On Nov. 21, Ian Vickers, the General Manager of Global Partners in Hope Shares(GPHS), encouraged Chinese to "expel fear with love and move forward to goals" in the seminar "Mountcity Leadership Training Series " held in Beijing.
Ian Vickers discussed the good features of leadership and its application. Ian Vickers, who was once a church planter and began his international ministry in 1991. Ian has worked in NGO organizations for 30 years and established non-profit organizations in the Europe and U.S. Among these, he is prominent in the leadership development ministry. In the past GPHS has provided leadership development to 6000 Asians and clean water and medical equipments to more than 40,000 people of the West Africa.
Ian shared that good leadership consists of four features: good spirituality, character, community and organization. If we say good spirituality and character are one's being, then good community and organization are doing. Meanwhile, good leaders can enhance the reality and move forward to the vision.
On the contrary, what are the models of bad leadership?
1. "Caretaker": Little vision, failure to articulate a future, content with past
2. "Egocentric": Immature character, failure to build trust, ethical flaw
3. "Dreamer": Out of touch, failure to grasp context/reality
4. "Incompetent": Stuck with status quo, failure to develop skills & people, frozen in fear
Fear is a key question leaders need to face. "Fear unrecognized drives us from God. Fear squelches self-discovery & growth, limits our ability to define reality, freezes the leaders ability to make decisions, causes leaders to compromise. Most importantly, fear tends to cause a leader to manage rather than lead." Ian explained.
In the tension of "reality" and "vision", "fear" is closer to "reality" which pulls back the community, while "faith, trust, courage, love" from God contribute to breaking up the barrier of "fear" and pushing the community closer to "vision".
Ian said, "Faith is opposite to fear and love can expel fear...So prayer is quite important. Open your heart and bring the issues to God, tell him this is his ministry firstly. Commit everything to the Lord and asks him for the wisdom to make decisions."
"Mountcity Leadership Training Series Seminars" is held by Beijing Mountain City Consulting Company. The company says the series will continue. The first seminar was held on Sept. 24.
