Outcomes Conference Book of the Year
Christian Book Award Finalist
Richard Stearns is a leader who has been tested as a CEO in both secular companies and also as the head of one of the world's largest Christian ministries. After stints as CEO of Parker Brothers and then Lenox, Stearns accepted the invitation to leave his corporate career to become the president of World Vision US, where he became the longest serving president in their seventy-year history. During his tenure there he implemented corporate best practices, lowering overheads while tripling revenues. His leadership in calling the American church to respond to some of the greatest crises of our time, notably the HIV and AIDS pandemic, and the global refugee crisis, challenged Christians to embrace a bold vision for compassion, mercy, and justice.
In Lead Like It Matters to God, Stearns shares the leadership principles he has learned over the course of his remarkable career. As a leader who has navigated both secular and sacred spaces, Stearns claims that the values Christian leaders embrace in their workplaces are actually more important than the results they achieve-that God is more concerned about a leader's character than a leader's success. With wisdom, wit, and biblical teaching, Stearns shares captivating stories of his life journey and unpacks seventeen crucial values that can transform leaders and their organizations. When leaders embody values such as integrity, courage, excellence, forgiveness, humility, surrender, balance, generosity, perseverance, love, and encouragement, they not only improve their witness for Christ, they also shape institutions, influence culture, improve team performance, and create healthy workplaces where people can flourish.
Through this book, Stearns will inspire a new generation of Christian leaders to boldly take their values into their workplaces to tangibly demonstrate the character of Christ, the love of Christ, and the truth of Christ as they live out their faith in full view of others.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
1. Leadership Changes the World: Joining the Revolution
2. The Plans I Have For You: A Bit of Autobiography
3. Surrender: Not My Will but Thy Will
4. Sacrifice: Career Suicide
5. Trust: He's Got This
6. Excellence: It's How You Play the Game
7. Love: What's Love Got to Do With It?
8. Humility: The Executive Toilet
9. Integrity: Who You Are When No One Is Watching
10. Vision: Seeing a Better Tomorrow
11. Courage: Do Not Be Afraid
12. Generosity (Greedlessness): The Toxicity of Money
13. Forgiveness: I'm Sorry
14. Self-Awareness: Know Thyself
15. Balance: All Work and No Play
16. Humor: If We Don't Laugh, We'll Cry
17. Encouragement: Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant
18. Perseverance: Hang in There
19. Listening: Bees Do It
20. Taking God to Work
Postscript
Acknowledgments
Notes
About the Author :
Richard Stearns is president emeritus of World Vision US, where he served as president for twenty years, traveling more than three million miles as an advocate for the world's poor. Before leading the Christian relief and development organization,he was a corporate CEO at both Parker Brothers and Lenox. His bestselling book The Hole in Our Gospel was named the 2010 Christian Book of the Year. Among the honors Stearns received for his humanitarian service are five honorary doctoral degrees, the Julia Vadala Taft Outstanding Leadership Award from InterAction, and the Christian Leadership Alliance's highest honor. Rich and his wife, Reneé, have five adult children and six grandchildren, and live in Bellevue, Washington.
Review :
"This book is a rare treat—a fireside chat with a battle-tested Christian CEO who has led big organizations in both the secular and ministry worlds. Rich Stearns offers a master's-level course on leadership with faith as his north star. Embrace these seventeen leadership values and you will become a better leader and a better ambassador for Christ."
John C. Maxwell, author of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
"Steady. Reliable. Focused. These are the words I use to describe Richard Stearns. I've known him for two decades, traveled with him to distant lands, and partnered with him in multiple projects. He leads with impeccable integrity and skill. I'm thrilled to read this book and gladly commend Rich to you as the perfect person to write it."
Max Lucado, pastor and author
"In a time of crisis when the very values that make up 'Christian' leadership seem to be woefully rare, Rich Stearns is one of the voices that I most need to speak into my own life and leadership. A former corporate CEO and a twenty-year presidentof World Vision, Stearns is a tested and trusted leader who offers us a way back to a vision of leadership that is worthy of wholehearted commitment. Like reading the personal journal of a courageously candid mentor, Rich Stearns opens his heart and shares his own experience in the struggle of becoming—and remaining—a leader who demonstrates the values of what matters most to God. I will return to this book again and again."
Tod Bolsinger, Fuller Seminary, author of Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory
"My friend Rich Stearns is a leader who is humble and unafraid, a rare combination. He knows that justice and mercy are not incompatible and that we all are called to speak both truth and love. I have had the privilege of watching Rich lead with the courage and humility needed for difficult times like this."
Bill Haslam, former governor of Tennessee
"Sit down and read Rich Stearns. It's like a privileged conversation with a wise mentor who really cares about you. Aristotle wrote that why is the most important question. In a world full of how books, Rich answers why Christian leadership matters."
Leith Anderson, president emeritus of the National Association of Evangelicals, author of Leadership That Works
"Rich Stearns has written a book that we have all needed as leaders for so long, one that lifts the importance of values over success by human standards. Living faithfully is much harder than producing results that make us look smarter than we really are. This book will challenge your character and remind you of what really matters to God."
David Anderson, author of Gracism: The Art of Inclusion, pastor of Bridgeway Community Church
"It has often been said that leadership is an action, not a position. In a society that often values others based on achievements and successes, we learn from Scripture that world-changing, upside-down, kingdom-minded leadership centers on cultivating who we are rather than what we can do. Rich's own unique experiences and stories demonstrate that having integrity and achieving success are not mutually exclusive but rather mutually reinforcing. Having vulnerability and humility in leadershipindeed allows us to better reflect Christ, who calls us to pour out our lives in service to others. As we are facing racial injustice, gender inequality, and extreme global poverty, among other issues, this book challenges us to believe that surrendering our ideas of success to God can lead to not only inner transformation but world-changing impact. The church needs to rise up to meet these challenges by pointing to a better way rooted in truthfulness and love, and this book is the right tool at the right time to help us on that journey."
Jenny Yang, vice president for advocacy and policy, World Relief
"In Lead Like It Matters to God you will find brilliant answers. Rich doesn't provide five new methods for brilliant hiring or seven ways to personal motivation. Instead, his brilliant book is about something almost forgotten in our seminaries, leadership seminars, and even in our pulpits—Christian virtues. The only way to be genuinely happy in our leadership lives is to give ourselves to something significant. And what is more significant to God than to develop the Christian virtues he's given us? It is possible to do ministry for God in a way that isn't honoring to God. Rich has written a path for making sure we get the right things—right!"
Ray Johnston, lead senior pastor, Bayside Church
"Richard Stearns is a leader not only to admire because of his successes but also to learn from because of his honest self-reflection about his failures. Interwoven as these two necessarily are, Stearns lays them out before us here with humility, candor, grief, faith, and hope. Those are among the leadership characteristics I most want to reflect, and to do so in ways that honor God and those I try to lead. Thank you, Rich Stearns, for leading like it matters to God. It shows."
MarkLabberton, president, Fuller Theological Seminary
"What struck me right between the eyes was that there are hundreds of 'how-to' books on leadership, but I can't think of one 'why-to' book, which to me is the essence of true leadership. Rich has written the book that needed to be written, and there is no one more qualified to write it. Rich has led and lived a compelling 'why-to' life. It is a privilege to endorse and recommend this book in the highest form possible. Thanks, Rich, you exemplify true leadership."
Ron Blue, author ofMaster Your Money
