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Summary Notes from Axiom: Powerful Leadership Proverbs by Bill Hybels from my prolific friend John Cox.

Category 1: Vision and Strategy
1. Language  Matters
- The very best leaders wrestle with words until they are able to communicate their big ideas in a way that captures the imagination, catalyzes action, and lifts spirits. They coin creeds and fashion slogans and create rallying cries, all because they understand that language matters
- Axioms are like speaking in shorthand—“insider” language that deepens community and creates clarity and a special sort of solidarity
2. Make the Big Ask
- When handled properly, people are actually quite flattered to be asked to do significant things for God
- First, it’s important to set the context (challenge you with something today, we’re OK whether you accept or not)
- Second, when you make the ask, do it as clearly and succinctly as possible
- Third, after making the ask, suggest that the other person take it before God and then get back to you in an agreed-upon amount of time
- As humans, we tend not to drift into better behaviors. We usually have to be asked by someone to consider taking it up a level.
- Ask people to step up and do something great for God
3. You’re Always in a Season
- Know what season the organization is in, name it, and then communicate the implications of that season to your followers
- Season of growth, of consolidation, of transition, of malaise, of reinvention
4. Explosive Growth Equals Dramatic Meltdowns
- You need to have a plan for growth so that your internal structures and systems are capable of supporting it
5. Vision: Paint the Picture Passionately
- Vision is a “picture of the future that produces passion in people”
- Vision is the most potent offensive weapon in the leader’s arsenal
- Paint your vision for anyone who will listen
6. Bold Moves
- You will never take big hills without making bold moves
- You and your people need to be thinking fresh thoughts, pioneering cool new programs, and trusting God to accomplish significant kingdom-building activity in their midst
- Incrementalism and innovation are terrible bedfellows
7. Chapter 7: An Owner or a Hireling
- Wise leaders understand that the single greatest determinant of whether followers will ever own a vision deeply is the extent to which those followers believe the leader will own it
8. Hire Tens
- In general, a leader won’t attract, motivate, or retain people who are higher on the leadership effectiveness scale than they are
- Over time, the net effect of hiring people less effective than you is an ever-increasing number of lower-caliber leaders
- Embolden your staff members to grow their own leadership and then to shoot high when someone needs to be added to the team. Encourage them to go after the brightest, most accomplished, most effective leaders they can find. In so doing, you will continually upgrade your organization’s leadership capabilities
9. The Fair Exchange Value
- Compensate your people fairly
10. The Value of a Good Idea
- Leaders traffic in good ideas. The best leaders Hybels knows are ferociously disciplined about seeking them out and incredibly committed to stewarding them well
- In order to land one good idea—one breakthrough idea that will kick your organization’s activity into high gear—you have to allow for hundreds or even thousands of mediocre ideas
- Along these lines, great leaders also know which people should be invited to idea-generation meetings in the first place (who’s creative, who will work hard and show up with lists of ideas, etc.)
11. Build a Boiler Fund
- The painful truth is that unless we become consistently profitable, we will not exist to minister another day
- At Willow, the “balanced budget” includes a significant contribution to reserves and substantial “set-asides” for operating contingency funds. Willow doesn’t try to spend everything it gets; it sets some dollars aside in an “emergency” fund to deal with unexpected expenses, shortfalls in revenue, etc.
12. Take a Flyer
- Try new things; seek to innovate, take risks; plan things that will capture your congregation’s imagination
13. Vision Leaks
- We can deliver a vision talk on Sunday that leaves everyone revved up to go change the world, but by Tuesday, many people have forgotten they were even in church the previous weekend
- We need to consistently refill people’s vision buckets
- When it’s time for a vision refill, we need to use every communication means available to us to repaint the picture of the future that fills everybody with passion
- We also need to report progress on the vision’s achievement
14. Values Need Heat
- Identify your values and put a Bunsen burner underneath them. N0 church gets a value shockingly right unless the leaders diligently heat it up
- Teach consistently on your values, underscore them with Scripture, enforce them, and make heroes out of the people who are living them out
15. The Dangers of Incrementalism
- Incremental thinking, incremental planning, incremental prayers—it’s the kiss of death. Be bold in your thinking, planning, and praying
16. Six-By-Six Execution
- Identify six priorities that you want to accomplish in the next six weeks. This involves asking where you can make the greatest contribution to the church in the next six weeks. What decisions and initiatives do you need to focus on? Which staff issues do you have to address? Which events/services do you have to hit out of the park? Etc.
