Relentless learner. Driven to action. Deep, personal sacrifice. These characteristics have propelled Bill Hybels through 35 years of ever-shifting challenges as senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church and Chairman of the Board at Willow Creek Association. The author of more than two dozen books including current bestseller The Power of a Whisper, Hybels trains Christian leaders world-wide—and consistently pushes himself to get better as a leader, every year. Single-minded in his passion for the local church, he issues hard-hitting truths that challenge people to take their organizations to the next level. Hybels’ successes—and mistakes—bring high-definition clarity to the things truly worthy of your leadership time and investment.
Bill Hybels Website
Willow Creek Community Church
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Willow Creek Community Church Blog
Fast Company How Willow Creek Is Leading Evangelicals by Learning from the Business World
5 Critical Questions
1- What is your current leadership challenge level at work?
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Dangerously Over-Challenged – the to-do list gets longer.
Appropriately Challenged – the to-do list is hard but manageable.
Under-Challenged – the to-do list is easy.
Where do you think you do your absolute best work as a leader?
Where and when are you at your best?
Where do you find your innovative thoughts.
You do your best work just above the level of being appropriately challenged.
For senior leadership in organizations: if you are under-challenged, step it up.
2 – What is your plan for dealing with challenging people in your organization?
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The Line Exercise: Line up your people in terms of their value. Who is “over the line” and who is “under the line”? Who would you keep and who would go?
The line exercise forces to prioritize & ask good questions. Are people under challenged, on wrong tasks, or is a hard talk needed?
Willow’s future is tied to the quality of people they are able to attract and develop.
Field and develop a group of fantastic people to build a fantastic future for our fantastic God.
The key to our future is unquestionably tied to our ability to attract and retain fantastic people.
3 – Are you naming, facing, and resolving the problems that exist in your church or organization?
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By not naming your problems you will never address or resolve them.
Why can’t you call problems problems and turn over heaven and earth to solve them?
Where is the leader?
In Acts 2-4, the first church a problem arose.
There were inequities in the food distribution program.
The early church was at risk.
In Acts 6, the leaders in the church called a time-out.
They called it a problem.
4 – When was the last time you re-examined the core of what your organization is all about?
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Best leaders sit down with their best people periodically and ask, “What business are we in? What’s our main thing? Can we explain what we do on a t-shirt? Are we clear about our core?”
Bill wrestled with the core about what
It’s easy for churches to lose the plot about what’s most central to their mission.
The Church is in the life-transformation business.
Church leaders learn early on that there is only one power on this planet explosive enough to catalyze human transformation: the power of the Gospel.
5 – Have you had your leadership bell rung recently?
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Has a book, talk, experience with God, circumstance or crisis rocked your leadership world recently?
Leaders rarely learn anything new without having their world rocked and their bell rung.
Don’t make excuses. Creating new, bold solutions.
Your God-given job as a leader isn’t to preside, pontificate, or preserve… your job is to move an organization from “here” to “there.”
You have to believe God is willing to help you move things forward.
There’s too much at stake for leaders to walk around with a defeated attitude or outlook.
Don’t end with a whimper.
How you finish is how you’ll be remembered.
My Thoughts…
Sometimes we need to stop talking and listen to what God’s voice is speaking to us.
Sometimes we need to be still and let God lead us.
What we do matters and it matters enough to ask hard questions… of ourselves, our team, and of the core of what we are doing.
Which of Bill’s critical questions do you need to answer immediately?
By: Tim Schraeder (@TimSchraeder)
Read the full post and more notes at Tim’s blog!
