I had the opportunity to participate in the Global Leadership Summit this week. Here are some key quotes:

Craig Groeschel

“Everyone wins when a leader gets better.”
“PUC ( Pain Chaos Uncertainty) – the one word we must all endure as leaders. As leaders we must grow in our capacity for PUC.”
“You can have control or you can have growth. But you can’t have both.”
“The mark of great leadership is not marked by how much you control, but by the number of leaders you empower.”
“Uncertainty is not a sign of poor leadership. It underscores the need for leadership.” – Andy Stanley
“A great leader also plans for unexpected opportunities. Wherever there is uncertainty, there is always opportunity. There’s always going to be uncertainty. Therefore, there’s always going to be opportunity.”
“Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives we won’t know until later.” – Bob Goff
“Not making a mistake is a bad goal. The cost of inaction is almost always greater than the cost of a mistake.”
“Your capacity to lead toward the future is determined by your ability to endure pain today.”
“A divided world needs a united church.”
“Accept the chaos. Embrace the uncertainty. Step into the pain. It’s an honor to suffer with the One who suffered for me.”

Gen. Stanley McChrystal

“Things get riskier at scale.”
“Policies become an excuse for inaction. The policy is now it can’t be illegal and it can’t be immoral.”
“Decentralize information until you are uncomfortable and then decentralize one level further.”

Michelle Poler

“100 Day Project – pick something you want to do for 100 days in a row that you fear.”
“The biggest difference between two words – Fearless and Brave.”
“I see every fear as an opportunity, an opportunity to lead ourself to the next big thing.”
“The enemy of success is not failure, it’s comfort. Comfort prevents us from continuing to innovate.”
“People of accomplishment rarely sit back and let something happen to them.”
“Most of the time the growth option is the scary one.”
“The more uncomfortable we get, the greater the reward.”

Jamie Kern Lima

“Our greatest setbacks are God’s greatest setups for what we’re going to do in the future.”
“How do I turn down the volume on my own self-doubt and rejection and turn up the volume on my intuition.”
“Sometimes the right thing isn’t the easy thing.”

Shola Richards

“We are defined by how we treat each other.”
“There are two types of people in the world. Those who make you feel good when they walk into the room and those who make you feel good when they walk out of the room.”
“Do the people who follow you choose to or because they have to.”
“In every encounter you either give life or drain it. There is no neutral exchange.”
“Whenever you see bad behavior, it is an unskilled expression of an unmet need. The difference between where you are and where you could be is the amount of pain you are willing to endure.”
“You can’t give to others what you don’t have.”
“You are born looking like your daddy. You die looking like your decisions.”
“Some people in your life need to be loved from a distance.”
“Commitment is doing what you said you were going to do long after the mood you said it in, has left.”
“We will forget what people said but you’ll never forget how they made you feel.”

Charles Duhigg

“Keystone Habits – Habits that change how we think about each other and change our culture.”
“For leaders, identifying Keystone Habits will set off a chain reaction which will make everything better.”

Ibukun Awosika

“Only you ultimately make the choice of who you will become.”
“Every day you will make the choice of who you want to become.”
“If you have a picture of how you want to finish, you can go back and do a Gap Analysis of where you are at and where you want to be.”
“You can live the life you want to leave, not the life you’ve been given.”
“Visionary leadership requires you see beyond the immediate.”

Jerry Lorenzo

“Creativity comes from problem-solving and solutions. My creativity comes from convictions and providing solutions to my customer’s closet.”
“I’m conscious of what I’m feeding myself. I’m conscious of what I’m watching on television or what I’m listening to.”
“Vision provides the roadmap for where you want to go.”
“You’re going to struggle to lead if you aren’t disciplined. Discipline is choosing what you want most over what you want now.”

Jason Jaggard

“We never accomplish goals we believe are not possible.”
“It’s inefficient to waste brain power on things that are impossible… The problem is there are things possible we can’t even see because our intuition is too small.”
“The world is longing for people who can see the impossible.”

Rich Wilkerson, Jr.

“Outlook will often determine the outcome.”
“Great outcomes don’t happen overnight. They happen over time.”
“Grind is laborious or routine work. Leadership is a grind. It’s work. It’s serving. It’s showing up again and again and again. It’s all in the grind.”
“We don’t see things the way they are. We see things the way we are.”
“The healthy mindset a leader can take on is a mindset of gratitude.”
“Not every season in life is about conquering. Some are about enduring.”
“It’s not about what happens to you in life. It’s about how you respond to what happens to you in life.”

Liz Wiseman

“Find out what is important to your boss and make that important to you.”
“If you want your work to make a difference, look at the job that needs to be done and serve where needed.”

