David Ashcraft's Intro

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[Music]

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Today on the Servant Leadership Podcast, we're joined by David Ashccraftoft, president of one of the most influential

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leadership organizations in the world. As CEO of the Global Leadership Network, David leads the Global Leadership

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Summit, which equips millions of leaders across more than 120 countries. Before

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stepping into his role at the global leadership network, David spent over three decades pastoring LCBC Church,

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growing it from a small congregation into one of the largest churches in the country. In this episode, David shares

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why everyone has influence and what it looks like to lead with clarity, stay on mission, and leave every organization

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better than you found it. David, thank you for joining us on the Servant Leadership Podcast. Chris, good to be with you. Thanks for

Welcome David Ashcraft

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the opportunity. This is just so special for me. One, because uh I love what you're doing

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here, and two, I've gotten to know you a little bit over the years. You lead one of the largest leadership organizations

David's Journey To The Position Of GLN CEO

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in the world, and we talk a lot about leadership on this podcast. How did you end up in this role?

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So, one of the big things we do, Chris, at the Global Leadership Network is what we call the leadership summit, and that's a two-day event. Early days, it

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was a two and a half day event. And typically 300 350,000 people from around

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the world participate in this event. And so I have been to all but one of the 31

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years that we have had the summit hosted the summit and then uh for 20ome years

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took part in hosting the summit in Pennsylvania was on the board for a number of years and when there was a

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leadership transition and they invited me to step into this role. It's been a great thing. Wow. It's amazing what you do and not

Starting LCBC Church in Pennsylvania

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many organizations can say in two days plus a few with other events they're impacting literally millions of people

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just when you look at the trickle effect of what this does and the stories it's just unbelievable a lot of people might

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not know about you some might is you actually were a pastor for a long time I was how did you start LCBC

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so I was a part of a church called LCBC as you mentioned uh which really stands for just lives changed by Christ and we

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just say we're a community of people whose lives have been continue to be changed by Jesus Christ. And I grew up

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in Texas, so Dallas was my home. And as a Texan, you're taught to never leave

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the state. And there's what you're told is there's no place better than Texas. And so we never, my wife and I never

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ever thought we would leave Texas. And looked for about 2 years for the right situation for us to go and lead. And we

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were only looking in Texas. And we thought with God, we were being very open-handed. We said, "God, we'll go

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wherever you want us to go in Texas." And so we're very limited that way. And after really not finding the right

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situation that matched who we were, who I was, um we assumed that that meant we were going to stay in Texas and where we

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were. But um very quickly after that, things opened up in Pennsylvania. Went to a little church, 150 people um 1991

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in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. And our friends all thought we were crazy because back then the Northeast was

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called the Rust Belt. And why would you move to the Rust Belt? Mhm. So I mean talk about a little bit about your

Initial Difficulties Of Church Growth

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leadership experience there cuz the growth was unbelievable and a lot of pastors and leaders and businesses are

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looking to grow and it's not always what it's cracked up to be all that growth. Yeah. So growth is Yeah. growth is a

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wonderful thing. Uh but it's also challenging to get there. The first five years Chris were incredibly tumultuous.

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Six months into my time there, the board chairman who had brought us to Pennsylvania stood up in the middle of a

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meeting. And back then, a small church, everybody has a key to the building. And so he stood up in the meeting. There's only five of us in the meeting. But he

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takes the key, his key to the building off of his keychain, slaps it on the table, and says, "Obviously, you don't need me anymore." And he walked out. And

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that was 6 months into my time there. 12 months later, same thing happened with the next board chairman. 12 months

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later, the same thing happened again. And I say all that to say not necessarily that I'm proud that I ran off three board members, but it was very

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tumultuous the first five or six years. And bottom line, what we were trying to figure out is what business are we in as an organization. And I think a lot of

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times organizations are not real clear about that. And when you start diving clearly, then you're going to have

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people that love the business you're in. You're going to have people that hate it or people that agree or disagree. And so these gentlemen were disagreeing with

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the direction we were headed. And so it's very defining for us, but it was difficult too. H I mean the growth

Transition After 32 Years

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became one of the largest churches in the country and most people in your shoes wouldn't have walked away from

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that. Uh they would have just stayed at the pulpit leading an organization and at some point you hit you hit a point in

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your life where you felt like hey they're ready for new leadership. Talk about what that was like. Yeah. So the church grew from that 150

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in 1991 to when I stepped away two not quite two years ago a little over two years ago to 22,000 people every

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weekend. And so incredible growth. Part of what caused us to want to stay there for 32 years. So we were there a long

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time. And Chris Ruth and I would say once we got through those first five or six years that again were very

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tumultuous. There was a guy named Abe in the church. I'll tell you Abe story real quick. He um very quickly in the first