- There is nothing sacred about the six weeks (or the six things), but that amount of time seems to keep your urgency level high. You can’t sprint for six months, but six weeks? That you can do.
- Get your staff involved as well. Have them email their priorities one six-week chunk at a time. At Willow, this tool is a great informative, instructive, and corrective means of fostering a genuine sense of team among their senior leaders
17. Only God
- phrase refers to instances when God accomplishes activity that no human being could possibly orchestrate
18. Plus Side/Minus Side
- Certain ministries add dollars to the ministry (plus side). Other ministries consume dollars (minus side). You need to keep a healthy balance between the two.
19. Institutionalize Key Values
- What you value in your church must be raised up, taught about, and celebrated on a regular basis
- To force yourself to honor key values, you must institutionalize them somehow (E.g., racial inclusiveness and racial reconciliation on Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, poverty and AIDS awareness on World AIDS Day in December, etc.).
20. This is Church
- In the midst of a busy schedule and important to do’s, Hybels reminds himself that the whole reason he does what he does is to create an environment where people who are elbowing or wrestling or weeping their way through seasons of disappointment can receive ministry.

Category 2: Teamwork and Communication
21. The Three Cs
- In building your team, focus on three simple Cs: character, competence, and chemistry
- In terms of character you want the person to be a truth teller, a covenant-keeper, a person who seeks to be conformed to the image of Christ, someone who manages relationships well, and one who credits others when a victory is won
22. Never Say Someone’s No for Them
- Go after the very best person on planet earth to fill the position, even if you don’t think they’ll take it. Nothing is ever lost by leaving room for the surprising and supernatural emergence of a yes
23. First Tested
- Hybels’ biggest mistake as a leader has been placing people in significant leadership roles who were not first tested
- Establish experiments that would first test young men and women you think might be leaders someday
24. DNA Carriers
- Great leaders take the time to explain to their team what they feel deeply about. Then great leaders show their staff members how to live out that DNA (make sure everyone is on the same page)
25. No Eleventh-Hour Surprises, Please
- Leaders like to know about problems while they’re still small so those issues don’t grow into big issues
- When you take the time advantage away from a leader, you limit his or her ability to resolve problems
- If Hybels’ people see something leaving trend line, he wants to know within days of departure
- Hybels asks staff members who are contemplating transitioning off of their staff to give him as much notice as possible
26. How Are You Doing … Really?
- Hybels sets aside the first few minutes of his weekly leadership team meeting to get a read on each person’s emotional state. They go around the circle and answer the question “How are you doing … really?”
27. Get the Right People Around the Table
- When a really tough situation presents itself and you’re the leader in charge and don’t know what to do resolve to get the right people around the table to address and solve the situation
28. Know Who’s Driving
- At the start of almost every meeting he attends, Hybels asks “Who’s driving?” He wants to get someone on the hook for running a successful meeting.
- The driver needs to manage the energy and pacing, include the slow processors, call fouls when they are committed, etc.
- Letting other people drive meetings is a critical part of their leadership development
29. Speed of the Leaders, Speed of the Team
- Leaders must never expect from others anything more than they’re willing to deliver themselves. They should never expect higher levels of commitment, creativity, persistence, or patience than what they themselves manifest on a regular basis
30. Pay Attention to Greetings and Goodbyes
- A leader Hybels respects said that the most important part of every meeting is your greeting and goodbye. He said he made it a habit to do a personal, enthusiastic, genuine, warm, highly relational, look-you-in-the-eye greeting to every person before he even thought about starting the meeting (this pearl has paid dividends for Hybels)
31. Deliver the Bad News First
- The difference between great communication and not-so-great communication often comes down to where you place the bad news. Always deliver the bad news first.
- Lead with “I’ve got a handful of things to convey, and the first couple are going to be tough to hear. I don’t want to pretend otherwise.”
32. The Tunnel of Chaos
- It’s the great temptation for small groups of people to slide into a state where they’re not quite telling each other the truth and they’re not quite celebrating each other (they slide into pseudo community)
- In order to move from pseudo community to genuine community you have to endure a little chaos.
