GLS 2017 - Sam Adeyemi - Leading From the Inside Out
0 (0 Likes / 0 Dislikes)
Pastor Sam Adeyemi
founded a thriving ministry
in the heart of one of the world's largest
cities and countries, Lagos, Nigeria.
But it hasn't been easy.
50% of the country
is majority Muslim.
between Christian and Muslim
communities in the north.
70% of the country
lives below the poverty line.
It is from this setting that Sam founded
25,000-member Day Star Christian Center.
He felt God impress
upon him a vision
to teach Biblical
principles
for discovering and
releasing human potential.
has since become giving hope,
helping people believe
that God can change their outcomes.
Sam's leadership is
marked by a passion
for breaking down
hierarchical systems,
leading counter-culturally
and empowering young leaders.
Let's welcome back to the Summit
Pastor Sam Adeyemi.
I am honored to be back
at the Global Leadership Summit.
This is an incredible gathering
of leaders from all over the world.
Our church started
just like many other churches start,
with very limited resources
22 years ago.
We started in a restaurant,
and we had to change venues
within a few months,
because we didn't have enough money
to pay for the restaurant.
And then I observed a problem.
We were not attracting the ideal kind of
people I saw in the vision God showed me.
The people we attracted
needed money for taxi after the service,
they needed help
with their hospital bills,
they needed help to pay their rent,
and I thought, "No, I think
I got the wrong people here."
The only thing is that I also needed
help with my bills at that time.
So I wondered why the rich people
were not coming.
Many questions
go through the mind of people
that start organizations like that,
especially when things are not working
according to your plan yet.
Then I realized that in leadership,
you don't attract who you want,
you attract who you are.
The leadership dynamic
which Bill describes
as moving people
from here to there
works when there
is alignment between
the sense of
identity of the leader
and that of the followers.
I'll say that again.
The leadership dynamic works
when there's alignment
between the
sense of identity
of the leader and
that of the followers.
Now, this is grounded in research
by social scientists
and they said that when people in a group
say that their leader is charismatic,
it's actually more because
the leader is a prototype
of the ideal member of that group.
Several years back, I sat on the flight
right next to one of Nigeria's
foremost pastors, Enoch Adeboye,
and I asked him a question.
It was an unusual opportunity,
because it's rare for you
to be sitting next to him
on a flight like that,
especially for someone like me.
I seized the opportunity to ask him
how the church in Nigeria
could be more effective
in influencing
national development.
He replied with a question.
He asked me,
"If a group of robbers
had the opportunity to elect a leader,
would they elect a policeman?"
He had my head spinning
for a few minutes.
Wow, what kind
of a question is that?
Then I realized, "Oh, no, if the robbers
were to elect a leader,
they would elect a more experienced
and sophisticated robber than themselves,
but not a policeman."
So, for the leadership dynamic
to work in that scenario,
it's either
the policeman becomes a robber,
or the robbers become policemen.
Now, with respect to leadership,
the policeman's ability
to help the robbers
to make the transition from being robbers
to becoming policemen
is what leadership is about.
The ability to help them to become
whom they have never been before.
There would have to be a change
on the inside of those robbers
before leadership can happen
between that policeman and those robbers.
Affecting that internal change
in the people you lead
is what I call
"the miracle of leadership."
Now, away from that illustration.
Unleashing the potential
of followers,
especially those that seem
less than ideal,
is the miracle of leadership.
God makes champions
out of ordinary people,
and we also can make champions
out of ordinary people.
I've had startup entrepreneurs
and pastors of new churches
walk up to me and ask,
"What do you do when you realize
the first set of people you attracted
are not your ideal staff members
or ideal church members?
What do you do?"
For the entrepreneurs, they say, "Well,
you just hire the person you can afford."
The pastors say,
"Well, the church members show up,
but rather than those millionaires
that you saw in your vision,
it's people that need money
that come to your church."
And then they say to me, "I know
that the people that I have right now
are not my ideal members.
I know my ideal members
are still coming,
but, until they show up, what do I do
with these ones that I have?"
So I say to them,
"Your millionaire members showed up,
you did not recognize them.
When they show up,
this is what they look like.
They have needs in their lives."
Then I tell them, "The transformation
that will happen in their lives
is the test
of your leadership ability."
Several years back, I read a book,
titled "You Can Go Up",
by Bill and Dee Stringfellow.
They wrote about how the barbers
and hairstylists of America
wanted to create awareness
about their work all over America.
So they hired a consultant, very brilliant
consultant, to help them do the job.