Don't Ever Quit In The Middle Of The Storm

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six weeks that I was there came into my office told me to do some things in Lady of the Church that I just couldn't do. And so I said, "Abe I appreciate what

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you're saying, but I can't do that unless the board directs me to do that." And so he left and became my biggest nemesis. He would send me a note every

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week telling me what I'd said wrong. Every Sunday he would stand up in meetings and talk against me and and so

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it was challenging those first five or six years as again we were trying to figure out what business we're in. And

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um one of the things that I was taught early on was don't ever quit in the middle of a storm. And we were going through storms for five or six years

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trying to get the church going. And I'm real thankful we didn't quit. But once we got through those storms, things

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began to take off for us. And so as I said, we grew to 22,000 people every weekend. and we actually started more

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locations and so when I stepped away we had 19 locations and so saw tremendous things happen um

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stepping away from LCBC people would say oh you're retiring and I I would say no I'm not retiring that's has no reason

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that was not the reason that I was stepping away but probably um now 12 13

A Level 5 Leader - Better Once You Leave?

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14 years ago I had opportunity to sit in a small group of about 15 people and Jim Collins was leading the day meetings and

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he was talking about his different levels of leader. And if you know Jim Collins, he's got five levels of leadership. And so Chris arrogantly

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probably in my mind I'm sitting there think well surely I'm a level five leader and um expecting when he gets to

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the level five and he describes all those characteristics that he's going to be describing me. And one of the things

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that he said when he got to the level five is you're never a level five leader until you've walked away from the

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organization you're leading. And it's actually better with you gone than with you there. And that just kind of rattled

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me because in my mind whenever I was going to step away from LCBC, it was going to struggle. So I was still going

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to be okay, but it was going to struggle. They were going to miss me. I joked with the people and said I was hoping for weeping and nashing of teeth

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that they were just going to, oh, we can't we're not we're never going to make it without David. And what Jim said that day is if that happens, he said,

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"You're a terrible leader and you did not lead and set the organization up well." So that started me on this 12 10

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to 12 year kind of plan to make sure that LCBC was better when I was gone

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than when I was there. And so it entailed a number of things to get the church ready for that and things like

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finances, making sure we were real strong financially, making sure that we had a a strong reserves to be able to

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continue to grow into the future. It meant restructuring the staff. We have a staff of about 300 people. And so

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restructuring them to go into the future. It meant identifying my successor. And so once all those things

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came together, then it just felt like the right time to step away. And so that was uh like I said just a little over

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two years ago not knowing really what I was going to step into at that point. So well that process is just unbelievable

Preparing For Succession

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cuz I know throughout life you've had many mentors in your life and you in the end started mentoring your successor.

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What do you feel like you learned in that mentorship process both ways for you being mentored and you also

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mentoring the next person? Yeah, that's a good question Chris. You know what's interesting with succession? What I found is the earlier you start

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thinking about it, I just say time is your friend or it's your worst enemy. And if you start early, then you can

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prepare somebody. You can mentor somebody to step into your shoes. If you wait too long, then you're in trouble.

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And what I was taught is that if you like the direction the organization is going, then you hire internally because

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they'll keep going the way you've been going. If you really want to make a change in the direction you're going, you hire externally. And I was just

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taught that you can hit all the qualities and characteristics of your successor that you want from the

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outside, but ultimately they're going to take you a different direction. And so a lot of times organizations don't want to change directions, but they didn't start

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the process early enough. And so they have to because they haven't had time to develop somebody internally. So I uh

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identified Jason as the name of the the guy that took my place and he'd been on our team for about 20 years. Felt like

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he was the right guy. I took him to the board and this was probably 2 or 3 years into our process that was a 10 to 12

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year process. They said there's no way he's he's not the guy. And so I said, "Well, why not?" And so they listed five

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or six things they felt like he was deficient in communication skills, leading a large organization, education.

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So there were a number of things. And so as they listed all those, then I just put them down, said, "Okay, well, let's go to work on those then because we had

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time." And so we worked with Jason, we got the education he needed and and all of the things. And so by the time I

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brought his name back seven years later, they're like, "Well, of course Jason's the guy." And so it just really taught

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me, Chris, time is your friend or it's your worst enemy. If you start early enough, you can mentor somebody that way. And to your point, I had had lots

Importance Of Mentoring

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of mentors that were great help to me. Uh very much enjoy mentoring others. But, you know, it's it's kind of an

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intimidating thing, at least for me, where like one of Jason's they felt deficiencies was in communication. And

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so I teach all the time, but I don't know that I would say I'm a great communicator, or at least in my mind,

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I'm not sure that I am. And so then to tell Jason, well, here's what you need to do to be better. It's like, well, I

