Rethink Leading - Good to Great

Another good Sunday and another RETHINK Church discussion. This week we focused on RETHINK Leading, a discussion centered around what kind of leaders do our churches need and how do we either find them or develop them. I thought the discussion this week was very fruitful and almost everyone got involved in discussions of issues like "what is leadership" and "what is the difference between leadership and management". I meant to ask a question and forgot..."do we need leadership or just good management at St. Paul's"? As a vehicle to discuss these issues, I used a book by Jim Collins entitled "Good to Great" which discusses the growth of 11 companies from the Fortune 500 that Collins and his researchers identified as being head and shoulders above the other "industry leaders". There were many interesting pieces of information in the book, but its focus was really on the type of leader they found in each of these 11 companies. The "Level 5 Leader" as Collins termed them were an amazing amalgamation of humility and overwhelming drive for their organization to be successful. Avoiding the celebrity status of Lee Iacocca or Jack Welch, these leaders were more "plow horse than show horse" and focused solely on the success of their organization. The amazing information that comes from Collins' research shows that the celebrity CEO hires from outside the company rarely had lasting power, but these humble leaders who were more worried about their organization than their own compensation package had lasting impacts that propelled their organizations into long term gains well beyond the market average performance. While we are not a profit organization, the idea of a humble leader who is focused on their organization and the people in it sounds like our kind of Christian leader. After the session someone looked at me and asked if I thought Jesus was a Level 5 Leader...before I could answer his wife informed him that obviously he was as he was ultimately humble and dedicated his life to the growth of his Church. I love it when all of you do my job better than I can. Have a wonderful week and this weekend we'll look into RETHINK Church once again.