Webinar Overview:

• As a leader, do you know where you are going? How would you lead if you could only point in a direction, without a destination?

• As a person, do you have the strength to lead? Could you dare to thrive instead of just survive?

We don’t need anyone telling us how challenging this pandemic has been on our lives and our livelihoods whether leading a church, ministry, or business.

What we need is perspective on how to do more than merely weather the storm. We need to identify the nature of the challenge we face in leading today… and we need support to be the people God has called us to be in these various callings.

Tod Bolsinger has been a deep encouragement to us because of the way he is able to identify the nature of the leadership challenge before pastors and the church today. Yet the principles will be easily applied in many leadership contexts from nonprofit to for-profit businesses.

Over three sessions, we will be developing our adaptive leadership “chops” and exploring the best ways to develop the character qualities so critically important to leading in chaotic times. The first session will name the challenges leaders face in leading change. Direction for the way forward will be covered in the second and third sessions.

We will be primarily speaking with church leaders, church planters, and ministry leaders in mind. However, apprentices of Jesus who are leading (or seek to develop leadership capacity) in just about any context would benefit from this series.

Take a Look:

You can read a portion of Tod’s book which sets up the challenge of adaptive leadership. He offers leaders of all kinds of organizations cogent insight on our challenge in a time of change. Consider:

The default behavior of most organizational leaders is to solve problems for our organizations rather than change our organizations for meeting the needs of the world.

That is a change that we need to lead. Of course organizational change is hard…

Acts of sabotage are not the bad things that evil people do. Acts of sabotage are the human things that anxious people do.

This explains why it is crucially important that we develop the capacity to be a non-anxious presence, resilient in the face of pressure and uncertainty. Yes, for the sake of our organizations… and yes for our own sake… but really for the sake of the world.

Resilience in the face of sabotage is the antidote to the leaders’ failure of nerve and failure of heart.

Join us in these three webinars with Tod. Let’s develop as resilient leaders for the sake of our city.

Webinar Outline:

The class will meet three times through the Spring. It will meet over the lunch hour on Thursdays from 12 Noon to 1:30pm. We will be using the Zoom platform.  If you aren’t able to make the first session on Thurs, register and we’ll get a recording to you. You’ll have plenty of time to catch up by April 15th.

March 25, 2021 – Adaptive Leadership and Resilience

April 15, 2021 – Character Qualities of a Resilient Leader Part 1

May 6, 2021 – Character Qualities of a Resilient Leader Part 2

Your Instructor:

Tod Bolsinger, MDiv, PhD, is the Executive Director of the De Pree Center Church Leadership Institute, a Senior Fellow of the De Pree Center for Leadership, and Associate Professor of Leadership Formation at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Tod was the founder of the Fuller Leadership Platform, an innovative approach to online formation and leadership development and served as a Vice President of Fuller Seminary for six years.

He is the author of five books, including the Outreach Magazine Resource of the Year in pastoral leadership, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory, Leadership for a Time of Pandemic: Practicing Resilience and most recently, Tempered Resilience: How Leaders are Formed in the Crucible of Change.

Tod served as a pastor for 27 years. Bolsinger speaks, consults and is an executive coach for corporate, non-profit, educational and church organizations in transformational leadership. His blogs and other resources can be found at depree.org/church.

Explore Some More:

What is an adaptive challenge and why do I need to understand it? In a nutshell it is a challenge that can’t be approached with traditional responses. In fact, using best practices may be the worst thing you can do. Learn more through this session of our learning community called the Collective Academy.

What is resilience and why do I need it? We define it as the ability to encounter and experience some difficulty or setback and not only bounce back, but grow from it. At this point in the pandemic, you know why this capacity is important. If you want more, you can read some of our thinking for pastors in our recent paper, A Ministry of Thriving.