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don't know. Do I really know what it takes to do that? And so it's humbling in some ways. And and then for somebody

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to follow, it's like, oo, okay, I hope I'm saying the right things and guiding him the right way because he's banking

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in some way, in some way his career on what I'm telling him. So I need to make sure I'm right. So it was a humbling

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experience. Wow. And and with that transition, the plan was never at that time at least to

Transitioning To The Global Leadership Network

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lead one of the most influential leadership organizations in the world. That was not on the agenda. No, not on the agenda at all. Again, I

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was on the board of the GLN at that time. And there were some things that we were working on in Pennsylvania, another organization that I started called the

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advantage, and we work only in Pennsylvania, and that's still going on, and that's on the side, and there's

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there's a small team that works on that. No, the GLN was not a factor. Three and a half months into my stepping away from

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LCBC, my wife Ruth at some point sat me down. She said, "You need to go find something else to lead." And and then

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she said, "And it's not me." And apparently I'd been leading her in my mind around the house more than she

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wanted and needed. She said, "I've been doing fine for the last 40ome years without you being at home. You need to go find something else." So that kind of

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opened the door for uh possibilities. About the same time, the GLN was going through a leadership transition because

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I was on the board. Then I I knew what was happening. I knew what the organization was doing. The board knew

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me and so it made a fairly easy transition that way. When you first thought about this, it

Challenges Of Leading The GLN

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might have been a little bit intimidating to jump into or it might have been totally natural. What were you thinking would be what this would look

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like? Part of the reason I stepped into this role, there were two main challenges that I was given to step into this role.

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One, we had drifted a little bit missionally. And so I was asked to bring us back in line with what our mission

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is. And we're very much a leadership development organization, but ultimately what we would like is that leadership

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and those that are involved in leadership are going to point people to Jesus. So we are a faith-based organization and way down the road we

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would love to see people pointed to Jesus. And we felt like we'd lost that. And so I was asked to bring that back in line. Financially, we were struggling

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and just had not been doing well. And so I was asked to bring us back in line financially. And that was probably the

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bigger challenge in doing that. But we uh we've turned that around. And so we're really excited about where we are.

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I enjoy the challenge. Not so much that I want to be in a leadership role or I want to be someplace where people can

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see me, but I enjoy the challenge of the task. And so it was a big task, a big challenge. Um, but I enjoy that and

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being able to do that. And so what's interesting because you mentioned it's, you know, if not the largest leadership

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development organization in the world, it's one of, but there's so much of the work behind the scenes. And so we have a small team here of

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about 60 people. And so it's working with those people and it's getting down daytoday and just doing the nitty-gritty

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of working on budgets and are we following them? Are we not? And expense reports. I mean, it's just all the

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little details. And people see the things that are on the stage or on in when you're in the limelight, but they

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don't realize all the work that goes on behind the scenes. Yeah. I mean, millions of people have heard talks from from the GLS on the

"Planting Seeds" At The Leadership Summit

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stage, right? From different summit talks. It's interesting because they hear the talks, but then the question is

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how how are they actionable and what do they do? How have you seen people take the content that you're pushing out

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there in terms of digitally, in terms of on the stage and actually turn it into real life application?

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So, one of the real fun things, Chris, about the GLN is to your point, we'll have these worldclass,

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worldrenowned speakers on the stage. We do want it to be actionable. What we can't do as an organization is when the

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summit, we call it the global leadership summit. When that two-day event is over, we do evaluations. We ask people how it

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went and it always rates real high, but we can't really quantify what difference did this make.

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And so what we have been talking about the last two years is really what we do is somehow we plant seeds in people's

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hearts or in their minds where a speaker will say something or will inspire somebody to go away and do something.

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Maybe that thought or that seed has been in their minds or in their hearts already. But when they're here at the

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summit, then we pour fuel on that seed and it grows and all of a sudden it develops. And so somebody sitting in the

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75th row, way back in the top, something stirs inside of them. From a faith

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standpoint, we'd say God stirs inside of them an idea or a thought to do something. Five years later, 10 years

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later, maybe 20 years later, we'll find out, oh my goodness, here's somebody that started a um you know, a human

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trafficking organization to combat human trafficking or they in their business um

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developed ideas or thoughts at the summit and now 20 years later, it's impacting thousands and thousands of

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people. And so really what we do is we plant seeds that multiply. And so if you figure 300 350,000 people every year are

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there, even if I'm modest and say let's say 20,000 seeds are planted at the summit that year and then that each of

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them impacts hundreds if not thousands and thousands of people. The numbers are staggering. And so we tell stories all

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the time when we hear about them. We call them grander vision stories where here's somebody that was sitting in that

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seat 10 years ago, 12 years ago. This is the organization they started. Here's where it is now. Here's the impact that

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it's making in the world. How cool is that? So, we tell those stories all the time and it's one of our ways of just trying to measure or quantify, are we

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making a difference or not? Yeah. I mean, I I totally see that because in my own life, our our

Impact Of The Leadership Summit

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company's been impacted. We wouldn't be here without the GLN. And at the same point, this podcast was inspired by all

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the leadership talks over well over a decade of talks that I've heard from the stage just to teach people about

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leadership and and learn some of the stuff I've been able to learn. And now even just this one small example has

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over a million people listening, right? And so it's like you just think all these small seeds actually have such a cool ripple effect. It's amazing.

