What the Scriptures Say About Leadership | An Interview with Shawn Moon

For over thirty years, Shawn Moon has worked with clients across the globe, from Fortune 500 to governmental organizations. His deep knowledge and robust experience inspire others to improve their own leadership capabilities and to achieve remarkable results. Shawn is a Wall Street Journal best-selling author and a highly sought-after speaker. He has served in several leadership capacities in the Church, including as a bishop and member of a stake presidency. Highlights 01:45 Introduction 02:50 Shawn talks about why he wrote his book, Learning Leadership from the Scriptures 06:00 Shawn gives tips on studying the scriptures. He has found that studying by topic allows you to go very deep. 08:50 Shawn explains how to study leadership in the scriptures and what topics to look up 11:00 Leadership is a lot of things. It’s a very complex topic. Each one of us has the responsibility to be a leader in our lives. 14:00 “Leadership is a choice, not a position.”—Stephen Covey 15:20 If you are leading a ward then you need to create a vision for that ward 16:00 In our own lives, do we have the vision of who we are? 17:00 The first practice in Shawn’s book is to know who we really are. This is a foundation. 20:50 Being an effective leader has a lot less to do with doing the textbook leadership things and a lot more to do with trusting God and following the spirit 21:55 Sometimes we have just enough light for the next step. We don’t have to have all the answers as a leader, we just have to keep going and trusting in God. 22:30 Leadership and trying to motivate 30:00 Shawn talks about how he organized his book 32:15 Leadership in my calling Practice 1: Organize and manage the work Practice 2: Teaching with power Practice 3: Develop other leaders Practice 4: Lead one by one 34:45 Kurt and Shawn discuss organizing and managing the work and what we can learn from the scriptures 40:30 Teaching with power. Alma 38 is a good example. 43:30 When leaving a great teaching experience like General Conference, there are many things to emulate when we teach: A firm reminder and a firm personal conviction of Jesus Christ I feel His love Committed to doing and being better I feel the Savior’s love for me and also the speaker’s love for me I feel that the speaker is on the Lord’s errand. It’s very clear what their motivation is. 45:00 Should we look to other places, besides the scriptures and handbook, to find leadership resources? 49:20 Shawn’s favorite leadership stories in the scriptures 53:30 Final thoughts and testimony of leadership Links Learning Leadership from the Scriptures: 12 Practices for Building Leadership Effectiveness Based on Timeless and Eternal Principles Spencer W. Kimball: "Jesus the Perfect Leader" Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcast Listen on YouTube Restore: A Faith Matters Gathering The Leading Saints Podcast has ranked in the top 20 Christianity podcasts in iTunes, gets over 500,000 listens each month, and has over 10 million total downloads as part of nonprofit Leading Saints' mission to help Latter-day Saints be better prepared to lead. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org. Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton, Tad R. Callister, J. Devn Cornish, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Whitney Johnson, Ryan Gottfredson, Greg McKeown, DeAnna Murphy, Michael Goodman, Richard Ostler, Ganel-Lyn Condie, and many more in over 500 episodes. Discover podcasts, articles, virtual conferences, and live events related to callings such as the bishopric, Relief Society, elders quorum, Primary, youth leadership, stake leadership, ward mission, ward council, young adults, ministering, and teaching.