get it. The good news, that's not the bad, the bad news is, just because you have it, doesn't mean you're gonna keep it.

00:08:09 Speaker_00
The good news is, if you don't have it, you actually can get it. And what I wanna do is I wanna try to help you get it. And in the book, there are seven factors of organizations that have it. The book was written from a total organizational perspective.

00:08:21 Speaker_00
The book was done and settled, and I was sitting down with five leaders at my desk, and they said, hey, what qualities do the leaders have in common that have it? Like, how dumb am I?

00:08:33 Speaker_00
I wrote a whole book from an organizational perspective and never sat down to look at the qualities of the leaders that have it.

00:08:40 Speaker_00
And so this little core group, we decided to do just a study and started looking at our leaders, those special ones that had something special.

00:08:48 Speaker_00
And then we looked at top leaders in the field, and what we found was not shocking on one hand, and on the other hand, it was mind-blowing. What we discovered is, of every leader that has it,

00:09:01 Speaker_00
something special that you trust, you believe in, you want to follow, you're excited to be in the room with them. The leaders that had it, they have very extreme qualities, which is no surprise whatsoever.

00:09:15 Speaker_00
I talk to people all the time, like, we just wanna hire well-rounded leaders. I don't. at all. I don't want well-rounded people who are good at a lot of things. I want extremes.

00:09:29 Speaker_00
I want those who are incredibly talented in very specific, very narrow, almost weird areas. Why? Because greatness is found in the extremes. Hey, Craig here.

00:09:41 Speaker_00
We'll get back to the episode in just a minute, but I wanted to, first of all, share a resource that I think you'll find helpful to your leadership. There's a secret that I've learned about leadership, and we know it.

00:09:51 Speaker_00
The best leaders are almost always the best readers. Why? Because your influence and impact are, in many ways, a result of the books and ideas that you take in.

00:10:02 Speaker_00
So as I look back over my years of leadership, there are 44 books that rise to the top as books that I believe that every leader should read. So our team has curated the list and organized it into the areas that you'll want to grow in.

00:10:17 Speaker_00
To get this free list, go to life.church slash 44 books. That's the number four and four, life.church slash 44 books. And I hope this will be a gift to you to dig into a list of great books. Get reading and keep leading. Now, back to the episode.

00:10:36 Speaker_00
If you are a little bit weird, go ahead and step into it. Be extremely weird.

00:10:42 Speaker_00
If you obsess about something, if you're really passionate about something, if you're really, really good at something, press into it because greatness is found in the extremes. We were not shocked by that.

00:10:52 Speaker_00
We saw these people of very extreme qualities. What was shocking is, We looked at Pastor Bobby Grunewald, my closest friend. He's the founder of the YouVersion Bible app.

00:11:02 Speaker_00
We looked at him, and somebody said, yeah, Bobby, he has this extreme optimism, this visionary. He sees everything's possible, but generally when there's someone like that, they don't have their feet on the ground.

00:11:14 Speaker_00
Bobby is this extreme visionary, and yet he's brutally realistic. It's like these were opposing extremes.

00:11:24 Speaker_00
We looked at Jerry Hurley, one of my closest friends who's been with me for almost 25 years, and he is a world-class culture builder, and when he talks to you, you always know where you stand. You'd never wonder.

00:11:41 Speaker_00
He is brutally direct, but he loves you so much you feel loved even when he's firing you in the name of making the organization better.

00:11:52 Speaker_00
He is direct as can be, and yet he's kind, and he's empathetic, and he's compassionate, and it was so confusing because I was like, these people, they have these, like really, one extreme over here, and then this one other extreme over here, and they were like polar opposites.

00:12:10 Speaker_00
It's like, is this a contradiction? Is this like hypocrisy?

00:12:14 Speaker_00
And then, in case you don't know, I'm a pastor of a church, and so there is one that I talk about more than anyone else, and his name is Jesus, and it doesn't matter your spiritual background, you're welcome here, but I follow Jesus, and I looked at Jesus, and I thought, he's like that.