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And it's amazing that it's around the world. It's not just in the United States. And so whether it's um in a Colombian prison, I mean, we we've

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got a video from a group in a prison in Colombia that their lives have been transformed. They're in prison. And uh

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we actually in the United States, Chris, are in about 220 different prisons and 20ome thousand prisoners um residents

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will take part in the summit. And so you kind of look and say and and trust when they get out of prison that those

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efforts are being put towards good things. So yeah, that it's so far reaching that it's really exciting and and if you stop and think about it, it's

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mindboggling, but it's um we don't do it. We just plant the seeds or nourish the seeds and then it just kind of goes

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from there, which is fun. We talk a ton about servant leadership on the podcast. When you hear servant

Servant Leadership Perspective

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leadership, what comes to mind and how do you feel like it it integrates with what people talk about from the stage?

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Yeah. So, do you guys typically define servant leadership when you We let people define it however they want. We don't have a definition of it.

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Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, so often the perception, I think, of leadership is that you're in it for your own good and

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you're in it for whatever you can gain out of your leadership capacity. In my mind, servant leadership is really more

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I'm in this. I'm leading not for myself but for others. And so whatever I can do to serve others in the organization or

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the organization can serve and benefit others, then that's more what I look at. So I the way I pretty much operate my

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life is from a model of a guy named Apollos. And Apollos was a lot of things. He was described as a great

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communicator, a great debater, all these different things. And when I looked at his life the first time, I thought I'm

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nothing like Apollos. I'm not a great communicator, not as good as I want. I'm not a great debater. I tend to almost

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shrivel up when it comes time to debate publicly. And so all these different characteristics, but there was one little phrase that caught my eye in his

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description. It just said he was a great benefit or advantage to everybody he encountered. And I looked at that and I said, "Okay,

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a great benefit or advantage. I can do that." Especially at this stage in my life because of experiences that I've had. I can come alongside, be a benefit

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or an advantage to to uh other people that come across my path. And to me,

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that's kind of what servant leadership is. It's it's not about I'm meeting you so that you can be an advantage and help

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me get ahead in what I'm trying to accomplish, but instead you can meet me and somehow I can be an advantage or a

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benefit to you. And so I always kind of say now at the stage of my life, the biggest compliment I can get is if you

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and I are sitting down, we're having lunch or coffee or breakfast together and you walk away and you say, "Man,

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that was that was a huge advantage, a huge benefit to just had that hour with David." That's the best compliment I could get.

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So, wow, I that is so unbelievably good advice for people to take away and even

Personal Impact From The Leadership Summit

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just think through how can you benefit other people uh in every interaction. I love that. And so often we're looking for what can

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I get out of you? Yeah. And I think true servant leadership says, "Now, what can I actually give you and help you with?"

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So, yeah. So, you've had 30 years of amazing teaching from the stage and from other

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behind-the-scenes experiences with the GLN. What are some of the things that really hit home to you that have

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impacted your leadership? Oh, man. You know, so it's it's funny. During the 30 years of the summit, 31

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years now, I've gone through most of the time that I attend the summit, we have no books and I'm ferociously taking

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notes. I don't usually open them back up and look at them again. And so I'll go through I've I think I've maybe twice in

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the 31 years gone into the seven and said, "I'm not taking any notes. I'm just going to sit. I'm going to enjoy

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and soak it in." And by the second or third session, I'm taking notes again. So, but I don't necessarily go back and

19:21
look at the notes, but there's always one thing that I just kind of hits me and and it just, oh man, this is going

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to change the way I think or the way I operate. And so, it's usually one little subtle thing. There are a lot of things that I'll listen to at the summit that

19:33
reinforce my leadership thoughts or ideas and I go, that's kind of the way I've been thinking. And so it helps me maybe put words to what I'm doing. And

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then there are other times I go, I would never do that. And so it helps define or refine my leadership style by what I

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hear and what I like or I don't. And so it's everything is as simple as, you know, a leadership talk that says

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leaders really are taking people from here to there. And it's like that's pretty much all

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leadership is. And so, but I mean it's it's true and sometimes we get lost in

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that and we're running organizations or we're doing things and spend a lot of time but we're not taking people anywhere. We're just doing busy work.

