Kris Vallotton • Mar 23, 2016

Do You Have the Guts to Be a Great Leader? Part 2

If you missed Part 1 of this series, you can find it here: Do You Have the Guts to Be a Great Leader? Part 1.


BUILDING TEAMS


If you have a vision you can fulfill by yourself, you don’t have God’s vision! The Lord’s vision will require God’s help and a team of talented people around you to accomplish your mission.

The difference between good leaders and great leaders is that great leaders attract people who are bigger (more capable) than themselves to the mission. It takes very secure people to invite leaders on their teams who are more talented than themselves. Yet I have come to believe that leadership greatness is not measured by what you can DO, but by the size of people who you attract and keep. If you only gather smaller, less capable people around you, then as your organization grows larger, it gets weaker.

On the other hand, if leaders manage to attract more capable people around them than themselves, then the organization will grow stronger as it gets larger.

Great leadership teams create a challenging relational dynamic because everyone has an opinion, they question reality, and they insist on being heard. They won’t stay around if they aren’t allowed to be powerful. Therefore, in order to lead big people, it will be necessary to create an environment where they can thrive.


NINE THINGS TO CULTIVATE

Great leaders thrive in an atmosphere that cultivates these nine things:

1. Open dialog where passionate people are encouraged to share their ideas, even at the risk of messy group discussions.

2. Have lots of freedom for people to think outside of the box, experiment with creative solutions, and make lots of mistakes.

3. Shared ownership where people are acknowledged for their contributions.

4. Flexibility, so that highly responsible leaders can create their own work schedules (within reason).

5. Shared significance: the sense that each member is important to the mission.

6. A culture where disagreement isn’t viewed as disloyalty.

7. An atmosphere where people are rewarded for their significant contributions.

8. An environment where financial rewards are not capped by hourly wages or monthly salaries.

9. A mission worth dying for! A little vision will only draw little people.

OUR STORY

When Bill Johnson came to Bethel Church, there were no published authors, no itinerate ministers, no ministry schools, no bookstore, no web-streaming, no music label, and no network of churches.

Twenty years later, Bethel Church has exploded into a worldwide movement with a network of 1,000+ churches. Our ministry school, with 2,100 full time students, is the largest Sevis approved vocational school in the United States.

Bethel is also the home of more than 22 published authors (none of which had ever published a single book before they came to Bethel).

Bethel puts on 30+ conferences and schools every year, while being home to more 8,000 believers every weekend.

Bethel Media streams our services all over the world and hosts a very successful webstore.

Bethel Music has a writers group and an artist community of more than a hundred people. They write and produce several albums a year. As I write this blog, Bethel Music has the #1 best selling album on iTunes. I could go on, but it should suffice to say that God has blessed Bethel in a special way.

Of course, all this has happened because of the goodness and the kindness of Jesus. He deserves all the credit! Yet I believe that Bill Johnson’s ability to create a culture of honor and excellence actually attracted the grace of God to us. Bill’s passion for the presence of God, his desire to see everyone fully actualized, and his ability to empower people are the catalysts to the move of God among our people.

Bill is a world-class leader. He attracts other talented people because he has learned the secret of success in the Kingdom: fear God only, and then lead like the history of the world depends on it. Simple yet profound!

For more on this subject, check out my Leadership Flash Drive .

If you would like to subscribe to my newsletter, sign up here: https://krisvallotton.com/

Do you want to be a great leader? Tell me about it in the comments below.


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