00:12:32 Speaker_00
Think about it. He is like extreme, like fully God. He's all God. He's fully man. He's both. He is roar, he's the lion. And he's the lamb. He is the alpha. He's first and he's the omega. He's last. His teachings were extreme. If you want to find your life,

00:13:09 Speaker_00
Lose your life. If you want to be great leaders, you have to serve. And it hit me. The leaders that have it often have extremes that appear to be contradictory, but when working together, they're explosive in leadership impact.

00:13:32 Speaker_00
So I came up with a little bit of a title or a little definition for a leadership paradox. I made this up, so if you don't like it, you can just email me at craigthisisnotarealemailaddress.com. What is a leadership paradox? I call it this.

00:13:51 Speaker_00
It's a contradictory leadership qualities. It's contradictory leadership qualities that together create a synergy of undeniable leadership impacts.

00:14:04 Speaker_00
If you wanna grow in your leadership impact, I would say grow in your extremes, and let's grow in some contradictory or almost opposing extremes.

00:14:15 Speaker_00
We did a study, this little group of us, we looked at a ton of different leaders, and we came up with 14 different leadership paradoxes. And I thought to myself, you will not pay attention that long.

00:14:30 Speaker_00
So I narrowed it down to 10, taught it to my staff, revised it, and today I'll narrow it down a little more and give you the top ones.

00:14:38 Speaker_00
Then I'm gonna choose the most important three, I believe, for our culture and our leaders, and we're gonna dive into that. Let me show you the leadership paradoxes we discovered.

00:14:50 Speaker_00
One is, those that have it, they are both, on one extreme, incredibly confident, they're secure, there's a boldness, and at the same time, they're humble, that they care about people, it's not all about them.

00:15:04 Speaker_00
We found that they are incredibly driven, they work hard, they drive for results, and at the same time, they're also very, very healthy. They're not burning people out, and they actually have a life. We found also that they're

00:15:18 Speaker_00
They know what they're called to do. They know what they're not called to do. But when the time is right, they become flexible. They're both. They're ruthlessly focused and they're intentionally flexible. We found like Bobby.

00:15:31 Speaker_00
They believe anything is possible. They're incredibly optimistic. But they're not so pie in the sky optimistic that they're not feet on the ground realistic. They'll confront the brutal facts to quote Collins. They are Jerry Hurley.

00:15:44 Speaker_00
direct, they're always communicative, and very, very clear, and they care about people. They are empathetic, they're loving, they genuinely want you to grow their kind.

00:15:56 Speaker_00
They are also empowering, and they trust, and they believe in people, and you're not gonna like this word, but I will prove to you later, not today, but in another day, why it's true.

00:16:06 Speaker_00
They're also controlling, and they are, and you don't like it, but they are. They're gonna empower, but there are some things, it's gotta be done this way if you're gonna be here, and they're both.

00:16:17 Speaker_00
They trust you, and there are times when they will annoy you because they control you. Another paradox, they are urgent. Get it done, get it done, get it done, drive, drive.

00:16:26 Speaker_00
They push for results, but at the very same time, they're wise enough to play the long game. They're urgent and they're patient. This last one is not true for all, none of these are true for all.

00:16:39 Speaker_00
This one is especially true for founding leaders like me, especially founding leaders. They are annoyingly, ridiculously frugal. Don't spend money on there, don't buy donuts.

00:16:53 Speaker_00
Then they'll blow your mind with this multimillion dollar risk, they're abundant. They're both, at the same time, these contradictory opposing qualities that together create a synergy of leadership impact.

00:17:09 Speaker_00
Today, what I want to do is I want to pick the top three. I want to talk to you about the top three, and your assignment, wherever you're watching from today, is to choose the one that best applies to you. The one.