Henry Cloud

“Usually 15-17% of people meet the diagnostic of having a mental health issue. After COVID, it’s over 40%.”
“You can be a high-performer and have a next growth step we need to walk in to.”
“Connection vs. Emotional Isolation.”
“Leadership can pull you out of connection and into isolation.”
“Freedom vs. Loss of Self-Control.”
“Acceptance vs. Denial of your imperfections.”
“The gap between imperfection and perfection is filled with guilt and shame.”
“When we are safe to be curious about our mistakes and not get beat up by them, we do get better and improve.”
“Adulthood vs. Remaining a Child”
“The Gospel is the good news of getting people healed in these areas of pain.”

Francesco Gino

“Rebel Talent – thinking about the bigger mission.”
“Contrarions are annoying. Rebels break rules constructively because of the bigger mission.”
“Vulnerability is a strength is because when others see it, they respect it because being vulnerable means embracing authenticity.”
“These things don’t come natural to us because of human nature… We tend to conform to others.”
“Pirates had incredible democratic power. The crew had incredible power. They selected and could remove the captain. Am I the captain my crew would choose as its leader today?”

Edgar Sandoval, Sr.

“Strong decisive leadership is critical. It is up to leaders to determine when breakthrough ideas are needed.”
“Leaders are called to create the environments needed for a breakthrough idea.”
“The biggest enemy of breakthrough is called ‘Good Enough.’”

Richard Montanez

“I learned my leadership from the hood, from the ghetto.”
“To inspire someone is to breath into life.”
“Stay away from people who discourage you. Hang out with people who encourage you.”
“There’s two type of leaders – The leadership of a pharaoh, the leadership of a deliverer. Pharaohs take people hostage. Deliverers help people become everything they are called to be.”
“Purposeful leaders help others find their purpose.”
“Every great innovator said the same thing, ‘What if…’”
“There will always be someone in the room who will try to steal your destiny.”
“If they mistake you for a worker, take it as a compliment. It means you look like a worker.”

A.R. Bernard

“You cannot solve a problem at the same level it was created.” – Albert Einstein
“Attitude determines approach. Approach determines success or failure. You must have an attitude of humility.”
“Culture is the totality of personality and character of a society.”
“Every relationship is based on trust. You build trust by consistency.”
“The proliferation of extremes expands the middle. There are more people in the middle now willing to have a conversation.”
“The voice of the people is not the mind of the people. The voice of the people has been hijacked by special interests.”
“The most difficult bridge has been to change the image of Christianity by those who have been hurt by it or grew up seeing it as the enemy.”

Juliet Font

“In what way we can we transform work so it is no longer the hardest part of people’s lives?”
“You can pause to recuperate, reflect, reduce, or construct. All are better together.”
“The Wedge is a small portion of open time inserted between two activities.”
“We must eradicate the shame of rest and replace it with the pride of self-care. We must take ownership of our exhaustion… We have to own this and give ourselves permission to change it.”
“Are we as leaders modeling replenishing behaviors?”
“Set aside your GOOD thought to see if a GREAT one follows.”

Bianca Juarez Olthoff

“I was not familiar with the inside voices of my head… My Inner Saboteur. – ‘You don’t belong here.’”
“Imposter Syndrome – feelings of inadequacy despite evident success.”
“You are chosen to lead.”
“When we don’t feel qualified, we choose to lead.”
“Choose to lead when inconvenient.”
“When leadership chooses you, you choose to lead because the next generation is on the line.”

Fredrik Haren

“Every individual has a unique creative process.”
“There is no one creative process.”
“I would go to 20-35 countries per year… I need my mind to be unguarded.”
“My best ideas come while I’m in solitude.”
“What are best ideas you’ve ever gotten and where were you when you got them?”
32% of people do creative work outside.

Malcolm Gladwell

“To do something truly innovative, you have to take an operational risk and a social risk.”
“The heart of social risk is urgency.”
“A sense of urgency is a hard thing to do… You have to admit your ideas are wrong and someone else’s are better.”
“We need people to try things other people think are crazy.”
“We’re programmed for approval.”
“Your obligation as a leader is to make your organization safe for risk-taking.”

Albert Tate

“I’m not where I want to be but I’m not where I once was. God’s been good to me.”
“Your attitude of gratitude will shape your perspective. You can’t do anything with a bad attitude well.”
“What if that (2020) was the lesson and this is the test?”
“This is an opportunity to see what you have never seen.”
“This is an opportunity to rest. Napping is the new hustle.”
“You will be in a season of abundance but experience a season of scarcity because you do the wrong things in the wrong way in the wrong season.”
“Rest equals freedom.”
“You become a slave to the product. You become a slave to the bottom line.”
“You’re going to thrive in this new season by taking care of yourself.”
“You’re not God. It can survive without you. Healthy leaders have healthy rhythms of rest.”
“Don’t you dare quit!!! Don’t you dare give up!!!”
“Trouble won’t last always.”
“Melody and joy can live in hard, rough places.”
“Everyone wins when the leader gets better.”

Associate Pastor – Discipleship.  The Church at LifePark

Professor of Discipleship, Columbia International University

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