Leadership Summit Summary

This was the second year that I attended the Leadership Summit and I have to say that while I thought last years was excellent this year blew it away in spades.  Part of this was because I went to Peoria, Ill to attend the Summit with Don Bowen.  Don blogged about his impressions about the event as well and he has been to this for four years straight now.  As he says this is an event now that is on my yearly calendar and there are few things that could make me miss this.  Here is a YouTube video page for highlights from most of the sessions and here you can see more information on all the speakers.

So why was this year so good ?

Last year they had speakers like Colin Powell, Carly Fiorina and Jimmy Carter – pretty impressive.  This year they had none of the well known names but had speakers like Gary Haugen, Wendy Kopp and Catherine Rohr.  What was so impressive was what these people were doing with their lives and the fact that they gave up some pretty impressive high paying jobs to do work that was no were near as glamorous but probably much more satisfaction at the end of the day. It’s hard to put across the affects this event has on me each year but I always come away more challenged in my personal life in what I am doing and how I am following my faith in Christ.  You have to be there to really get how incredible this event is and how valuable the content from this is. I would urge you to consider going to this event in 2009 even if you are not a Christian because the leadership concepts that are portrayed here cross all walks of life and are not specific to just Christians.

Here are the three sessions I though were the best of this year and my synopsis from them.

Gary Haugen worked in the Justice Department and United Nations before forming International Justice Mission (http://www.ijm.org) which “rescues victims of violence, sexual exploitation, slavery, and oppression worldwide”.  Gary talked about how leadership is easy when it is nice and fluffy and fun and interesting.  But when the task at hand is dangerous, difficult, full of obstacles, potentially life threatening or just plain messy it is not that easy.  He said real leadership really matters when the tasks are scary and seem impossible.  I think that true leadership has to reflect this in any situation even when it is in nice cozy environments such as corporate America. In fact this is even essential in our personal lives.  When we face tasks that are obstacles that seem impossible or overwhelming we need to be able to stand up and lead in our personal lives as well.

Here is a video highlight of Gary’s talk:

Wendy Kopp was a college graduate and was heading towards a great career when she became convinced that many in her generation were searching for a way to assume a significant responsibility that would make a real difference in the world. She had an idea to get college graduates like herself to commit two years of their lives to teaching in urban and rural schools and wrote her undergraduate thesis on this.  This was after they graduate but before they find jobs in their selected field which meant putting their main careers on hold for two years. Her professor told her she was nuts and that no one would do it but she knew they would because she was a college graduate herself.  She took the idea and ran with it and soon had many college grads signing up to help with this effort.  Now she is the CEO of Teach for America which is an organization dedicated to eliminating educational inequity in our nations schools.

Here is a video highlight of Wendy’s interview – it starts with Bill George but then gets to her about half way through.

Catherine Rohr was probably the most impressive session of the event.  Catherine was very successful in the venture capital and private equity business when she went to a Texas prison as part of a mission trip through the Prison Fellowship Ministries.  What she saw there changed her life.  She saw potential in these “criminals” and knew that if she could take their “business skills” as drug dealers and other criminals and then teach them how to use these skills in a legitimate way that she could have an impact on them.  She said that a typical criminal that spends time in jail is given the clothes on their backs and $100 when they are released back into society.  With such few resources it is no wonder that the return rate to jail of criminals is well over 60% and in some cases as high as 90%.  Society does not even give these people a chance, in fact when she first went to the prison she said that she “hated” criminals as well.  But she knew that her faith was telling her something else and that was that she had a calling to go and start teaching business and finance to these “rejects of society”.  She started the Prison Entrepreneurship Program first by traveling to jails in Texas and teaching courses but soon realized that this was not enough, it was just setting them up for failure since they were just learning skills but not changing their character.

She quite her six figure paying job in New York and her and her husband moved to Texas.  She had already spent most of their savings including their 401K and upon arrival in Texas also had their moving van broken into and most of their belongings stolen.  Now they were in Texas with very little money and very few possessions.

Here is a video highlight of Catherine’s interview:

I am jazzed about this event for next year and may actually go to the Willow Creek site in Chicago next year to be there live and in person.