- You need to give people the final 2% of what you’re thinking
- Stay prayed up, rested up, an committed to entering the tunnel of chaos whenever the Spirit prompts
33. Just Say It
- Even if they have to interrupt the person in midsentence, the best leaders Hybels knows refer to tolerate mushy communication (they want clear, direct communication)
- A leader must expend a lot of effort creating an environment where people feel safe enough to speak clearly and directly to the group at large
34. Disagree Without Drawing Blood
- Effective leaders do not fear passion. They welcome it. But from time to time passionate discussions digress into personal attacks, and real people get really hurt. Leaders must head that off before it happens
- Create an environment where disagreement is encouraged, but personal attacks are not permitted (need to call fouls when it does happen)
35. Umbrella of Mercy
- This involves asking for mercy before floating an out-of-the-box idea. By invoking an “umbrella of mercy” you can float out-of the-box-ideas and not worry about being judged.
- Hybels has found the practice useful not just in brainstorming sessions, but at any meeting where he needs to float an idea that feels emotionally risky
36. Help Me Understand
- Starting with “Help me understand” is a tool that Hybels uses when confronted with costly mistakes. He wants to confirm the facts before he makes any judgments
- The main reason he uses it is to avoid slipping into an accusatory role or inadvertently polarizing the conversation before he fully understands what transpired
37. Leaders Call Fouls
- Leaders call fouls when unhelpful words are spoke—when people make personal attacks, interrupt, belittle the ideas of others, etc.
- People need to choose their words wisely so that the process will be as God-honoring as the outcome
- If you are faithful to model the calling of fouls consistently, the time will come when your team will not only help you call fouls, but they will also begin to call their own fouls
38. Real-time Coaching
- One of the greatest gifts a leader can give to colleagues and direct reports is immediate input. Don’t wait to point out what’s working and what’s not
39. Just to be Clear
- Leaders need to be crystal clear in their organizational communication.
- Once is not enough. A leader has to go back again and add the “just to be clear” step. From time to time, Hybels even requests it in writing
- If there is an ounce of wiggle room, things will inevitably wiggle the wrong way
40. Give Me an A, B, or C
- In performance reviews, every staff member gets a letter grade ranking so that they know exactly how they’re doing–“A” means excellent, “B” means good; and “C” means improvement is needed soon.
- There are no forced rankings or quotas. Historically, about 20% of the staff at Willow receive an “A,” 75% receive a “B,” and 5% receive a “C”
- This feedback systems helps candid conversations to occur
- Those who receive a grade of “C” on two consecutive occasions will see change in their future
- Those who receive a grade of “A” are fed extra resources and extra learning opportunities
- When Hybels first implemented this concept, it was unpopular with nearly everyone on Willow’s staff. But the clarity of its output has eventually overcome whatever discomfort it originally caused
41. Keep Short Accounts
- Make a pact with people that says “Whenever an infraction occurs, let’s commit to addressing it and resolving it as soon as possible.”
- The healthiest organizations Hybels sees are not conflict-free. They are just ridiculously committed to keeping short accounts.
42. We Got to do This Together
- At the end of big challenges and battles, make sure you honor the unique contribution of each individual who made the victory happen. They have to know that while you prioritize progress, you prioritize people even higher

Category 3: Activity and Assessment
43. A Blue-Sky Day
- Create meetings where the sole purpose is to dream, to ask “What would we do to advance the kingdom of God if there was nothing to stop us from doing it?” (often helpful to hold these meetings offsite)
- Any group that is conducting any sort of ongoing activity runs the risk of operating from a rut over time
44. The Bias Toward Action
- Lead with a bias toward action and surround yourself with others who have a bias for action. You will never regret it
45. Performance Drives Freedom
- If staff members are doing their jobs really well—meeting or exceeding his expectations—then Hybels gives them more freedom and looks over their shoulder less. But if performance begins to sag, the monitoring increases—quickly
- The point is, the choice is his staff’s to make. Hybels’ part of the deal is crystal clear: performance buys freedom
- Many leaders never crystallize their management philosophy, and so they default to one of two patterns, suffocating control or abdication. Neither will work well over the long haul
46. Sweat the Small Stuff
- The best leaders Hybels knows right-size the amount of small stuff required to do their job well and then ten to those things fastidiously. They figure out which things they need to sweat, and they pay attention to those things. They return phone calls and acknowledge correspondence. They answer followers’ questions clearly and in a timely manner. They keep a finger on the financial pulse of their organization. They keep the board updated regularly with brief informal emails.
