Global Leadership Summit Goes Virtual

I will be very transparent that I attend these meetings more for information than inspiration, but I came away with both. Craig Groeschel, pastor of Life.Church, and Albert Tate, pastor of Fellowship Church, were the bookend preachers. Both were inspiring and competent.

Like most large events, the Global Leadership Summit went virtual this year. Although there were still some large group viewings across the country, the event was produced as an online event that could also be viewed by small groups and individuals across the country.

The production was well done, and I only experienced one brief service outage during the conference. This is unusual for an event this large. Of course, viewing from home is convenient and it is nice to be able to go back or pause as you wish, but there are a lot more distractions.

Groeschel is an effective communicator who is informative and encouraging, but he goes more for the head than the heart. Tate, on the other hand, is a charismatic preacher who tells a good story and goes right for the heart. Both accomplished their assignments well--Groeschel filling his role as “champion of the GLS” and setting the stage for the meeting while Tate brought it home with a fitting final challenge. He even sang a few lines from “Hamilton”!

The best quote from Groeschel was, “We can tolerate the pain as long as we know the purpose.” Tate helped us to understand the meaning behind “the real McCoy.” Look it up.

I always have my favorite speakers and that usually dictates the books that I buy afterward. There were four of them this year--one veteran and three newcomers.

Marcus Buckingham is well known for his work with the Gallup Organization on strengths-based research. Now on his own, he provided an overview of recent research based on resilience and the skills needed by individuals, team leaders, and senior leaders to instill a culture of resilience. He related this to his work on strengths and provided a free link to his StandOut assessment.

Rory Vaden is the Co-Founder of Brand Builders Group. His presentation on “Five Permissions to Multiply Your Time” provided a fresh spin on time management. His “focus funnel” is built on the concepts of eliminate, automate, and delegate. He also provides a free resource online.

Vanessa Van Edwards’ presentation of “The Science of Succeeding with People” is a “How to Win Friends and Influence People” for the 21^st century. Using some of her own techniques to engage and involve the audience, she observed that it takes two things to be seen as a leader: warmth--generating trust; and competence--producing respect. Both are essential. She was also transparent in pointing out the fine line between using her techniques for priming people to see one as a leader and manipulating them. You can learn more about her on her website.

Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, spoke on creating psychological safety in the workplace to facilitate learning, innovation and growth. She pointed out that there are three types of failures--preventable, complex, and intelligent. More about that in a subsequent blog.

Finally, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, psychologist and university professor, discussed the six characteristics needed to manage during a crisis (or any time, really) --intelligence, curiosity, humility, resilience, empathy, and integrity. He put his own interpretation on these and talked about cultural differences related to each as well. Again, more about this in another blog.

So, the books I ordered were:

Vanessa Van Edwards, Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People

Amy Edmondson, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth

Marcus Buckingham, StandOut 2.0: Assess Your Strengths, Find Your Edge, Win at Work

Rory Vaden, Procrastinate on Purpose: 5 Permissions to Multiply Your Time and Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success

There was an appearance by former President George W. Bush through an interview with Dick DeVos, but participants were warned that this was “exclusive content” and should not be recorded or quoted. So enough said about that.

Paula Faris and Trey McKnight were engaging hosts for the conference and provided a good connection with the virtual audience.

I especially appreciated a feature that provided messages from leaders around the world, both discussing how present challenges impact their ministries and how we can pray for them.

Another recurring feature was video messages from 14 leaders who have spoken at the Summit in the past 25 years. These were interesting and a nod to the heritage and impact of this conference. Of course, looking to the past reminds us of Bill Hybels, the instigator of this project who is no longer engaged with the GLS. Even so, his spirit was evoked, if not his name, when someone shared the quote that he always used to begin the meeting, “When the leader gets better, everyone wins.”

No matter how one accesses the Global Leadership Summit, I recommend it. It is worth the time, attention, and money.

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