00:17:24 Speaker_00
At the end of our talk, I'm going to ask you to stand up for your one. So pay attention and choose your one. I also have a free podcast called the Craig Rochelle Leadership Podcast. I will cover all of the rest of those on the podcast.

00:17:41 Speaker_00
One is out now, one is coming up. We'll go over all of those on the podcast just to give you a holistic view today. We're gonna look at three.

00:17:47 Speaker_00
You're likely gonna have one that's dominant, and you're gonna have one to develop, and maybe you want them to grow both together. Number one, leaders that have it are both confident and humble. Leaders that have it, they're both.

00:18:01 Speaker_00
They're bold and they're humble. Because when you think about it, what kind of leader do you want to follow? You're attracted to both confidence and humility. One without the other is not effective.

00:18:16 Speaker_00
The problem is, for some of us leaders, we have too much confidence. We have what we might call misplaced confidence. In other words, like, I might say, how good are you? And you're like, I'm good, baby, I'm good. How good are you? I'm so good.

00:18:28 Speaker_00
Well, how good are you? I'm like a 9.5. And I've been around the block maybe a few times more than you, and I may look at you and say, exactly, you are a 9.5, but you think the scale goes from one to 10.

00:18:43 Speaker_00
If you're a 9.5 on a scale of one to 100, you don't know what you don't know. You got misplaced confidence. You need some humility.

00:18:50 Speaker_00
At the same time, there are others of you, and let me just tell you right now, there are many of you, and I want you to hear this, that you are strong, you are talented, you are capable, you are chosen, you are called, and you are still hesitant because you don't know the greatness that is in you.

00:19:08 Speaker_00
You need to grow and step into your confidence. And what's amazing is the leaders that have it, they're generally growing in both of these at the same time.

00:19:17 Speaker_00
The very same time that we're becoming more confident, we're also in the moment becoming more humble. How does that work? I wanna introduce to you my very best friend, my bride of 31 years.

00:19:32 Speaker_00
mother of my six children, grandmother of my five grandchildren, and 50 or so coming is the way my kids are reproducing. Amy is with us today, and I love you with all of my heart. You're my best friend.

00:19:47 Speaker_00
So just so you know, she's not just Amy, but she's Gigi, and I'm Pops. We've got a lot of grandkids. So we were out of town, and we were at a pool, and we were enjoying ourselves. Nobody knows us, and we're at a pool.

00:20:00 Speaker_00
And this young girl had been drinking and came up to us, and she was like, she went, wow, you guys look amazing. Like, look at you, you both of you, like, you're amazing. Confidence. You look incredible.

00:20:14 Speaker_00
Like, wow, I stuck my stomach in, I put my arm around her, like. You look amazing. Confidence. She said, I told my boyfriend, I want to look just like you when I get really old. At the same time, confidence and humility.

00:20:38 Speaker_00
How do you leaders grow at the same time in your confidence and your humility? Let me tell you how. I want to encourage you to push yourself to the point of what I call leadership discomfort.

00:20:53 Speaker_00
Push yourself to the place where you're not really confident you have to do what it takes, but as you grow in your confidence, you're also humble as a student.

00:21:03 Speaker_00
You're going to push yourself to the point of leadership discomfort because a growing leader is in a constant place of discomfort. We're gonna put ourselves in a place where you feel stressed. Well, I'm not a very good speaker. Speak!

00:21:18 Speaker_00
What's gonna happen is you're gonna get better and you're gonna grow in your humility. Odd story, I felt stuck. I was losing confidence and at the same time, I was probably losing humility because I'm the leadership guy.

00:21:33 Speaker_00
I went to a performance psychologist to help me and he said, to grow in your humility and to grow in your confidence, take on something new and unrelated to leadership. Very interesting.

00:21:47 Speaker_00
He said, for you, I want it to be something high adrenaline and something that feels dangerous. because for me, that would disconnect my mind from always thinking about the church.

