Leading with Words
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - We are back one last time with Dr. Albert Moeller,
00:00:07.480 | the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
00:00:09.800 | in Louisville and author of the book,
00:00:11.120 | "The Conviction to Lead, 25 Principles
00:00:13.040 | for Leadership that Matters."
00:00:14.800 | Dr. Moeller, you have a prolific output
00:00:17.960 | when it comes to content in print, digital, broadcast,
00:00:21.960 | social media, video, audio, the whole spectrum.
00:00:25.880 | In your book, you read this, quote,
00:00:28.020 | "Although I write books and articles,
00:00:29.400 | speak all over the country and appear in the media,
00:00:31.420 | nothing comes close to the reach of my blog," end quote.
00:00:35.620 | What has most surprised you about the leadership potential
00:00:39.300 | of the digital age?
00:00:40.580 | - You know, Tony, this is something that didn't exist
00:00:42.660 | when I assumed my current post of leadership
00:00:45.180 | and I'm about to complete 20 years.
00:00:47.340 | When I came into this office as president
00:00:50.660 | of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
00:00:52.540 | and all its related institutions,
00:00:54.540 | there was no worldwide web that business thought of
00:00:58.100 | on an hourly, moment by moment, instantaneous basis.
00:01:02.380 | We had a web address very quickly, but it didn't matter.
00:01:05.220 | And then along came different facets of the digital world,
00:01:08.720 | including blogging.
00:01:09.700 | I was one of the very first to start
00:01:11.360 | because it struck me that this is the instant way,
00:01:14.940 | the almost universal way that you can reach people
00:01:19.180 | without buffers, without barriers,
00:01:21.840 | without needing a massive platform
00:01:24.540 | that is under the stewardship of someone else.
00:01:26.860 | As you know, I was a newspaper editor.
00:01:29.060 | I spent a lot of time in the media world.
00:01:31.160 | I do a lot of work in television,
00:01:32.580 | but someone else owns all those channels.
00:01:34.300 | I had for about a decade
00:01:36.260 | a nationally broadcast daily radio program.
00:01:38.780 | I enjoyed doing that immensely,
00:01:40.660 | but that was someone else's platform.
00:01:42.460 | The blog enables you to have your own platform.
00:01:45.940 | And it's amazing that the quick response
00:01:48.520 | you're able to do in a blog is often, I think, the secret.
00:01:51.260 | And one of the things I hear on a daily basis
00:01:53.080 | is someone saying, "Look, I went to your website
00:01:55.740 | because I had a good hunch
00:01:57.340 | you'd be talking about this today.
00:01:58.900 | Something happened yesterday.
00:02:00.180 | Something happened this morning.
00:02:01.460 | We wanna know how to think about this."
00:02:03.720 | And that's an incredible stewardship,
00:02:05.060 | but it is something that is new.
00:02:07.020 | And for the sake of Christchurch,
00:02:09.340 | it is an incredible opportunity.
00:02:11.260 | Because just remember, almost all those platforms
00:02:13.620 | we've been talking about
00:02:14.660 | that we were previously dependent upon
00:02:16.920 | are in someone else's hands.
00:02:18.980 | And the fact is there's a huge democratization of this
00:02:22.300 | with the digital world, and there's just a huge opening.
00:02:25.300 | And one other thing from a Christian perspective,
00:02:27.780 | you know, we get to leap over barriers
00:02:29.380 | that those other platforms don't leap over.
00:02:31.540 | There's a great wall of China,
00:02:33.280 | and there's even a great firewall of China.
00:02:35.740 | But I hear constantly from people behind that firewall
00:02:39.620 | that they're reading my stuff.
00:02:41.340 | And, you know, that's an incredible stewardship.
00:02:43.300 | - It sure is an incredible stewardship
00:02:45.620 | and a great leadership opportunity.
00:02:47.680 | One of the major themes in your book
00:02:48.820 | is that leadership is bound up and tied up with words.
00:02:51.800 | Leaders cannot lead without words,
00:02:53.680 | and therefore leaders must be skilled with them.
00:02:56.540 | Expand on this point.
00:02:57.900 | - What I say in the book that I think is really important,
00:03:00.100 | and that is where you find a leader,
00:03:02.780 | you're gonna find a reader, a speaker, and a writer.