20:09
And so that reminder that if I'm not moving people or an organization from here to there, I'm not really leading. Or if I'm doing that but nobody's

20:15
following, um I'm not really leading either. So it's simple things like that. Uh last year we had Will Gdara um and

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he's was number one restaurant uh in the world for a number of years in New York

20:29
City and he talks a lot about hospitality. That was really his thing and just again how do you treat people

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well and uh so it's those kind of things. Yeah. Unreasonable hospitality is probably in my top three books. So good.

Future Direction Of The Global Leadership Network

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So you jumped into this and you talked about helping the organization get back on mission and start moving in a

20:48
direction that helped take it from here to there. When you think about the future of what is happening here and

20:54
with leadership around the world when there's so much need for great leadership around the world, what do you

21:00
get excited about and and how do you plan to make an impact globally? It's it's interesting you say that because

21:05
those are the discussions we're having right now and what's our future and so on one hand you start experiencing

21:11
success in some what I see happen so often is you have success in one very particular niche and then you think oh

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well then we can also we're going to be successful in everything and so you start venturing off into things maybe

21:24
one degree two degree eventually 10 degrees or 20 degrees off and before you know you're not even doing what you're

21:29
good at but you think and we see this all over the place in the world where somebody's good at one thing and then they think they can give advice at

21:35
everything. And as a pastor, um, we are trained in the Bible and theology.

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Somehow we can oftenimes think we're good at counseling or we're good at all these other things. And we're probably

21:48
not. We're good at one thing and we get sidetracked. And so what we're talking about right now is how do we make sure we don't get sidetracked. And what we're

21:54
really, really good at is running the best leadership event in the world. And

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then we start talking about should we be doing this? How can we help leaders 365 days a year? What does that look like?

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Do we write curriculum? But then we have to remind ourselves we don't write curriculum. We we're curators of

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curriculum. And so just making sure. So I'm kind of wandering around a little bit, but but you really we're just

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trying to say what's our core competency? What are we best at? And how do we keep developing that as opposed to

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getting sidetracked by a lot of other things that maybe we'd be good at but maybe we're not. So, a lot of people are

Keys For Maintaining Organizational Focus

22:31
in that same exact realm, not in the leadership space, but in what they're doing, just day-to-day in their job, running a company, starting a nonprofit,

22:38
whatever it is that the listeners are doing, and they set out with a certain vision, and you're right, other

22:44
opportunities come up that are all really good opportunities, but maybe not the great opportunity that they're

22:50
called to actually engage in. How do you help somebody figure out what is that thing that they should be

22:55
focused on? You know, one of our guiding principles at LCBC now here at at the GLN is what is great for us to do and

23:04
what's good for us to do. And let's not do the good, let's do the great. I think I've heard it said often times, the good is the greatest enemy of great because

23:11
that's getting sidetracked. You're five five degrees off and again before you know it, you're way way off track.

23:16
So identifying what what we're best at, stepping into the GLN here, my first

23:22
several years and even still today, a big piece of what I do is say no. Um, no, we're not going to do that. That was

23:27
true at LCBC, too. I would say as we grew from 15,000 into the 20,000s. So

23:33
many opportunities come your way and everybody in the church or everybody in the organization has a great idea in

23:39
their minds. And so you listen to it, you say, you know, that's a good idea. I don't know that it's great for us to be involved in that. And so one of my I

23:46
feel like primary responsibilities as a leader, one is to inspire and motivate people, but it's also to say no. I'm

23:52
feel like I'm the gatekeeper that has to really guard the vision, guard that competency. And so I say no to a lot of

23:58
things, which is not always what people expect. Well, how do you keep that balance between uh being able to motivate a team

Innovation - Improving Your Core Competency

24:04
and encourage them and have them take risks and ideas and also the constant need to say no and help keep people on

24:10
the right track and not get too far off? How do you balance that? Well, so Chris, probably I don't know 10 years ago, we had opportunity to spend time

24:17
with Chick-fil-A's leadership. And if you know Chick-fil-A's culture and if you know their reputation, they're known

24:22
as being this incredibly innovative organization. And so when we spent time with them, that's partly why we went

24:27
there to hear their how they can be so innovative. And what's fascinating is they're known as being innovative and

24:33
yet every store is exactly the same. And so and they're told how to do it. And so it's like where does the innovation come

24:38
in? And they were real excited while we were there because somebody in one of their stores, one of the operators had

24:45
figured out how to change the fryer for the French fries. He had innovated something on the French fry fryer and

24:52
they were thrilled to death. And that was innovation. And what we walked away learning from them is in an organization