00:21:56 Speaker_00
So I took up two things about two years ago, and I've been progressing. One is jujitsu. If you watch MMA, that's what happens when people drop to the ground. The other thing is I'm getting my private pilot's license, and we'll test within this month.

00:22:09 Speaker_00
If you look at that plane, and it makes you nervous, the good news is it's not as old as it looks. It's only 48 years old, which is way younger than me, so it's totally safe, I think, right? How many have seen the movie Top Gun?

00:22:22 Speaker_00
Okay, that's a Top Gun starter kit. That's what that is. That's a Top Gun starter kit. So, in jujitsu, if you look at me, you might say the same thing I thought. Craig, you look like you're in decent shape.

00:22:37 Speaker_00
You're probably as strong or stronger than most people that you would roll with. You play college sports. You're a pretty good athlete. You'll probably be just fine. Oh, no, I'm not.

00:22:51 Speaker_00
Little guys wrapped me up and made me see parts of my body I've never seen without a mirror before. It's the... And at the very same time, now I know that there are people infinitely and indescribably more dangerous than I am.

00:23:09 Speaker_00
And I am getting better and better and better and better and more humble and more humble and more humble. And I took that lesson into my leadership at the church and I apologized.

00:23:22 Speaker_00
to our team in humility because I had been overly confident, and I had significantly misdiagnosed the current state of our organization. And I'll tell you briefly what I did. I told them, please forgive me. I'm sorry.

00:23:42 Speaker_00
I have a lot of leadership experience in leading in good times, or in slow times, or in momentum. I know how to do that. I have led through significant crisis. In crisis, you can serve cast, you act quickly, decisively, communicate frequently.

00:23:57 Speaker_00
I know how to do that. As the COVID season started to lessen, I went back to what I call the normal leadership mindset. And what I had misdiagnosed completely, there's nothing normal about this season, nothing normal.

00:24:13 Speaker_00
Maybe since like World War II, there's never been a time in history where we as leaders have had to lead out of a two-year global crisis.

00:24:22 Speaker_00
This is not normal times, this isn't good times, this isn't bad times, this isn't leading crisis, this is leading out of crisis. And it's an entirely different mindset. And so in humility,

00:24:36 Speaker_00
Mr. Leadership Podcast guy told the staff I missed it completely. And when I saw what I missed, my humility increased, and my confidence increased, and I'm leading like it matters.

00:24:50 Speaker_00
To grow in your confidence and to grow in your humility, let me just beg you, push yourself to the point of discomfort.

00:24:58 Speaker_00
And at the same time, you're going to discover what you don't know, humility, and you're going to get better at what you do know, confidence. And that's the kind of leader that people want to follow. Number one, leaders that have it.

00:25:12 Speaker_00
They're both confident and they're humble. Number two, the leaders that have it, they're both driven and they're healthy. They're both, they're both.

00:25:20 Speaker_00
If you're healthy, like if you're like healthy and laid back and don't like to work and not driven, you're never gonna get it, right? But if you're driven and you're not healthy, you're never gonna keep it.

00:25:31 Speaker_00
Here's what I've discovered, and this is what's true for many of you right now. Many of you are completely overwhelmed. You feel stressed. You feel burned out. You feel like there's too much to handle. And many people are misdiagnosing what's going on.

00:25:48 Speaker_00
I wanna help you diagnose what's going on in your own leadership. And I wanna tell you right now, you have to fix it. There's nobody coming to rescue you. When I was in a low point, I was waiting for somebody to say, there he's struggling.

00:26:00 Speaker_00
There's no life jacket, you gotta swim.

00:26:04 Speaker_00
I looked around at the leaders in our organization, and we came up with three different standards of where people are falling, and I wanna show you, and you might see yourself in one of these if you wanna be driven and healthy.

00:26:14 Speaker_00
Number one is some of you, you're doing too much. Like you're literally working too much. You're doing too many things. You may be outside of your gifts. You need to get help. You need to reprioritize. You need to cut. You need to delegate.

