Leadership Retreat
July 12, 2014
Notes
Attendance
26 self –selected past, present and potential leaders
Facilitation
Mark Hoelter
House Rules
 Listen first to understand
 Value diverse perspectives
 Be fully present
 Share air time – no cross talk or side bars
 Cell phones on vibrate – no texting
 Assume value and good intent
 Anything personal stays in this room
 Everything we need is in this room
 No interrupting
 Take breaks as needed, OK to yawn and stretch
 Use I statements
 Speak up
Vision Quest
What is right and necessary in order for us to co-create the community we want to
be? How do we want to show up?
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Friendly, open, respectful, conscious of my affect on others
Working to maintain a loving, spiritual community
Respectful, discrete, polite
Each speaking from our own truth
Listening and hearing one another, assuming good will
Value and seek differences of all types
Lines are blurred between members and leaders; past leaders presume
authority
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Leadership may mean willingness to take on tasks – “everyone can carry a
pack”
Don’t need to distinguish between positional and informal leaders –
sometimes its an arbitrary line
Importance of appreciating current leaders and putting that into how we
treat each other every day
Recognizing and remembering personal influencers as well as those with
positional power
Be aware of and use good communication skills; never press send on an
angry email
Show respect and appreciation for elected leaders – hard for the Board to
govern when there are so many leaders
We need to listen to each other, acknowledging and setting aside our own
agendas
Get to know each other so we can understand what each other are saying
Allow our agendas to evolve
Love is the spirit of this church – that sets us apart – we should commit to
behaviors that grow out of our spiritual covenant
Really listening – versus assuming – and speak up if your thoughts have
changed or you feel misunderstood
We’re all on the same page, or at least in the same book – about the well
being of this community
Being the Change
The purpose of this exercise is to consider what would happen if we – as leaders –
were to tackle our most pressing challenges in these new ways.
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I felt myself change my view
Saw my leadership model as acceptance and listening
Need to admit that this is hard – we cling to our long held beliefs or become
dismissive – hard to get behind the collective decision
Increased awareness of the need for openness and mutual respect
Needing to be accepting of the decision even if it doesn’t go my way
Need to get behind decision – this hasn’t happened in the past
Need to lighten up
Having faith and trust in the decision-making process and in ourselves
Importance of facts as the basis for opinions about needs
Decide if the issue really is an issue worth spending time on
Is it a fundamental or root cause issues?
How to create excitement and value around the importance of a covenant
Finding great value in this experience as a newcomer
Conversation awakens some pain from past processes (interpersonal)
Ways in which process is difficult
o Experience of people taking umbrage and leaving
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o How to deal when people leave in anger
If we can’t do this, none of these things (change, growth) is ever going to
happen
Maybe issues in the culture are fundamental
Feels like there’s an elephant in the room – anger, negative feelings, grief
We’re trying to move cohesively without listening – democracy is difficult
Importance of building faith and trust – repairing – has degraded over time
We lack facility with surfacing and dealing with person to person issues
New Visitor
If I were a new visitor, I would be looking for…
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Friendly, welcoming atmosphere
Noise, buzz
Smiles, comfortable
Warmth, being greeted, engaged
Interest in me as an individual
Treated with respect, the right amount, sincere not swarmy
Variety of religious symbols over the pulpit
Building is palpably a special place, it way it feels
Conversations are all open, make room for me
Lack of missionary zeal
Not a lot of pressure to sign the guest book