Servant Leadership Forum: Bill George

September 10 and 11, Southeastern University is hosting a Servant Leadership Forum.  There are some pretty amazing speakers going on.  The third speaker was Bill George.  Bill George is a professor of Harvard Business School, where he teaches leadership and leadership development. He is the author of the best-selling leadership book True North:DiscoverYourAuthentic Leadership.His previous book,Authentic Leadership:Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating LastingValue, was also a best-seller.His commentary has been featured on PBS’“Nightly Business Report.” George is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Medtronic, where under his leadership, the company’s market capitalization grew from $1.1 billion to $60 billion.He currently serves as a director of ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs, and Novartis, as well as Carnegie Endowment for International Peace andWorld Economic Forum USA. George received his BSIE with high honors from GeorgiaTech and his MBA with high distinction from Harvard University. He received an honorary Doctorate of Business Administration from Bryant University.  Here are some notes from that talk.

• Are you using your abilities to lead?
• You don’t have to be the leader to use your gifts to make a difference
• Give people opportunities to use their gifts
• People are looking for significance in their work, not necessarily to be wealthy
• Align people to common mission and values
• Empower people to step up and do
• Serving people is number one priority
• Collaborate together to solve great problems

This is really the description of what pastors are to do.  Paul, the apostle, said in Ephesians 4, “11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

Are your efforts to make others succeed or for you to succeed?