00:26:28 Speaker_00
If you're too controlling, the reason you're too controlling is number one, you're too proud. Or number two, you're not growing in your leadership. The best leaders learn to delegate. Some of you, you're doing too much.

00:26:38 Speaker_00
And if that's where you are, you have to own it and say, yes, I'm doing too much. A second place you might find yourself is you're not doing too much, but you're not recovering well. You're actually not working too hard, but you're still exhausted.

00:26:51 Speaker_00
You're still discouraged. You still feel like you're burning out. If I asked you, how are you? You'd say, I'm tired. If you're where I'm from, you'd say, I'm tired. How are you doing? I'm tired. How are you? I'm tired, tired, tired, working hard.

00:27:06 Speaker_00
For many of you, you are not tired, you're depleted. And there's a difference. If you're tired, you could take a nap. If you're depleted, you don't need a nap, you don't need a vacation, you need to refill. Your problem is you're not disconnecting.

00:27:23 Speaker_00
You're not unplugging. You're obsessing about things that you can't control. You might be in the wrong role or such. You're not managing your time well. You're not eating healthy. You're not exercising. You're not getting enough sleep.

00:27:36 Speaker_00
You're not doing too much, but you're not recovering well. There's a third group of you, and I'll say this directly and kindly, is you need to raise your tolerance for work and stress. 40 hours is not too much. 50 hours is probably going to take.

00:27:55 Speaker_00
You're building your own, sometimes a lot more than that. And you need to grow into it.

00:27:59 Speaker_00
My second daughter, Mandy, when she took a ministry role at the church, she was almost crying, dad, it's so much, dad, it's so much, I can't do it all, I can't do it.

00:28:07 Speaker_00
I said, Mandy, I promise you, three months from now, you're gonna look at this week and say it's an easy week. Two weeks later, she called me back, dad, you're right, I'm killing it. What happened? She grew in her tolerance for work and for stress.

00:28:22 Speaker_00
Bottom line is this, and I'm not gonna lie to you. Those who have it, the leaders that have it, that's something special. They tend to bring a bit more. There's intensity. They work a lot, but not at the expense of family.

00:28:34 Speaker_00
They're both hard workers and they're healthy. If you want to have it, you need to be confident and humble. You need to be driven and healthy. Some of you, you've already got your one. You're so driven, but you're not healthy.

00:28:48 Speaker_00
If that's you, you have to fix it. It's on you. Your people need it. Your organization needs it. Those you're gonna influence needs it. You have to be both. The third thing that leaders that have it have discovered is this, and this is so important.

00:29:03 Speaker_00
Leaders that have it, they're both focused and they're flexible. So important, they're focused and they're flexible. Why does this matter? If we aren't ruthlessly focused, we'll never get it. And if we aren't flexible, we won't keep it.

00:29:23 Speaker_00
I'll tell you a story behind the focus. Years ago in our church, We broke away from the model of almost every church, at least in my country. When growing churches were doing more and more, we did less and less, fewer and fewer things.

00:29:40 Speaker_00
We committed in the early 2000s to only do five things, to do weekend worship experiences, to do kids ministry, to do student ministry, to do small groups, and to do missions. That's all we did.

00:29:53 Speaker_00
You say like, what about the other things that are in the Bible, like marriage retreats?

00:29:58 Speaker_00
and conferences, and men's ministry, no, women's ministry, Sunday school, vacation Bible school, no, concerts, Christmas pageants where the camel poops on the stage, you know, as it goes by, youth camps where the teenagers play truth or dare in the back of the van and make out for the first time, all for the glory of God on the way to youth camp.

00:30:17 Speaker_00
None of this, none of this, none of this at all. And We were ruthlessly, unapologetically, passionately focused and perhaps became the fastest growing church in the US.

00:30:33 Speaker_00
And then at some point we recognized maybe we had taken this a little bit far, like literally we had taken it too far. And so we loosened our focus and became more flexible, rightly so.