00:03:05.820 | Because words are the most important tools of our craft
00:03:09.660 | and the most important means
00:03:11.300 | of conveying leadership by conviction.
00:03:13.980 | And so leaders need to lean into words.
00:03:16.620 | And obviously those words have to be the right words.
00:03:19.100 | They have to be well-seasoned words,
00:03:21.060 | and they have to be words of authenticity,
00:03:22.860 | and they have to be words that lead to action.
00:03:24.920 | But just try doing that without words.
00:03:26.720 | And so one of the things I think we face
00:03:28.520 | is that we are in a linguistically impoverished age,
00:03:32.240 | an age in which many young people are barely literate.
00:03:35.360 | That doesn't mean I'm insulting their intelligence.
00:03:37.640 | They're incredibly intelligent.
00:03:38.960 | They're incredibly digitally adept.
00:03:41.800 | But when it comes to the tasks of reading and writing
00:03:44.680 | and speaking, they've got a lot to learn.
00:03:46.580 | And leadership, wherever it's found,
00:03:48.300 | even now in the digital age,
00:03:50.080 | whether it's, you know, Steve Jobs getting up
00:03:52.160 | and personally introducing a new product
00:03:54.020 | as he did for Apple,
00:03:55.260 | or it's, you know, the political candidate
00:03:58.100 | on the campaign trail,
00:03:59.460 | or it's the principal of the school, the headmaster,
00:04:02.240 | gathering everyone together and saying,
00:04:03.780 | this is what it's all about,
00:04:05.360 | or the pastor preaching.
00:04:06.600 | It's still about words.
00:04:07.960 | - Yeah, it sure is.
00:04:09.420 | Part of the reason why I wrote my book, "Lit,"
00:04:11.640 | a little book on reading,
00:04:13.640 | was because I was surprised by the number of young men
00:04:15.340 | who approached me who seemed completely unskilled
00:04:18.000 | at book reading,
00:04:19.660 | many of them who had no examples of dads who had read.
00:04:23.100 | You were gracious to endorse "Lit," thank you.
00:04:25.300 | How do we get young men to read?
00:04:27.740 | - Oh, it's a great book.
00:04:29.060 | I think it was particularly good coming from you
00:04:31.420 | because, you know, you were able to get at some things
00:04:36.980 | given your own experience.
00:04:38.100 | I thought we're just fantastic.
00:04:39.820 | Here's the thing.
00:04:40.820 | I think we need to get men reading
00:04:43.520 | in order that they can learn how to not only to read,
00:04:47.660 | but how to use the skills that you learn
00:04:50.580 | as a part of that discipline
00:04:52.220 | and be able to apply them in other arenas of life.
00:04:55.300 | And it has to be a seductive process.
00:04:57.940 | And, you know, I get to see that every single day.
00:05:00.460 | I get to see people who probably never read a book through
00:05:04.500 | who are now avid readers.
00:05:06.460 | And it's because reading, as you well know,
00:05:08.860 | as you have so well described in your own book,
00:05:11.480 | is something that becomes more powerful in one's life
00:05:14.740 | once you begin to understand how it changes your thinking,
00:05:17.460 | how it feeds your soul, how it hones your mind,
00:05:20.100 | and how it gives you the ability to turn around
00:05:22.980 | and to convey to others what you wouldn't have had the tools
00:05:26.940 | to accomplish that by if you weren't a reader.
00:05:30.300 | - That was Dr. Albert Moeller from his office
00:05:33.780 | at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
00:05:35.940 | in Louisville, Kentucky, where he serves as president.
00:05:38.920 | Dr. Moeller is the author of the book,
00:05:40.900 | "The Conviction to Lead,
00:05:42.160 | "25 Principles for Leadership that Matters."
00:05:45.020 | And this little series of episodes
00:05:46.460 | over the past three days was taken
00:05:47.640 | from my 2012 interview with him.
00:05:50.740 | Tomorrow, John Piper returns to tackle
00:05:52.140 | a really important question from a podcast listener.
00:05:54.740 | Why will God not show his eternal love
00:05:57.260 | by tolerating even those who will not believe in him?
00:06:00.620 | Hmm.
00:06:01.820 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and I'll see you tomorrow
00:06:03.300 | on the Ask Pastor John podcast with John Piper.
00:06:05.940 | (upbeat music)
00:06:08.520 | (upbeat music)
00:06:11.100 | [BLANK_AUDIO]