It's an old story, so I'm sure some of us
may have heard the story before.
So this brilliant consultant had an idea
that they should hold a convention.
So he went to the run-down part
of the city and found a young man
who had drug problems.
He was looking really unkempt,
looking dirty,
and the consultant promised
to pay him some money.
Took him from there
and had photographers take his shots.
They took his photos
the way he was, unkempt.
Then they gave him a haircut,
and then took another round of photos.
And then they made him
have his bath,
and then put him in suits and tie.
He was looking
every inch like an executive.
So they had the convention at an hotel,
and on the day
the convention started,
they had three life-sized frames,
photo frames,
at the lobby of the hotel.
The first frame had the young man
the way he was, unkempt.
The second one
had him after his haircut.
The third one had him
looking like an executive, in suits and tie.
And the young man himself
was right there at the lobby of the hotel,
shaking peoples' hands
and welcoming them to the convention.
And they had this bold banner
over those three frames,
It worked, I mean,
it made the headlines.
So the manager of the hotel really took
to this young man and wanted to help him.
So he promised him a job.
Told him, "You come on Monday
after the convention, I'll give you a job."
So on Monday, the hotel manager
waited for the young man.
He was supposed to come in
at 9:00 a.m., he was not there,
10:00 a.m., 11:00, 12:00.
When it was time for lunch,
the manager didn't go to the restaurant,
he asked for them
to bring his food to his office.
He was waiting for the young man,
but the young man never showed up.
So he forgot about it.
Some months down the line,
the manager was walking through the store,
and saw
the three life-sized photo frames.
He just grabbed one of them
and ran to the run-down part of the city
and began to ask people, "Do you know
this guy? Do you know this guy?"
Nobody knew the guy.
And all of a sudden,
it occurred to him, he had the wrong frame.
So he ran back and took the first frame,
the one he took had the young man in suit.
So he went back and took the frame
that had the young man
the way he was originally.
The young man
was back to where he was before.
real and sustainable change
in peoples' lives
begins with a change
in their sense of identity.
One of the greatest gifts
you can give someone
is a new belief
about himself or herself.
A new belief about who they are,
about what they have,
and about what they can do.
When you let people realize that
they are better than they think they are,
and that they can do a whole lot more
than they think they can do,
that is when we really, really bring
change to peoples' lives.
What we believe is what we become.
I watched some time ago
a movie, "Queen of Katwe,"
about a young girl
raised in Kampala, Uganda,
and this young girl just happened
to stumble on this chess club
where her brother
had been sneaking to.
And then they found out
that this girl had amazing gifts
that helped her to excel with chess,
and she began to win competitions.
One day, her chess coach
was coaching her.
She was about to make
a move and he said,
"Stop! Don't make that move.
That will be a mistake."
She said, "No."
So she disobeyed the coach,
made her moves and the coach screamed.
He jumped from his seat.
You can see eight moves ahead
before you make your move.
And as he begun to describe
what she could accomplish,
she went into self-doubt,
began to say, "You think that can happen
to somebody like me?"
And then the coach
said something to her.
He said, "Sometimes,
where you are used to
is not where you belong to."
He said to her,
"What you believe is where you belong."
And the people that we lead
find themselves in scenarios like that.
They are plagued by self-doubt
and we need to let them know they may
have been used to something in their lives,
they may have been used
to being low or being poor,
but where they are used to
is not where they belong.
Jesus said in Mark 9:23,
"If you can believe,
all things are possible
to him that believes."
In leadership,
the famous saying holds true,
"The heart of the matter
is a matter of the heart."
Changing how people see themselves
is where the hard work is in leadership.
Most people are sabotaged
by self-limiting beliefs,
self-limiting beliefs
that are being shaped by their history,
their experiences or their social status.
Some have experienced
war or genocide
and we don't realize that for some,
being poor has become part of a culture.
For example, groups that have
experienced slavery or colonization
tend to battle with low self-esteem
and with a mindset of poverty.
Being inferior and being poor has evolved
to become a part of their group identity.
Such people fight
internal battles of identity.
There are some in our organizations
that just cannot imagine themselves
becoming senior managers or CEOs.
Many can't imagine themselves
becoming entrepreneurs like us.
Changing such people
from the inside out
makes our leadership
truly transformational.
And I read from Norman Vincent Peale
how there was a coach,
a college coach,
that was training trapeze artists.
There was this particular young man
that had a problem
actually going over a particular bar.
So at the point, the young man stopped,
looked at the coach and said,
"Coach, how do I get over that bar?"