00:30:44 Speaker_00
What happened is we had some of our smaller churches that were not allowed to do the things that helped smaller churches reach more people and grow. It was kind of a, one size fits all model when actually our model had different sizes.

00:30:57 Speaker_00
So we rightly became more flexible, and we added some good things, and then we added some more good things, and we added some more good things, and we woke up in the year 2022, and I started to say, have we added too many good things?

00:31:13 Speaker_00
Maybe this is a problem. We were focused, And then we were flexible, and suddenly we found ourselves in a place that maybe we were doing too much. What is one of the greatest enemies to your success?

00:31:31 Speaker_00
I would say the greatest enemy of success is not a lack of opportunities, but a lack of focus. Some of you, your conference is done right now. That's what you need. That's it, like that's your moment.

00:31:44 Speaker_00
It's not a lack of what you can do, it's like you gotta determine what you should do. It's focus, it's focus, it's focus. So what we're doing right now is I'm guiding our whole team.

00:31:54 Speaker_00
Next week when I'm with our staff, two different layers of staff, the whole staff, we're going through a very strategic process. I talked about this in one of the podcasts if you wanna.

00:32:03 Speaker_00
Dive into more detailed information, you can just jot down episode number 79. That's where we talk in detail about this. We call it the four tiers of effectiveness.

00:32:12 Speaker_00
And I want to show those to you, and I want you to consider applying them to your organizational leadership. There are four tiers of effectiveness, and everything you do is going to fall somewhere in these tiers.

00:32:22 Speaker_00
What we're trying to do is we're asking ourselves, is what we're doing, is our use of resources bringing about the best return? If not, let's change it. Tier number one is something that's absolutely mission critical. Like for us, we have to do church.

00:32:38 Speaker_00
We have to preach. We have to care for people. It's tier one. If we don't do this, the boat doesn't float. Tier two would be something that's very important and strategic. In other words, this really matters to us organizationally.

00:32:51 Speaker_00
It's very, very important to us, but it's not critical. If we didn't do it, we could still be a nonprofit, we could still be a great school, we could still be a business. It's important, but it's not critical.

00:33:04 Speaker_00
Tier three is something that's meaningful, but not essential. We could do this, we might do this, but nothing significant would be lost if we didn't do it.

00:33:16 Speaker_00
Many of you, what you're gonna find is oftentimes the vast majority of what you've absorbed into your culture is tier three. It makes a difference, but not a big one. It gets a return, but the return may not be worth the investment.

00:33:32 Speaker_00
Tier four, many of us get stuck here. When you look at your schedule, your schedule may be filled up with tier four priorities. That's something that's externally initiated and offer a lower priority, often a lower priority.

00:33:45 Speaker_00
If you look at your schedule and almost everything else is something that someone else asked you to do, you're living in the tier four and you never changed the world in tier four. It's externally initiated.

00:33:56 Speaker_00
It may be occasionally important, but not often. It's, hey, will you do my fundraiser? Will you pitch this product? Will you speak at my place? One time someone asked me to do a funeral for their dog.

00:34:08 Speaker_00
I considered it, I wouldn't for a cat, but for a dog maybe, but it was an external priority. And what you're going to want to do is you're going to want to work through with your team and define tier one, we do them.

00:34:22 Speaker_00
Tier two, we'll likely do most of them, but if there's 800 things in your tier two, those aren't tier two. Use your brain. Tier three, we're going to be incredibly strategic. Very, very selective.

00:34:35 Speaker_00
Tier four, if we're really, really focused, is going to be a rare yes. What we're gonna do is we're gonna be focused on what really matters, and then we're gonna be flexible when we have to change.

00:34:46 Speaker_00
Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should. What is the essence of great leadership? In many ways, the essence of great leadership is choosing what not to do. We're focused. We're in the zone. We know what we're called to do.

