Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Ryan Gottfredson, Ph.D. is a cutting-edge leadership development author, researcher, and consultant. He helps organizations vertically develop their leaders primarily through a focus on mindsets. Ryan is the Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-selling author of Success Mindsets: The Key to Unlocking Greater Success in Your Life, Work, & Leadership and The Elevated Leader: Leveling Up Your Leadership Through Vertical Development. He is also a leadership professor at the College of Business and Economics at California State University-Fullerton. 
Links
Newsletter message: “Moving” to Inactivity There is already a discussion started about this podcast. Share your thoughts HERE. Watch on YouTube What Every Leader Should Consider About Community in Their Ward | An Interview with Ryan Gottfredson Is Your Mindset Limiting Your Leadership? | An Interview with Ryan Gottfredson The Research Behind Becoming Christlike | An Interview with Ryan Gottfredson Ryan’s articles at leadingsaints.org Success Mindsets: The Key to Unlocking Greater Success in Your Life, Work, & Leadership The Elevated Leader: Leveling Up Your Leadership Through Vertical Development Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcast Get 14-day access to the Core Leader Library
Highlights
2:00 Kurt introduces Ryan, his background, profession, and books. 4:40 A lot of people step away from the church and do it after a move. They don’t do it in front of people they know. The ward they were in had no idea they left the church. 11:40 How as leaders can we make sure there is life in our congregations? Is there a way to see when people are disengaging and will be leaving soon? Assume there is a problem in your ward even if you can’t see one. 13:40 How can we create a community where people can voice their doubts and concerns? Our church culture can get in the way of people asking questions and sharing their doubts. Our typical meetings don’t leave much room to have these types of discussions. 16:00 Bishops should just assume there are people in their ward that are struggling with their faith. Creating space apart from our regular meetings to have conversations about doubts and concerns. 19:00 It can be difficult to create a community at church that is open because there are different kinds of members with different perspectives. Some members might get up to give a talk and ruffle a few feathers. However, we have to create opportunities for everyone to be heard and feel like they belong. 21:30 Focusing on numbers isn’t bad but it’s misguided. The more that leaders focus on numbers and outcomes the more they resist changing things for the future. Instead of focusing on results they should focus on how much life there is in the system. 24:30 Is your ward/stake growing in life and optimism or is it slowly dying? Are your church meetings lacking? Are the activities and church meetings something people actually want to attend and are excited about? 28:30 While you might love your ward, you can’t project your experience on someone else. There are probably people in your ward that don’t like it or feel like they don’t belong. 30:45 Identifying the slow-dying testimony. What do we do when we see people stepping back? Normally those that are stepping away feel like they don’t have a voice and don’t belong. 37:15 We have ministering but we haven’t learned to turn the key on. Is the engine even on in your ward? 39:10 We have a lot of “managers” but not a lot of leaders. Managers make sure that things run smoothly but leaders step out of their comfort zones and create change and new culture. 43:45 Questions to ask in your own ward council:
- Is there life in your ward?
- Does healing occur here?
- Does change occur here?
45:30 Ryan’s final encouragement and counsel to ward councils
The Leading Saints Podcast is one of the top independent Latter-day Saints podcasts as part of nonprofit Leading Saints’ mission to help Latter-day Saints be better prepared to lead. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org.
Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Reyna and Elena Aburto, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton, Tad R. Callister, Lynn G. Robbins, J. Devn Cornish, Bonnie Oscarson, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Whitney Johnson, Ryan Gottfredson, Greg McKeown, Ganel-Lyn Condie, Michael Goodman, Wendy Ulrich, Richard Ostler, and many more in over 600 episodes.
Discover podcasts, articles, virtual conferences, and live events related to callings such as the bishopric, Relief Society, elders quorum, Primary, youth leadership, stake leadership, ward mission, ward council, young adults, ministering, and teaching.
I feel like if your faith is
Not strong enough to begin with then moving a starting life in a new area could do damage to your testimony. I have moved couple of times and had to go to different church building, and I admit it’s been hard meeting new people and making friends but I had strong testimony so I never faulted in that sense.
Great podcast but a couple of points that I disagree with. One: the notion that culture is more important than doctrine. Doctrine is powerful and has more power to lead to deep conversion than the culture of the ward. If a member is only converted to their ward culture, that feels pretty feeble since you may be in several different wards with different cultures throughout your life, and you’ve got to have a strong grounding and testimony of doctrine to stay rooted. If you’ve got a firm testimony of doctrine, you can help contribute to a positive ward culture, not base your testimony on it. Two: Culture (fellowship?) is more important than getting to the bottom of the hard issues that cause people to leave the church. We keep thinking people leave because of lack of fellowship and fail to acknowledge the legitimate reasons people no longer want to be associated with our organization. If we continue to fail at addressing those core issues (women and authority, the place of gay people in the plan of salvation, etc.) people are going to feel gaslighted and unheard. When people loudly tell us why they’re leaving the church (for my sister it was Prop 8), we’ve got to listen and take them at their word. No amount of ward activities will make up for that. It does feel very risky to suggest that maybe we should change or update some of our thinking around these topics. You might end up getting released from a calling or worse. Third: the idea that we need more “leaders” not “managers.” I don’t have a problem with leaders but part of leadership is making sure your organization is running smoothly and everyone is communicating. I’ve seen leaders downplay correlation and planning. In my experience that leads to chaos and confusion, hardly the environment n which revelation can flow. Thanks for the discussion and all that you are doing!