Crisis Ready Leadership with Justin Giboney, Russell Moore, Shirley Hoogstra, Walter Kim

What does it take to listen, respond, learn, and lead? How do leaders prepare for the unexpected and unpredictable?

In this episode Shirley Hoogstra, Russell Moore, Justin Giboney and Walter Kim consider the historic values of leadership, share lessons learned from their own lives, and provide encouragement for leaders today.

How to Speak in a Crisis

Reflecting on the temptation to tell people what they want to hear, Russell Moore encourages leaders to consider long-term credibility and speaking the truth:

“I think one of the most dangerous things that can possibly happen is if people don’t believe that you believe what it is that you’re saying. And that’s a tendency…to think, well, what would people want me to say? And I will say that. And that can make things easy for the moment, but long term, you’re not going to be believed by the very people who need you to lead.” – Russell Moore

Faithfulness vs. Perfection

Shirley Hoogstra shared about the freedom that comes with being “roughly ready” in a crisis, and in casting our fears and anxieties on God:

“In this time of fear, Christians actually have the advantage because the Bible speaks about fear. It speaks about “don’t be afraid,” “don’t be  anxious,” not because you’ve got the willpower to do it, but because you can bring your anxiety and your fear to God.

“And I’m sure with the other leaders on this call, you’ve woken up in the middle of the night and you’ve wondered about decisions or actions that you have to take, and then you say, ‘Lord, I just have to give it over to you. You have it. I don’t have to have it. You are the engine. I’m not the engine. And you’ll gimme a redo loop if I get it wrong.’ It is not perfection, it’s faithfulness.” – Shirley Hoogstra

This podcast offers a wealth of wisdom on leading through crisis, and is an edited version of our Online Conversation from June 2020. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.

Learn more about Justin Gibony, Russell Moore, Shirley Hoogstra, and Walter Kim.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

Max De Pree
Seth Godin
Learning in Wartime, by C.S. Lewis
Good to Great, by Jim Collins
Bishop Claude Alexander
Dr. Charlie Day
Esau McCauley
Andy Crouch
A Rule of Life, by Praxis Labs
The Dip, by Seth Godin
Eugene Peterson
Your Labor is not in Vain
Leadership on the Line, by Martin Linsky and Ronald A. Heifetz

Related Trinity Forum Readings:

Crisis-Ready Leadership Collection

Related Conversations:

Leadership in Tumultuous Times with Ron C. White
Lincoln in Private with Ron C. White

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.