00:35:02 Speaker_00
Even Jesus, when he came, he said, this is not why I'm here. I did not come to save them. I came to save these people. I didn't come to bring this up. I'm not doing this.

00:35:11 Speaker_00
Some of you, the most spiritual thing you can do is not add something to your to-do list, but create a to-don't list. We're focused. And we're flexible to change as it matters. My question is this. Do you have it?

00:35:29 Speaker_00
If you find yourself in too many tier three or tier four things, I wanna give you an organizational question to take back to your team that could be a game changer. This is what we're asking. The question is this.

00:35:40 Speaker_00
If you started over today, there's some project, you don't know if you should do it, would you take on this project? If the answer is no, then why are you doing it? We don't change the world by doing good things, we focus on doing the best things.

00:36:01 Speaker_00
Speaking to leaders, I'm wondering, do you have it? When people look at you, do they say, she has integrity, she has passion, he has a vision, there's a heart for people, there's a love for me, I wanna follow it.

00:36:18 Speaker_00
Leaders that have it, they have confidence, they have humility, they have flexibility, they also have focus. Do you have it? If you don't, I'm gonna ask you this, do you want it? In 2008, when I wrote the book, I had it. You might say I was full of it.

00:36:34 Speaker_00
A lot of people said I was full of it. I had it. And it's hard to admit, but somewhere along the way, I lost it. Like I lost it.

00:36:51 Speaker_00
And I'll speak from a pastoral standpoint, and I know many of you would have very, very different standpoints, but as a pastor, I found that I was praying more publicly than I was privately.

00:37:06 Speaker_00
I found somehow I started to care more about what people thought about me than what God thought about me. I was performing for the approval of people rather than preaching from the approval of God.

00:37:21 Speaker_00
The phrase, and again, forgive me for those of you that this may be out of your spiritual context, but for me the phrase that I felt like God showed me is that I'd become a full-time pastor and a part-time follower of Christ.

00:37:36 Speaker_00
Full-time pastor, part-time follower. I had it, and I lost it. And so, like I said, I got help. It's not weakness to get help. It's wisdom. It's wisdom. It's wisdom.

00:37:56 Speaker_00
And my counselor got me in things that disconnected my mind and helped me to grow in confidence and humility. And I read a book I wrote in 2008 and needed to rewrite and go, oh my gosh, we were focused then and we're not. We're not now. We've lost it.

00:38:09 Speaker_00
We've got to tighten it up. And then I was like way, way, way too driven. And I was driving myself into the ground and doing it all for great intentions and believing I was being smart.

00:38:20 Speaker_00
And I learned that I can have it for a while, but I will lose it if I don't take care of my body, my mind, my mental health. And I changed the rhythms. And it means more to me than I can tell you that in

00:38:37 Speaker_00
both real confidence and deep and profound humility. I have that passion today. When I wake up, I think about doing what I'm uniquely created to do, and I want you to have that. What you do matters. It matters so much. I want you to feel it.

00:38:54 Speaker_00
I want you to step into it. Do you have it? If you do, you want to keep it? If you don't, do you want to get it? Step into it. Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. Be extreme. Don't let someone talk you into average.

00:39:09 Speaker_00
Press into the extremes, be weird, be all that. I would invite you to do what I call stepping across the third line. Line number one is, hey, I'm a leader and I'm in this enough to benefit from it.

00:39:23 Speaker_00
Give me my title, give me my position, give me my 401k and let me tell people what to do. Line number one. Line number two, hey, I'm a leader and I'll give some, I'll help some people, I'll try to make the world better.

00:39:43 Speaker_00
Line number three, you know it when you're over it and you know it when you're not. My calling is to lead and love people. I exist to make this world a better place. It is not about me. I do this for someone else's glory.

00:39:59 Speaker_00
I exist to empower other leaders, to push the organization forward, to make a difference in the world. Step across the third line and give your whole heart to it. So which one is yours? We're going to get better. We're going to get better.