24:58
so often we think innovation means let's do something totally different. We run

25:03
for us a leadership worldwide event two days a year, but now let's go do

25:08
something. Let's start teaching a class over here about leadership. Well, it's totally different. And so what

25:14
Chick-fil-A was saying to us is really innovation is just it's iterations. It's small changes. It doesn't mean let's

25:20
blow up everything we're doing and now let's start selling hamburgers or or things like that. It's just let's find a

25:26
way to make better fries and more efficient at making fries. is. And so for us at the summit is figuring, okay, here's or anybody, what's your

25:33
core competency? What are you really, really good at? And then let's just keep getting better at that and making sure

25:38
that we're adapting to meet the needs of the world so that what we're doing is relevant into the future. But let's not,

25:43
it doesn't mean we scrap everything we're doing and try something totally off. You don't go play baseball and say,

25:50
"Okay, I'm a Well, some people do. Deion Sanders did, but I'm a baseball player, but now I'm going to go play football." The two don't always mix. And so stay

25:56
with your core competencies. Yeah, we always talk about at at our company, everyone every day getting better and

Everyone Everyday Getting Better And Better

26:03
better and that whole continuous improvement process being so key. One of our speakers this year is Nick

Doing Your Job To The Best Of Your Ability

26:08
Sabin, the Alabama football coach, Hall of Fame, former Alabama coach. Last year, Coach Kay was one of our speakers.

26:14
And when you listen to them, what they talk about constantly is if you'll do your job, your specific, the thing that

26:20
you're good at that you were hired to do or you were recruited to do, you do your job the best of your ability. the person

26:27
next to you does theirs. If we all do that, we're going to win as an organization. And so, so sometimes we

26:33
think it's about I just need variety. But you look at the people that are great and they're not doing a lot of

26:39
different things. They're doing one thing over and over incredibly well. And that's where success comes. Over time, you've been able to to

Identifying Good Leaders

26:45
interact with some of the most amazing leaders both that have worked for you and worked with you as well as just

26:51
people around the world. How do you identify a good leader? And and at the same time, how often are you right that

26:58
they are a good leader? You know, that's that's an interesting thing. So, it's one thing to talk to

27:04
people that are great leaders. It's another thing to identify them or somehow you spot them. I would say for my career, I'm constantly looking for

27:12
especially young leaders and there are certain traits whether it's um you know, they seem to be selfinitiated, they have

27:19
the level of confidence, whatever it may be. Um, and so if I'm walking through a

27:24
hall and there's lots and lots of people, I'm looking for 20somes that I think, "Oh man, this person just seems

27:30
to have some leadership capacity." So then I talk with them, meet with them, begin to give them opportunities, see

27:36
how they do, guide them a little bit. And whenever I would hire somebody at LCBC and even now here at the GLN, um I

27:43
may bring you in and you may not be yet an expert at your role. But my challenge to you would be Chris, I think you can

27:50
be better at this than for sure I could ever dream of being. And so I want to give you the resources. I want to give

27:55
you the training. I'm going to guide you and then turn you loose to be the best that possibly is doing this. And so the

28:01
challenge for us at LCBC was always if you came in and you were going to work with students. We're not now good at students, but I want this to be so good

28:08
that in 5 10 years, people are coming from around the country saying, "Chris, how do I do student ministry?" Because they've watched you at LCBC. And so I

28:15
feel like my job as a leader is to help you develop and blossom into the best leader you can be. And so that was the

28:20
challenge every single person we hired at LCBC, it's the same challenge here, whether it's in communications, whether

28:26
it's in IT, I just want you to be so good at what you do. not everything, but what you do that people are going to

28:31
come from all around the country to learn how to do it from you because you're so good at it. And so that's that's more what I look for. Do you have

28:38
the raw capabilities and then let's do everything we can to help you develop and grow. So a lot of people will look at you and

Impact Of David's Wife, Ruth

28:45
think, boy, everything he's done has been super successful. Uh and and you've been the face for a lot of big

28:51
initiatives, which has been amazing. Behind the scenes, Ruth is supporting you. How do how do you two interact and

28:58
how do you have a relationship that's so strong still? Uh and I've had the pleasure of meeting Ruth multiple times

29:03
and and how does that work with everything you have going on and everything she has going on behind the scenes.

