Weekly Impact is written for leaders by our Executive Director, Garth Jestley, who has decades of experience in senior leadership roles in the financial services sector. Each week he will share insights on life, leadership and faith.
This is the second in a series of blog posts unpacking the mission of LeaderImpact – “helping marketplace leaders explore the relevance of faith in God in their professional and personal lives.” In this post, I will unpack how LeaderImpact helps participants achieve its mission.
The platform of LeaderImpact is the foundation upon which the organization is built. It is designed to significantly and constructively impact the lives of individual marketplace leaders and to greatly multiply that impact over time. We describe this platform as “leader led, staff supported.” What does this mean?
First, our organization is led by volunteer marketplace leaders. Despite their busy professional and personal lives, they have the primary responsibility for fulfilling the mission. Because of common experience, they have credibility with other marketplace leaders that others generally do not have.
Recognizing that the volunteers’ lives are already full of other responsibilities, the staff of LeaderImpact supports them by providing training (including how to share one’s story effectively), operational tools (such as videos for casting vision and trained speakers who provide valuable professional and business insights as well as how faith in God is relevant to them), uncommon opportunities (such as speaking engagements across Canada and around the world), and various types of administrative support.
Second, LeaderImpact’s effectiveness is based upon small peer groups averaging about ten marketplace leaders per group and City Teams drawn from among the leaders of these small groups. Supported by staff, City Teams drive impact in their respective cities and, through international events, around the world.
Today, there are more than 100 groups across Canada and our goal is to grow to 300 by the year 2020. Leaders join these groups in part because they want to be around professional peers from whom they can learn and with whom they can safely share their challenges. As a member of two groups, I can personally attest to the value of these meetings both in terms of learning and also personal support through advice and prayer.
Given the similarity in backgrounds and responsibilities of the participants, we often discuss business issues. The primary distinctive of these groups, however, is their focus on exploring the relevance of faith in God, both in the marketplace and personally. Our mission is not to help participants learn, for example, best business practices. There are lots of other organizations that do that well. Rather our focus is on the relevance of faith in God and not just any faith but rather faith in Jesus Christ.
Next week, I will address what we mean by exploration.
Garth Jestley is a husband, father, grandfather, leader and business executive. Most importantly, he is a follower of Jesus Christ.