00:40:21 Speaker_00
Which is your area? I want to put the three up on the screen, and I want you to pick yours. And I'm going to ask you to stand for a moment. Can we put the three up on the screen, our three big areas?

00:40:30 Speaker_00
Confident and humble, driven and healthy, focused and flexible. For those of you who would say it's in the first category, I need to grow in my confidence or my humility, would you stand to your feet right now? Stand to your feet if that's you.

00:40:40 Speaker_00
All of our locations, stand to your feet, stand to your feet. Don't be too humble that you're gonna stand to your feet. Get some confidence, get your bottom out of that chair. Second one, you may be too driven and you're not healthy, you're imbalanced.

00:40:52 Speaker_00
Stay standing, stay standing, stay standing, stay standing. Second one, you're too driven or you're not healthy enough, you're not driven enough, stand to your feet.

00:41:01 Speaker_00
Those of you that recognize you're not really focused or you're too flexible, would you stand to your feet? I hope everyone in the room is standing to your feet. Which one? Dive into one. Get better in one. Focus on one.

00:41:12 Speaker_00
When you look at most parts of the world, let me tell you, what are you going to see, leaders? You're going to see political division. You're going to see poverty. You're gonna see mental health issues. You're gonna see moral decline.

00:41:23 Speaker_00
You're gonna see violence and the breakdown of families. And as a leader, you may step up and say, someone needs to do something about this. Hey, it might as well be you. What are you? You're a leader. You have influence. Step into it.

00:41:38 Speaker_00
Sell out to the mission. Step across the third line. Fall in love with it. Let it consume you. Love people. Lead well, add value, increase market share, solve problems, make a difference, meet needs, serve people, offer hope, and change the world.

00:42:00 Speaker_00
Leaders, get better, get better, get better, rise up, seek it, feel it, lead it, give it away because that's what great leaders do and that's what you are. Well, I hope that content was helpful to you.

00:42:14 Speaker_00
And you want to remember that if you want to be a leader that has it, it's good to start developing or looking for the rhythms of those paradoxes in your leadership. And so as we close this episode, let's just apply what we've learned.

00:42:27 Speaker_00
And I'll ask you the same questions that I ask at the end of my talk. Of the three paradoxes, is there one that you need to grow in the most? Maybe it's confidence and or humility.

00:42:39 Speaker_00
Maybe you're too confident and you need more humility or you're too humble and you need more confidence. The next one is this, do you need to be more driven or maybe you need to be more healthy? What about focus or flexibility?

00:42:53 Speaker_00
Of those three, is there one that you need to develop in your leadership? And then bring some people around you and just start working on it and asking them how can they help hold you accountable to get better in your leadership.

00:43:06 Speaker_00
If you wanna dive deeper into this content, I actually have two additional podcasts on the paradoxes of great leaders, and you can find information about that in the Leader Guide if you wanna watch those episodes.

00:43:19 Speaker_00
And I wrote a whole book on the subject. The book is called Lead Like It Matters, Seven Principles for a Church that Lasts. It is written from a ministry perspective, but the leadership principles are transferable.

00:43:30 Speaker_00
What you wanna do is you wanna grow in your leadership. If you'd like to get a copy of this book, I wanna give away some copies.

00:43:37 Speaker_00
If you're listening on audio, you can just hop over to YouTube and you can leave a comment on YouTube and just type in the comment section, I wanna lead like it matters. I wanna lead like it matters.

00:43:47 Speaker_00
Hit subscribe and if you do that, we're gonna give away copies of this book to some that we draw. If you found this content helpful, it would mean the world to me if you would share and invite others to be a part.

00:44:01 Speaker_00
I'm gonna work really, really hard to do my best to bring you content that helps you grow in your leadership. Why? Because your leadership matters. And I believe today that you got a little bit better.

00:44:11 Speaker_00
So keep on getting better because we know that everyone wins when the leader gets better.