Hundreds from Cape area learn about leadership at simulcast summit

Local church and business leaders gained inspiration and knowledge Thursday at the Global Leadership Summit at La Croix Church.

About 570 people are attending the two-day simulcast Thursday and today at La Croix. The summit is being broadcast from Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago.

This is the second year for La Croix to host the simulcast, which drew 140 more people this year than last year from area churches, businesses and not-for-profit organizations. The Cape Girardeau site was near the top 10 out of 185 simulcast sites nationwide.

The Global Leadership Summit has about 7,000 people attending in person and another 65,000 watching via satellite.

Joan Roth, a local real estate agent who attended Thursday's simulcast at La Croix, said she was encouraged by hearing how others tackle leadership.

"There is hope. We don't have to be hopeless," said. "If we can each make a difference in our own circles, then the whole world changes."

Roth said she would be using what she learned during the conference to help both her husband's construction business and her career.

For Mary Ann Hamlin, a mother of three, she was inspired to become a more effective leader in her own home.

"I'm not a boss. I'm just an employee. But the leadership we take to our families counts the most," she said.

Dan Steska, executive director of La Croix Church, said he was pleased to see a variety of churches and businesses represented at the summit.

"It's a leadership wisdom that goes both ways between businesses and churches. The principles expressed here are applicable in any organization. We can learn from each other," Steska said.

Speakers at the summit include Len Schlesinger, president of Babson College, Harvard professor and former vice chairman of Limited Brands; Henry Cloud, clinical psychologist, best-selling author and leadership consultant from Los Angeles; Seth Godin, best-selling author, marketing blogger and founder of online publishing platform Squidoo; and Cory A. Booker, mayor of Newark, N.J.

Howard Schultz, chairman, CEO and president of Starbucks Corp., was scheduled to speak but canceled. Willow Creek senior pastor Bill Hybels announced during Thursday's afternoon session that Schultz canceled due in part to a company boycott threatened by gay rights advocates. A Change.org petition signed by 798 people accused the Willow Creek Community Church of promoting an anti-gay agenda. Hybels told summit attendees that his church is not anti-gay.

"The whole thing is sad to me. Willow is not only not anti-gay. Willow is not anti-anybody. ... To suggest we check sexual orientation at the door is simply not true."

The Rev. Brenda Salter McNeil, whose speech began Thursday's afternoon session, spoke about the importance of leadership in times of crisis.

She spoke of pilot Chuck Yeager's perseverance in his attempts to break the sound barrier.

"The difference between Yeager and other pilots is that when the severity of the shaking was at its most intense, he resisted the temptation to pull back and he moved forward," Salter McNeil said.

Godin, whose expertise is marketing, talked about how society is changing from a market of mass-produced made by machine to products made by individual artists.

"What we're seeing happening is the death of the industrial age," he said. "It's being replaced by a new age of weird edges, different people needing and wanting different things. An age of tribes: groups of people who share a culture and goal and want to be together. These tribes need leaders."

mmiller@semissourian.com

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