Tod Bolsinger > Quotes

“Trust is vital for change leadership. Without trust there is no “travel.” When trust is lost, the journey is over.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“the working definition of leadership we are using here: Energizing a community of people toward their own transformation in order to accomplish a shared mission in the face of a changing world.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“People do not resist change, per se. People resist loss. You appear dangerous to people when you question their values, beliefs, or habits of a lifetime. You place yourself on the line when you tell people what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear. Although you may see with clarity and passion a promising future of progress and gain, people will see with equal passion the losses you are asking them to sustain.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Leadership for a Time of Pandemic: Practicing Resilience

“To live up to their name, local churches must be continually moving out, extending themselves into the world, being the missional, witnessing community we were called into being to be: the manifestation of God’s going into the world, crossing boundaries, proclaiming, teaching, healing, loving, serving and extending the reign of God. In short, churches need to keep adventuring or they will die.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“The primary way to prepare for the unknown is to attend to the quality of our relationships, to how well we know and trust one another. . . . There is one core principle for developing these relationships. People must be engaged in meaningful work together if they are to transcend individual concerns and develop new capacities.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Leadership for a Time of Pandemic: Practicing Resilience

“It is possible to prepare for the future without knowing what it will be. The primary way to prepare for the unknown is to attend to the quality of our relationships, to how well we know and trust one another. Margaret Wheatley, “When Change Is Out of Control”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“Trust is gained like a thermostat and lost like a light switch.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“But if we are convinced that a change is necessary, how do we bring it without alienating the whole church? How do we face the losses and fears in our congregations, the opposition and resistance in our leaders, and the anxieties and insecurities in ourselves to truly lead the church through this adventure-or-die moment? How do we develop leaders for mission in this rapidly changing, uncharted-territory world?”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“There are books we can read, courses we can take, lessons we can learn through lectures and conversations. But the tempered, resilient leader is forged only in the process of leading that adds stress to the raw material of our lives. Which is why it is so difficult and feels so dangerous." -”
― Tod Bolsinger, Tempered Resilience: How Leaders Are Formed in the Crucible of Change

“Reportedly, upwards of fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry every month.3 A”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“To stay calm is to be so aware of yourself that your response to the situation is not to the anxiety of the people around you but to the actual issue at hand.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“is possible to prepare for the future without knowing what it will be. The primary way to prepare for the unknown is to attend to the quality of our relationships, to how well we know and trust one another. Margaret Wheatley, “When Change Is Out of Control”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“There are times when projecting a calm and confident demeanor is necessary to keep the trust of an anxious or doubting people. But if the leader must continually project solidity that they don’t feel, there is a tragic—and potentially soul-destroying—missed opportunity.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Tempered Resilience: How Leaders Are Formed in the Crucible of Change

“We protect what we cherish. Love drives us to hold on to what is dear and cling to what gives us meaning and life. But it is also because of love that we are willing to change. It is a great paradox that love is not only the key to establishing and maintaining a healthy culture but is also the critical ingredient for changing a culture. Which takes us back to my answer to my colleague John, who was eating chips and salsa. How do we change the culture of a church? What if”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“Because a default response for most leaders is to immediately act, the discipline of learning to look, gain greater perspective, and understand the bigger picture in the midst of action is a critical skill both for wise action and for developing resilience. Maintaining one’s principles in the face of adversity create inner fortitude to carry on. But even more, perspective fosters a greater sense of purpose. Seeing the bigger picture and the dynamics at play enables us to make meaning and see patterns in what would otherwise be an anxious swirl of emotions and reactions. This is especially important when the necessary change work is overwhelming because the whirl of activity, energy, and even internal emotional reaction often triggers and flight or fight response that disrupts learning by distracting us with fruitless doing.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Tempered Resilience: How Leaders Are Formed in the Crucible of Change

“Most real change is not about change. It’s about identifying what cultural DNA is worth conserving, is precious and essential, and that indeed makes it worth suffering the losses so that you can find a way to bring the best of your tradition and history and values into the future.7”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“In any type of institution whatsoever, when a self-directed, imaginative, energetic, or creative member is being consistently frustrated and sabotaged rather than encouraged and supported, what will turn out to be true one hundred percent of the time, regardless of whether the disrupters are supervisors, subordinates, or peers, is that the person at the very top of that institution is a peace-monger.2 For Friedman the “peace-monger” is the leader whose own high degree of anxiety leads him to prefer harmony to health, to appease complainers just to quiet them, but who will not actually demand that they take responsibility for their own part in the organizational problem. Throughout this book, we have repeatedly”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“This transformational leadership lies at the overlapping intersection of three leadership components: technical competence, relational congruence and adaptive capacity (see fig. 3.1).”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“We don’t learn from experience, we learn by reflecting on experience.”)”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“Leadership is energizing a community of people toward their own transformation in order to accomplish a shared”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“Right now, they know you are disappointed in them, and they don’t want to do anything but resist you. But seeing and embracing differences, if we know that we are loved and cherished just as we are, is also the way that we become open to the new possibilities. Love precedes change.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“The leader in the system is the one who is not blaming anyone.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“But it is crucial to remember again that the goal of the expedition was not to build a family—it was to find a route to the Pacific Ocean. Similarly, the goal of the Christian faith is not simply to become more loving community but to be a community of people who participate in God’s mission to heal the world by reestablishing his loving reign “on earth as it is in heaven.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“We can fail, but we can’t suck.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“Transformational leadership is always a two-front battle: On one side is the challenge of a changing world, unfamiliar terrain and the test of finding new interventions that will enable the mission to move forward in a fruitful and faithful way. On the other side is the community that resists the change necessary for its survival.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“Relational congruence is the ability to be fundamentally the same person with the same values in every relationship, in every circumstance and especially amidst crisis. It is the internal capacity to keep promises to God, to self and to one's relationships that consistently express one's identity and values in spiritually and emotionally healthy ways. Relational congruence is about both constancy and care at the same time. It is about both character and affection, and self-knowledge and authentic self-expression. Relational congruence is the leader's ability to cultivate strong, healthy, caring relationships; maintaining healthy boundaries; and communicating clear expectations, all while staying focused on the mission.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“How does culture change? A powerful person at the top, or a large enough group from anywhere in the organization, decides the old ways are not working, figures out a change vision, starts acting differently, and enlists others to act differently.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“Guder’s charge: “If western societies have become post-Christian mission fields, how can traditional churches become then missionary churches?”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

“No matter how much power and authority you perceive resides in your title or position, no matter how eloquently you articulate the call of God and the needs of the world, no matter how well you strategize, plan and pray, the actual behaviors of the congregation—the default functioning, the organizational DNA—dominate in times of stress and change.”
― Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory