I absolutely LOVE reading books regarding leadership, vision, etc. A couple of weeks ago I finished reading Andy Stanley’s book, Visioneering “God’s blueprint for developing and maintaining vision.” While this book could be already considered “old” I found myself totally captured by the relevancy of it’s content for today.
I’ve ready many books regarding vision and leadership. The ones by Christian Authors usually do a great job of connecting principles of leadership and vision with scriptural truth. What I fell in love with from the beginning of Visioneering was that Andy connect scripture with leadership and vision truths. In other words, instead of making his book about principles of leadership and vision with supporting scriptures, he takes scripture and from scripture helps you understand the obvious principles of leadership and vision that God has already established in the examples of His word.
Good stuff!
I don’t want to give the whole book away, so you’re going to have to read it yourself, but here are some of my favorite highlights from the book.
- When hopes become realities it is easy to shift our faith onto the thing we have dreamed of and off the One who was the source of our provision.
- A vision does not necessarily require immediate action. But it will probably require some in-depth investigation.
- Vision requires courage and confidence. It requires launching out as if you were absolutely assured of the outcome.
- The people who make a difference in this world commit to what could be before they know where the money is coming from…Money usually follows vision. It rarely happens the other way around.
- …be careful not to allow the pursuit of your vision to be replaced with crisis management
- Visionaries must be influencers if they are going to see their visions through from start to finish. You must be able to move people from where they are to where you believe they could and should be.
- Moral authority is the credibility you earn by walking your talk. It is the relationship other people see between what you say and what you do.
- Moral authority is what makes you a leader worth following.
- Moral authority is NOT a method…genuine moral authority is not something a leaders sets out to develop in order to become a better leader or to gain influence with people.
- More often than not, it is good things that have the greatest potential to distract you from the best things, the vision things.
This book, in my opinion, is a must read for every leader. I almost loved this book more than Andy Stanley’s Next Generation Leader, thought I would recommend both.