29:09
So I know there's a lot of different ways that people do their marriages. Ruth and I best friends. Um she does not

29:16
enjoy the limelight, does not want to be upfront. Um but she loves being involved in what's going on. And so at the church

29:24
um she was involved behind the scenes. she would just whatever was needed, she would do it. And so she was heavily

29:30
involved, but most people didn't know who she was and she wasn't trying to be upfront. She just loved being involved and it was our thing. It was we were

29:37
together doing what we were doing. Same thing with the GLN. When I stepped away from LCBC, one of her biggest fears was she

29:44
said, "You're going to step away. You're going to step into something new and you're going to jump in. You're going to love it. She said, "But I won't know

29:50
anything about it, and I won't feel like I can be a part of it like I've been a part of LCBC the last 32 years." And so,

29:57
one of the great things about the GLN is she also has been to the summit just as much as I have. And so, we've sat

30:03
through GLN's together. We've hosted it together. And so, she felt like she knew and she knew many of the staff. And so,

30:09
this was something she felt like she could enjoy as well. So, she and I will talk about pretty much everything. and

30:14
um she is I am a verbal processor with just a few people not everybody but with

30:19
Ruth and usually the executive team and so what we've kind of what we learned as we grew at LCBC and what I had to learn

30:27
is I would say something and everybody think okay that means that's what we're going to do and they'd run off and do it I was like what are you doing and said

30:32
well you said and they ran off and did whatever I said and said no no no I'm just I'm talking out loud thinking out

30:38
loud and so we kind of developed this little phrase we're just talk talk talking um and so whenever I would say

30:43
something at LCBC and now even it's starting here. They'll say, "Are you telling us that's where we're going or we just talk talk talking?" And

30:49
typically I'm just I'm just talk talk talking. I just need to verbalize it. So I would do that with Ruth and she knew

30:56
if I was not close to making a decision, I'm just kind of airing my thoughts. Then she'd just let me talk away and

31:01
she'd comment as it got closer to and she could tell I was starting to formulate my ideas and thoughts, then

31:06
she would say, "I don't think that's a good idea." And she's got a real good sense of typically what does or doesn't work. So very rarely have I gone against

31:13
what she's thought and so she's had a huge influence on the organizations that I've been a part of but all behind the

31:19
scenes by the way she influences me impacts me and things. How do you stay healthy as a leader as

Staying "Healthy" As A Leader

31:26
you're thinking through trying to lead an organization that's also going to try to build tons of servant leaders,

31:31
healthy leaders, just better leaders. How do you stay healthy? So I was just on a call yesterday with

31:37
Tasha Urick. She's going to be one of our speakers this year and she has a new book on resiliency or she calls it the

31:45
uh shatterproof leader and her whole theory is um that you reach a point

31:50
where you've got too many things happening to you, too much chaos, too much stress and at some point it just instantly you break down and either she

31:58
talked about the two results are fright and flight or you just kind of freeze and don't do anything. and she said most

32:05
of us come across those kind of times but it's just being careful not to hit that ceiling where you just can't handle

32:11
any more stress and so you know kind of what you're asking I think is how do you avoid being shattered when the stress or

32:18
what you're doing is so much how do you stay healthy and that's a challenge I will tell you it's a challenge for me in

32:24
this role in that in 32 years at LCBC I developed rhythms and I could tell you

32:29
pretty much what I was going to be doing on Monday Tuesdays Wednesdays I knew Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays were

32:36
study days for me. I knew that I avoid studying like a plug. I don't enjoy studying. And so the staff knew Thursday

32:43
and Friday, they weren't supposed to come in and bother me. But Thursday morning, I'm trying to get everybody I can to come in and bother me so I

32:48
wouldn't have to study. And usually by about 12:30 on Thursday, I'd realize if I don't do something, I'm going to have

32:54
20,000 people waiting to hear me say something on Sunday, and I've got nothing yet. So panic would set in and

32:59
I'd start studying. Um, so I could tell you exactly what my routine was in this role now that I've been in not quite two

33:05
years. I don't have a yet routine. We office in Chicago. I live in Pennsylvania and so we're remote and I'm

33:12
still trying to figure all that out. There's a lot of travel involved. And so back to your question of how do I stay healthy? I'm not sure I'm doing that as

33:18
well as I should be because I haven't really figured out the routine yet for me and rhythms for me are important. Routine's important. I'm still trying to

33:24
figure that out. So a lot of people who are listening to this are trying to make an impact and have influence in their

Why Is The GLS Relevant To Everyone?

33:30
sphere but they might be listening thinking I'm not leading anything uh or I'm not a leader at at the summit

33:38
there's a lot of conversation around that. Why would you say the summit is relevant to anyone listening today?

33:44
So one of the things we say at the summit all the time Chris is everyone has influence. So, it's not about one of the things I learned very early on about

33:50
leadership. It's not about a title. And so often we think leaders leadership comes with a title. And it might, but if

33:57
that's all you've got going for you, then you're not really going to be that strong a leader and people probably aren't going to follow you. And so

34:02
everybody has influence. And you've got influence at home as a dad, as a mom, as a brother or sister or a relative.