- At one point, the Willow staff had a problem with returning phone calls. This didn’t honor callers, and Hybels insisted every call be returned within 24 hours
47. Doable Hard vs. Destructive Hard
- Having the “doable hard vs. destructive hard” discussion is the simplest way Hybels knows to keep ministry sane
- Whenever they see their approach to ministry bleeding over into the destructive hard column, they raise the flag of concern and talk with one another about how to shift expectations or change roles or alter assignments so that they don’t knowingly operate in a manner that would damage their souls, their bodies, their marriages, and their ability to minister effectively over the long haul
48. Develop a Mole System
- Hybels believes that a responsible leader must rely on many channels of input to ascertain what is really going on in his or her organization. He has dozens of communication conduits who provide candid, accurate insights regarding the various organizations he serves
- Hybels doesn’t necessarily act on every perspective he hears, but He finds if he loads his brain with lots of data, He’s better able to corroborate what his formal communication structures are telling him
- His direct reports need to know that he has other sources than the ones sitting right in front of him week in and week out. If they’re working hard and keeping him informed along the way then these conversations should be of no concern. And if they’re painting a rosier picture than the truth, he wants them to know that he’s likely to find out over time
49. Is It Sustainable?
- Before launching a ministry you need to ask (1) Will it advance the kingdom? (2) Can we effectively launch it? And (3) Is it sustainable?
- If it’s not sustainable don’t launch it or modify it so that it is sustainable
50. Don’t Screw Up
- Hybels developed this slogan to help with situations in which the adrenaline rush of being entrusted with the keys to the kingdom car could cause a person’s enthusiasm to outpace their discernment. Hybels wants to make sure an initiative gets launched well, they the leader tends to every detail and launches it right
51. SOSs
- Hybels tells his staff that if they see something that is dangerous, dysfunctional, or damaging to Willow’s values as they understand them, they should take the issue to their direct supervisor. If the supervisor doesn’t act on the issue in a reasonable amount of time, Hybels wants the staff person to send him a SOS. He does this to make sure serious issues don’t go unaddressed
52. Facts Are Your Friends
- One exercise with regard to this: Four times a year the Willow staff will take a day to evaluate their ministries. In the morning, they break into small groups to assess the church’s current effectiveness in different areas (e.g., evangelism, discipleship, student ministry, compassion initiatives, etc.). They rank the effectiveness of each on a scale of 1 to 10. In the afternoons they brainstorm innovative and inspiring ways to raise every single number at least two points in the next six months
53. Find the Critic’s Kernel of Truth
- The more influence you carry, the bigger the target you wear. Rather than lash back when you get criticized, spend your energy looking for the kernel of truth in the criticism
54. Every Soldier Deserves Competent Command
- Drucker taught Hybels that a leader has to make sure that everyone in the organization is being supervised by someone who is visible, present, and courageous—they need good leaders who are in the fight
55. Brain Breaks
- You need to take breaks periodically when you’re in planning or problem-solving meetings. Every 60-90 minutes, take a fifteen-minute time-out to stretch physically, breath outside air, and let the mental turbines cool down.
56. Speed vs. Soul
- Leaders have to monitor and adjust their velocity so that they don’t spend the most impact-rich years of their lives going fast but feeling empty on the inside.
- If your soul line is suffering, maybe it’s time to humble yourself and slow your pace. Alter your job description, your meeting schedule, and your spiritual practices if it means reclaiming your soul
57. Did We Do Any Learning?
- “Did we do any learning?” is the best response to failure Hybels knows
58. Create Your Own Finish Lines
- You need to create your own finish lines:
* Daily: Most long-term efficiency studies show that if you work more than ten hours a day, you begin to live in a diminishing-return dynamic, and your effectiveness and results will actually go down. Set boundaries on your day (Hybels typical schedule is 6 am to 4 pm)
* Weekly: take a Sabbath (for Hybels it’s Sunday afternoon through Monday)
* Monthly: get alone with God every 30 days for intensive reading, reflection, and a bit of evaluation
* Annually: take breaks and vacations (for Hybels it’s his summer study break)
59. Let’s Debrief
- When continuous improvement ceases to be upheld as a core value, excellence wanes, communication gets tangled, and vision gets fuzzy
- You think you can drift into improvement, but you can’t. It takes hard work to get better
- To debrief something simply means to evaluate it from top to bottom: taking responsibility for the good, bad, and ugly, and learning from each leadership play in the hopes of improving play over time
- Leaders must invite people to slow down, do the hard work of honest evaluation, and marshal their best thoughts and ideas for improvement if their organizations are ever going to get better on a continual basis
60. Pay Now, Play Later
- Leaders must discipline themselves to do the critical tasks first
- Hybels starts his self-talk routine as he drives onto the campus (sit down at your desk and start work on the critical things)