The coach said, "Son, you know what?
When you get there,
throw your heart over the bar
and your body will follow it."
Okay? Yeah.
"The heart of the matter
is a matter of the heart."
How do you throw
the heart of your employee
over the barriers
that stop them from excelling?
How do you throw
the heart of a whole team
or the heart of a whole organization
over a bar?
When I think about my country, Nigeria,
that's the question I ask myself,
"How do you throw the heart
of a whole nation over the bar?"
I read something in Matthew
chapter 13 in the Bible.
And Jesus described
how to transform peoples' lives
by transforming their heart.
He said, in the second part
of that verse, Matthew 13:15,
"Otherwise, they might see
with their eyes, hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn and I would heal them."
Powerful steps there to healing.
Jesus said, the first thing is
they need to see with their eyes,
they need to hear with their ears
When they see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
something will happen in their hearts.
He said, "They will turn."
He said, "Then I will heal them."
when the change on the inside
has happened first.
1 Corinthians 2:9 in the Bible
also says,
"Eye has not seen,
ear has not heard,
neither has entered
into the heart of any man."
It's amazing. It's the same combination,
the eyes, the ears, and the heart.
So I say this: Whatever people see
and hear consistently over time
will enter their hearts
and put their lives on autopilot.
I'll say that again.
Whatever people see and hear
consistently over time
will enter their hearts
and put their lives on autopilot.
Amazing.
The advertising industry
works on that principle.
They know, they just need
to put it on billboards,
Once it enters your heart, you'll buy it.
To change your followers
from the inside out,
change what they see and hear.
Change what they see and hear.
So let me give us four steps
for applying this.
Remember, the shift you wanna create
is in their sense of identity.
It's in the way they see themselves.
It's in what they believe they can do
and what they believe that they have.
Number one, describe your vision
for your organization or your group
over and over.
There's power in vision.
You and those that follow you
should have new identities in your vision.
Let's say, for example,
you're a startup entrepreneur.
When you describe your vision to be
the leading organization in your industry,
you, the visioner, should have
a new status in that vision,
so the people you lead should be able
to see themselves in that vision,
see how they become managers,
or how to become partners,
how to become directors,
how to become CEO or COO,
how to become sub-division CEOs
in that vision.
I describe vision as the ability
to see people, places and things
not just the way they are,
but the way they could be.
Vision is ability to see people,
places and things
not just the way they are,
but the way they could be.
With vision, great leaders recognize
the future leaders in their followers,
and they begin to call their followers
what they see in the vision.
It's very important.
I heard of a Jewish mother
who was walking with her two kids.
Someone asked her on the road,
"Madam, how old are your boys?"
She said, "Oh, the doctor is three
and the lawyer is two."
That is leadership.
She's selling a vision
to those kids already.
That's how she sees them.
It's absolutely important
how we describe our employees,
how we describe
the people that we lead.
We've got to call them
not who they are now,
but who they are
in the vision that we see.
Your vision is like a mirror
where they see their present selves,
they see not just their present selves,
but their future selves.
Build their self-esteem
also through your attitude,
how you respond to them,
how you talk to them, how you treat them.
Affect their thinking about themselves.
Now, I am sensitive to the culture
from which I come.
And in that culture, being a leader
makes you superior
to the people that you lead.
So I found out,
as our church began to grow,
then the culture began to show up.
When you have a large number of people,
you're a big shot,
especially in your church.
I remember my first visit to the U.S.,
it was Houston, Texas,
and I spoke at the church
on Sunday, first service,
and then we had a break.
So, as we were about to walk out the door
to my pastor friend's office,
and he's a Nigerian American,
he held me.
He said, "Sam, hold on.
As we approach that door,
they're not gonna do
what your church members do in Nigeria.
They're not gonna leave
that door for you.
They will walk out first before you can go.
So, we'll have to wait patiently for them
to go through, then we go after them."
Let me explain that.
When you're a big shot,
you pastor a large church,
in my culture,
as you approach that door,
people will move out of the way for you.
And if they don't move, your minders,
your security guys or the protocol guys,
will go there and push them out
of the way, and tell them, "Move."
Yeah, because
the big man of God is coming.
As our church began to grow big,
then I saw that culture evolving.
And then I said to the minders,
or the protocol guys,
"Please, never push anyone
because of me.
And when you see the big crowd,"
I said, "Seeing a big crowd makes you
to feel that I'm a big guy.
That there's something special
about me."
I said, "It's not that way."
I said, "It's not because I am special
that they are here.