34:08
You've got influence at school, if you're in school, with your classmates, wherever you are, you've got influence.

34:14
And that truly is more what defines a leader. who are you influencing? And it may just be one person. I my challenge

34:21
to everybody at LCBC was always you're probably one or two steps ahead of somebody. And so find that person that

34:28
you're a little bit ahead of and then kind of turn around and help mentor them and guide them as to where you are. And

34:33
that's true for every one of us. And so once you realize, okay, I am influencing

34:38
people and it may not be a lot, but that doesn't matter. You're still a leader. You're still an influencer. And so if it's two, it's three, it's five, then

34:45
where are you taking them? If you're influencing them, is it a positive influence? Are you leading them in the right direction that you would hope to

34:51
take them or are you leading them in the wrong direction? And probably if you haven't ever thought about, I'm influencing people. Where am I taking

34:58
them? You probably are leading them in the wrong direction most likely. Or maybe you're leading them in the right direction. You've just never thought
35:04
about it. And so what the summit does is it helps you realize, okay, man, I do have influence. And one of the other

35:09
phrases we use all the time at the summit is everyone wins when a leader gets better or everyone wins when an influencer gets

35:16
better. And so if you are influencing five other people, the better you are, the better the influence is going to be

35:22
and you're just going to help more people. And so the summit we say is for anybody that is willing to acknowledge

35:29
they've got influence and that they can get better at it. And we just say everybody wins when the leader gets

35:34
better. We also say if I can change a leader, I can change the world. And so we just really focus on one leader at a

35:41
time. Let's change one leader at a time and that will change their world eventually. It changes the world.

35:46
Wow. Uh I want to finish this podcast with 60 seconds of 10 rapid fire questions where

Ten Rapid-Fire Questions

35:53
you just say the first thing that comes to mind and there's no wrong answer. Okay. Who's the first person you think of when

35:58
I say servant leadership? Um, so probably John Maxwell is who I first most often heard it from. And I've

36:06
been following listening to John since the early 90s. And so, um, yeah, modern day. I mean, other than, so I, as a

36:13
pastor, I probably should give the obvious and Jesus is the obvious answer for the true servant leader, but if I

36:18
were looking today, John Maxwell. That's great. Five words the most describe you. Oh, I enjoy teams. I am an introvert.

36:26
Um, I enjoy being challenged. So, I'm not giving you words. I'm giving you six. I enjoy challenges. Um, I enjoy my

36:34
family immensely. I enjoy travel. Those are good. I don't know if that's five or nine. That's five. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

36:40
Favorite um book or movie? Favorite book or movie. I don't know that I have a favorite movie. Um, you

36:47
mentioned Will Gdara's Unreasonable Hospitality was a great great book. Um,

36:52
very influential. Jim Collins Good to Great was a good book for me. So, a variety of them, but yeah, those will be

36:58
some. All right. Favorite food? Steak. Love it. What's a surprising fact about you?

37:03
Um, probably that I am an introvert. I I'm totally happy being just Ruth and I. I need Ruth with me, so I don't think I

37:10
would do good by myself, but um I'm totally being with just Ruth or just our kids and our grandkids. I'm fine.

37:15
What's your favorite thing to do in your free time then? Uh Ruth and I enjoy riding bikes, so we

37:20
do a lot of bike riding. We do a lot of traveling. Used to we enjoyed going to the movies. And my day off typically was

37:26
a Wednesday. And so we would go about 12:00, nobody else in the theater and it was kind of like a private viewing and

37:31
we'd sit and eat popcorn and didn't even matter what the movie was. I just enjoyed sitting next to Ruth and eating popcorn. So love that. Where's your favorite place

37:37
you've been? Um we'd love to snorkel and so Caribbean St. John's uh is what we really love and

37:45
great snorkeling there. Where's somewhere you want to go that you have not been? I don't know that there is. Um when I

37:51
stepped away from LCBC, so we do a ton of traveling and so they did a lot of things for us. One of the things they did was give us trip anywhere we want to

37:58
go. And so we just did that trip two and a half years later because we couldn't figure out where we wanted to go. And

38:04
then I finally said, Ruth, where do you want to go? And so we went to see the tulips and the windmills in Amsterdam. Oh wow.

38:09
Great trip. I don't know that it was the trip of a lifetime, but it's one we hadn't done yet, so we went there. So, but we get to go to a lot of good

38:15
places. What's the best advice you've ever gotten? Um, probably don't quit in the middle of

38:21
a storm. Well, thank you for being with us. Yeah, happy to be here. Thanks Chris for the opportunity. Thank you for listening to this episode

Closing

38:28
of the Servant Leadership Podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, please give it a thumbs up and leave a comment

38:34
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38:40
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