61. Are We Still Having Fun?
- Leaders carry a responsibility to lead in such a way that those we lead are as freed up as possible to do their jobs from a place of life and peace
- Effective ministry leadership has a lot to do with keeping spirits buoyed and people uplifted so that they feel appreciated for going above and beyond what they would give in a typical job
- When one of his colleagues can’t answer whether we’re still having fun quickly and definitively, red lights start flashing in Hybels’ mind and he wants to gently unpack what is depleting their fulfillment level
62. Never Beat the Sheep
- If you communicate the right mission at the right time of year in the right way and with the right motivation behind it, the sheep do not disappoint
- If your sheep aren’t responding the way you think they should, put down your stick and ask a few questions first. See if you served your sheep well, because when they’re served well, the tend to serve well in return

Category 4: Personal Integrity
63. Obi-Wan Kenobi Isn’t For Hire
- In terms of mentoring others, wise leaders never sign up for unrealistic mentoring arrangements
- In terms of being mentored, ditch the Obi-Wan dream that one mentor can meet all your needs and instead seize creative opportunities to learn from a distance from thousands of mentors who have a wealth of wisdom to share. Then, from time to time, make a reasonable request from a wise person for a very specific kind of input, and your mentoring needs will be met and maybe even exceeded
64. What Life Are You Waiting For?
- This is the only leadership life you get, your one and only shot at following God the way you feel him prompting you to do. This isn’t some pregame warm-up. It’s the game, and the clock is ticking
65. Lead With All Diligence
- Whenever something is going well around Willow it only takes a few questions to figure out which leader is behind the uprising. Likewise, find something that is in disarray around Willow, and you’ll probably learn that there’s a leadership crisis at the center of that difficulty. It all boils down to diligent, God-honoring leadership
66. To the Core of My Being
- What are the values or convictions that you feel to your toes? Sort out what they are, communicate them to those you lead, and then live according to them as you exercise your ministry leadership
- Let your values arbitrate key decisions. Let them tell you where you throw your time and energy and passion and money. And let them help you stay close to the vision God is asking you to pursue
67. Always Take the High Road
- When you leave a ministry or a person leaves your ministry take the high road. Bless what you can bless. Thank everyone you can thank. Cheer on what is appropriate to cheer on. And be done with it.
68. Read All You Can
- Leaders have a responsibility before God to constantly get better, and one of the most reliable ways to do so is to read
69. Lead Something
- In addition to reading, the best way for leaders to get better is to lead something besides their “main thing”
- The more varied the environments in which you exercise your leadership gift, the stronger that gift will become
70. Arrive Early or Not At All
- Promptness is about character—leaders are not beyond the rules that govern things like courtesy and character
- If you show up late, apologize. Anyone can give a valid reason why they’re running a bit behind. But it takes grace and relational intelligence to keep that reason at bay until you’ve first let the group members know that their feelings rank higher than your justification
- When Hybels has had to issue an apology like that, his tam relaxes in response. They are reminded that he really does value their time, he really does view them as equals, and he really does want his yes to be yes
71. I’d Never Do This For Money
- That phrase reminds Hybels that God is the one calling him to live this life, and Hybels wants to be found faithful one day
- When leaders have a quick and succinct way to check their motivations during times of trial in ministry, they stand a far better chance of enduring over the long haul
72. We Need Us All
- The kingdom advancement we’re pursuing needs us all
- Lean into the empowering presence of God and realize you’re not alone. Reach out to God, and he will reach out to you. He will encourage you and inspire you. He will heal you up and set your feet back on course. He will really other leaders to your side who will pray for you and walk with you. He will remind you that nothing that you do for him is in vain. Nothing.
73. Excellence Honors God and Inspires People
- Leaders in every arena possess an internal quality control mechanism, a longing for excellence that won’t let them off the hook. It pushes them to achieve higher levels of effectiveness and efficiency than anyone else would ever hold them accountable for. Fight for excellence.
74. Admit Mistakes, and Your Stock Goes Up
- Admitting mistakes says something profound about your basic integrity as a leader. Shoot straight as soon as you realize you’ve screwed up
75. Fight For Your Family
- The first leadership test you have to pass every day, every week, and every month is that of leading your family well. Are you casting a positive vision for your family, and are you inspiring them? Are you bringing about events that build unity among them? Are you communicating effectively and solving problems at home?
- Fight to show up in decent emotional shape every time you walk through the front door of your home
76. Finish Well
- Finish well. How you leave an organization is how you will always be remembered
- The time to teach on finishing well is when things are cruising along nice and smooth. Devote an entire staff meeting to the benefits of finishing well and preserving a good name
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