It's because they are special,
that's why I am here."
I said to them, "If you need
to push anybody, push me."
It's important.
So, it's important how you treat people.
There's a way you treat them
and they know
they are meant to be down there
and you are meant to be up here.
Twenty years ago,
my mentor gave me a challenge.
He said to me...
Because he says that I was struggling
with my self-esteem.
He said, "Rather than plan the growth
of your church on guest speakers,
why don't you become
the person people want to listen to?"
That's one of the most challenging
statements anybody ever made to me.
Because he saw
that I had the potential,
I have the capacity to become
like the great speakers that I was inviting.
He shifted my thinking about myself.
That's what great leaders do - change
what people think about themselves.
Jack Ma, the founder
of the Chinese company Alibaba,
sold his vision to a group
of young people in 1999.
He told them their brains were as good
as those of the people in Silicon Valley
and that their competition
were not local Chinese companies
but global IT corporations,
and eventually he led that team
to build a global company.
When you have an organization
packed with potential CEOs,
you can shake your industry
and you can shake your world.
The second thing:
Set up a structured training system.
Set up a structured training system.
Ask yourself a question,
"Is your training system capable
of producing the ideal staff or members
you see in your vision?"
An effective training program will deepen
the understanding of your vision,
values, strategies and structure.
It will help people to find alignment
between their own personal visions
and values and those of your organization.
Training creates consistency in knowledge
and skills across the organization.
I realized, when I asked myself
that question some 20 years ago,
the kind of people
that we saw in our vision.
So we restructured the training.
I took the training one hour
before Sunday service 30 straight weeks.
The result was amazing.
It was explosive.
Our attendance multiplied
ten times in two years.
We went from 500 to 5,000
within two short years.
The training deepened
the commitment of our workforce.
In fact, eventually, I created another level
of training that teaches our people
to start and run
organizations of their own.
Now, when we call a meeting
of our workers and leaders in church,
we have about 6,000 people in attendance,
just the workers and the leaders.
Next, you must model the transformation
you are talking about.
People try to reach
a standard they can see.
Those you lead
need to see you also transformed.
Set high standards for yourself.
Paul, the apostle, said,
1 Corinthians 11:1,
"Follow my example,
as I follow the example of Christ."
He had a high standard
and as he tried to reach it,
he asked his people to be like him.
And this is very important.
As you grow, tell your followers,
your employees, your staff,
tell them whatever it is
they see you do, they also can do it.
And finally, reinvent yourself
over and over.
You can't afford to be the same person
they knew two years ago.
You "die" at one level to evolve to another.
If you are stranded
at one level of success,
those following you
will also be stranded.
To become someone
you have never been before,
you must let go
of whom you have been until now.
And that requires for you
to deal with your insecurity
and to let go of your success
at your current level.
Delegating my pastoral functions,
like preaching and conducting weddings,
was painful at the point in time,
because I love people.
I like to be part of their joy.
But I had to let them go.
Many leaders are stranded
at one level of success
because their capacity
for self-sacrifice and for risk-taking
has been blunted by their success.
And then, I try to lead
the people that I train
through their own death
and resurrection experiences.
Push them into new positions.
In fact, I have encouraged some
of the people that have served with me
to leave altogether
and start their own organizations,
because I believe
they have the capacity
to lead their organizations like I do.
The result has been phenomenal.
In the culture that I come from,
many pastors find it difficult
to let go of their associates,
to start churches,
especially in their own cities.
And we went against the grain.
Train them, release them,
when they want to start their churches,
we pray for them.
In fact, I say to our church members,
"If you feel led to go with them,
go with them."
They're still part of us and we go them,
help them to launch those churches.
They are growing, we are growing.
It's amazing.
Some of the fastest growing churches
in my city
are led by some of these young people,
and some of them are right here
at this Summit.
I close from Acts 4:13.
It says, "When they saw
the courage of Peter and John
and realized that they were unschooled,
ordinary men, they were astonished.
And they took note that these men
had been with Jesus."
I pray that God will help you and me
to turn our organizations
into leadership production factories
that would produce the leaders
that will change our world.
I pray that no one
will hang around you
for one year or longer
without transformation
in their lives.
Finally, let me remind you that even you
are far better than you think you are.
You have a whole lot more resources
than you think you have
and you can do a whole lot more
than you are doing right now.
And I pray that this year,
that this GLS Summit,
will be that place
of reinvention for you.
I encourage you to be brave,
to embrace and to fulfill the destiny
God has for you as a leader.
Thank you.